Meredith, I totally agree about the technical writing except I think in some ways it fuels my creativity. I wrote legislation and regulations for the government for a while then I wrote tons of grants and later I developed and ran a military contracting firm that required extensive proposal writing. There is nothing more bland than writing for government. You have do tons of research and fill up a lot of pages without commiting yourself or the government to a darned thing. But when i did a lot of it, the creative stuff was my outlet and I could hardly wait to get to it. I was prolific. Now I put it off.

Actually I may be whining about my sending off phobia on the wrong post since I just noticed this is titled non-fiction. My novel is fiction. I loved writing it and I guess even if I never get it sent off or published, I got more joy out of doing it than I could ever buy even if it became a best-seller.

That's the approach I use with my plays and musicals too. It is such a trip sitting in the audience with the people all around laughing and singing along and sniffling at the sad parts.

And when I attend the play, I get treated like a celibrity. People ask for my autograph on the programs and CD's and I feel like Julia Roberts or someody.

When I act, I get a little insane before each performance, but it kind of energized the role and that's a whole different trip, but...

Gee, makes me want to get busy an WRITE. Thanks to you and the other boomers for the encouragement.

smile