Feb. 11, 2019 — This Monday finds me tired from working a night job while I continue to make edits on my latest manuscript.
For those of you just joining me here, or taking a first read of this site, I’ve had a bit of a journey getting to this point in my life as a writer, though it has always been my life’s ambition. (Ok, there was that time in first grade when I wanted to be a fireman, but after that, it’s always been in my heart to be a writer.)
So here’s how I got here and what I’m doing to make this happen.
I graduated Middlebury College more than 25 years ago and promptly got lost in what to do. I tried teaching, waiting tables, baking, and even working as a tech for the Nielsen Ratings. Only one of these jobs really leveraged my History degree. It was during the last year of my time with Nielsen that I answered an ad in the local paper seeking free-lance sports writers.
I made something like $25 for covering a high school football game and it was the most satisfying money I ever made. For the next year I worked on finding a way to get onto the staff of that newspaper and actually did it, getting a job as a beat reporter covering town hall and some spot news. From there, I headed to a bigger paper where I covered business, economics, transportation, defense and finance etc. It was thrilling and fun working at a paper, most of the time. It got me out in the community, exposed me to a wide variety of people, from people down on their luck who were unemployed, sometimes just out of prison to people who managed investments or ran successful companies. I even was part of the coverage for an attempted bombing of Time Square and once wrote an award-winning piece about cheeseburgers. I even developed the cheeseburger index, a systematic and scientific gage for grading the best cheeseburgers.
Well, after nearly 14 years in the business, it was time for me to move on and do the kind of writing I always wanted to do. But with bills to pay and a family to which I needed to contribute, I still needed a day job. The first one was nice, but didn’t really work out. My current job takes place at night and it’s good hard honest work. Yes, I’m stocking shelves at a grocery store. It can be fun and it is a workout. I’ve dropped nearly 70 pounds working there and I’ve met an interesting group of people. Most importantly, well, after the money, It gives me time to write in the mornings and on my days off . It makes it possible to be there for my family when they need me.
Since taking the night job, I’ve written two manuscripts and published one as an ebook. Even sold a few copies, though I’d really like to see more people read it. Potential, a modern novel about three men coming to grips with their own expectations about life after a mugging, is available in the Kindle library and on line.
The latest manuscript is science fiction and as I get more feedback I will share some of it here. Probably within the next three months. The writing went actually pretty well, I’m stuck on a title, though. So that’s in development.
In the meantime, I’ll try to keep you posted about what’s up with me and the things I’m doing.
I wish you all luck, I hope you can do the same for me.
–Rob
Robert Varnon -- R.D. Varnon 