On my fiftieth birthday, I had a few beers and wondered what to do after I quit my job as a sales manager in Manhattan. I know it was only a matter of time until my employer told me to take a walk so I could give my office to a younger person. So now was the time to do a little planning.

I decided to become a fiction writer. I’ve always loved writing, so this seemed like a good option. To prepare for my new career, I began writing stories on the bus while traveling to Manhattan. At that point in my writing career, I didn’t realize I knew shit about fiction writing (I have an engineering degree), but that didn’t stop me from writing things on the bus that turned out to be almost unreadable due to the terrible conditions. . off the highways of New Jersey and New York.

My writings at the time were unfocused and didn’t really belong to any genre and were often mixes of various genres. In addition to writing on the bus, I bought several books on writing. Most of the material in the books was incomprehensible to me at the time. Later, the books began to make sense.

Over time, several turning points occurred that influenced my new career. The first was the The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams. Once I read that, I knew what I wanted to write: humorous and satirical sci-fi stories, which were later expanded to include fantasy. The second major turning point came when a web search turned up a group of online critics called Critters. I joined Critters allowed a story of mine to be critiqued after critiquing a number of other members’ stories. Both criticizing and being criticized was a revelation. As an example of my sorry state of ignorance at the time, a reviewer pointed out that my current story had POV violations. To which I replied, “What is a POV?”

One day a few years later, my corporation presented an early retirement plan. I qualified and the offer was quite lucrative for me. I jumped on it and started writing in my new home office instead of on buses.

After writing and critiquing many science fiction and fantasy stories, I sold my first story. The magazine was a mess: a hand-drawn cover, photocopied and stapled pages. On the other hand, my story was just as bad, a fact that I didn’t realize until several years later. So the editor and I ended up tied.

Critters’ experience eventually allowed me to sell more than 40 short stories in paid markets. But then something strange happened. A short story turned into a novel and I couldn’t understand how it happened. My next short story became an even longer novel. After reflecting on what was happening, I realized that my characters had become more complex and my plots more complicated, making the stories unsuitable for the short story format. My next attempt at history was long enough to qualify as a short novel. It was then that I realized that my career as a short story writer was over: I was a novelist, for better or for worse.

Soon, I sold a novel to a small independent publisher. This was followed by an anthology of short stories by the same publisher. Publishing a book was another turning point as great as reading the Hitchhiker’s Guide. It led to a self-publishing decision. But that’s a story for another day.

I have been writing fiction for over twenty years and have enjoyed it immensely. The reason I keep writing humorous and satirical genre stories is because I love making up weird plots and characters. And I love entertaining people with my stores.