Writing fiction after 35 years of engineering.

Fitch

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I love to read good stories. I literally can't remember when I didn't know how to read. I was totally captivated by Alistair MacLean's "HMS Ulysses" and "The Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" in my youth. I am a huge fan of Vince Flynn and the Tom Clancy books in the series that began with "The Hunt for Red October" and ran through "Executive Order." I have a closet wall lined floor to ceiling with shelves full of paperback novels. So does my wife. We designed a library/reading room into our retirement home.

I was supposed to be a lawyer like my father, grandfather and great grandfather, but couldn't stand the idea of being a professional red tape artist and joined the Army the same month construction on the Berlin Wall was started. (I'm not older than dirt but I'm working on it.)

After the army I went to engineering school (electrical) and ended up having a dream career in Aerospace. I never did the same thing twice, almost always worked on how to do what had never been done before. Spent the last eighteen years of my career working on the International Space Station Power System.

Then, in 2004, my wife and I retired, age 62. She retired from teaching science in middle school.

I designed our retirement home and while it was being built I designed three houses for the builder. I ended up designing 43 houses for that builder over a period of five years. They were built before the housing crash. I didn't do it because I needed the money but because I could do it part time, I loved the interaction with the clients and it kept my brain from turning into oatmeal.

When the housing market crashed I went into hobby gun smithing and reloading as something to learn. I worked on my hunting rifles. I have a hobby machine shop (two lathes, milling machine, etc.). After that I got into Action Pistol competition handgun shooting but quickly became bored with it.

I turned to writing fiction in early 2012.

Writing fiction has proven to be a lot of fun and a huge learning curve. I had done a lot of technical writing, tens of thousands of pages of it, but never fiction. People don't pay engineers to write fiction.

I liked the idea but I had no idea where to start when a friend suggested I write a fan fiction story. I'd never heard of fan fiction. Long story short, I published the first chapter of what was to become 4 fan fiction stories (three for Covert Affairs, one for Castle) in May 2012. Three of them were effectively novel length (a bit over 100,000 words). It was a huge learning experience and it was almost more fun than the law allows.

I experimented. Tried all sorts of things to see how they worked. One story, the last one I wrote, was 95% from one character's POV. The only scenes that weren't were the two where that character wasn't present. All are 3rd person.

I made some friends around the world (Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Hawaii, among other places). I was invited to co-write some chapters in their stories and did. Meanwhile I bought and read all sorts of books on writing. I also invested in some software.

First was WriteWay Pro, which I really like. I spread it out over three monitors, character on the left, outline and story editor in the center, research on the right. One of the huge features about WWP is how easy it is to move text between it and MS-WORD. MS-WORD turned out to be the universal editing and text exchange tool between me and my writer friends around the world.

Then I discovered Scrivener. It was a struggle to get into Scrivener. But I finally succeeded and started to use it as my initial draft story development environment about six weeks ago. After outlines and flow charts.

When I have the first draft of my novel I'll move back to WriteWay-Pro because of how easy it is to exchange text with MS-WORD and how easy it is to control onscreen formatting. WWP recognizes chapters and scenes. It will pull in a 100,000 word draft in a couple of minutes and auto numbers the chapters.

I use EDraw MAX for flow charts. Yesterday I discovered FreeMind for mind maps. I also have Scapple but I haven't used it yet.

I'm wandering off topic.

Seventy percent of the way through my fifth fan fiction story, while working on creating a new character, I decided that I might as well try my hand at writing an all original novel from scratch. I began that project last June. The transition from fan fiction to starting from scratch is huge but not nearly as big a jump as starting from scratch with out the intermediate step.

I have gotten off to a good start. I'd run into a block about the novel when I discovered this forum. I think I've gotten through that as a result of a suggestion on the Plot thread.

My goal is to write a story my friends and family might enjoy reading.

I'm looking forward to my time on this forum.

Enough of this. Back to working on the plot hole I might be able to bridge over the next couple of days.

Fitch
 

Maryn

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Nice to meet you, Fitch. I feel like I know you pretty well already.

Maryn, smiling
 

alleycat

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Welcome.

All types are welcome here. My career was in architecture and structural engineering (I worked for one of the most noted firms in the country).
 

wotcherH

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Hi Fitch, and welcome to AW.

Wow, you're definitely way more experienced than I am when it comes to writing. I was one of those start-from-scratch people, heh.

I hope that the forum ends up being very useful to you. See you around! :)
 

Tom Johnson

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Welcome Fitch. You've had an interesting life after the Army - wait, is there truly life after the Army? Just kidding. My wife and I went into publishing after my twenty year hitch - it took me forever to figure out how to get out of the Army! Anyway, good meeting you. Visit my Blog sometime.
 

EllaM

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Hi! :welcome:Fitch! I'll be looking into some of the software you mentioned! Thank you! :)
:TheWave:
 

regdog

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Take some time and read the Newbie Guide and the Stickies found
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Fitch

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Thanks for the welcome folks.

Much appreciated.

Tom Johnson; thank you for your service. Twenty years is a huge commitment. I was only in uniform from '61 to '64. The closest I ever got to combat was riding a motorcycle in Tokyo traffic, an act even less rational than bull riding.

Regdog; I read the newbie sticky. All of it. First.

Fitch
 

Cathy C

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Welcome! It sounds like you're multi-skilled enough to have dozens of book plots lurking in your mind. Enjoy your stay and good luck with the original book. :) I also started with fan fic and am a huge fan of Clancy (and wrote a gun technical article for Guns & Ammo!) All have served me well in writing fiction.
 

Godyth

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Welcome!

My dad spent 30+ years as an engineer, most of those in aerospace in the NoVa/DC arena. It's an interesting life living with an engineer with so many diverse interests (he does some smithing and reloading for himself, too, amongst other things)!
I know fan fiction has a huge following, but you have so many experiences that could be turned into original action-packed, tension-filled stories.
How about a modern cold war type thriller rooted in aerospace espionage? Especially with all of the private corporations now in the game. Or a retired detective/gunsmith who has the expertise to solve crimes?
I wish you the best,
Rebecca
 

Fitch

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<snip>
How about a modern cold war type thriller rooted in aerospace espionage? Especially with all of the private corporations now in the game. Or a retired detective/gunsmith who has the expertise to solve crimes?
I wish you the best,
Rebecca

That's why I stopped writing fan fiction. You aren't exactly reading my mind, but you're scary close. :D

Fitch

(couldn't resist the adverbs)
 
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Ladyxkaa

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my mom published her first book in her fifties o.o...since then she's published a few others, and is at a new publisher and they're working on editing her Dragon Thing To Do series specially for the publisher. 'course, it needed it badly. the first people who edited her book didn't catch a single one of mom's mistakes and such, so it was kind of messed up. but she fixed the first book and is working on the second while writing the fifth or so.
 

KaseetaKen

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Wow... sounds like you could consult on the Science and Entertainment exchange... http://www.scienceandentertainmentexchange.org/
And there are a number of former aerospace types who have written in my favorite genre (science fiction). My personal favorite is Homer Hickam.
Welcome! I look forward to reading your books!