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8a

I have always had a flair for writing. When a youngster, I ran a newspaper. I have sought an outlet lately in a diary. I have written technical articles, four having been published within the past year. I have long had a yearning to write fiction but there was never time or drive to get me fairly started. Well, now I have the time and the need and the desire, so now I start. In fact, I have already started. The possibilities are tremendous. It may mean merely supplementing my income from the G.E., for I intend to hang onto my job here as long as possible or until by chance I connect with the writing sufficiently well to give up my engineering work completely. For some time however, it will be parallel paths -- writing and engineering. I intend to go after it aggressively, purposefully, and orderly with a plan of productions and study. I am going to set my cap for an independent income from writing. If I connect, I anticipate a far more satisfactory livelihood and career than pennies in engineering. If I don't connect, I'm not nothing. If I connect only partially, I improve my career very decidedly. 
Some may say that it is too late, old man. With this I disagree. I am thirty - not yet at the prime of life - still on the far border of youth at worst. I [[underlined]] still feel [[/underlined]] like a youngster. I [[underlined]] am [[/underlined]] a youngster therefore. I have spent about nine years out of college. In the writing profession, I would have forty-five years of of activity ahead of me if I live that long. In other words, one-sixth of my "career years" are behind me, [[underlined]] five-sixths [[/underlined]] ahead of me. Moreover, that one sixth has been far from wasted as far as a literary career is concerned. I have been a keen observer of life and people and things in those years. I have written some. I have developed greatly. All that I have done would contribute in some measure at least, to a career of writing.
Of course, I let my imagination run away with me. But if I were to become a successful writer the Depression would have been the making of me just as it has forced countless others into their proper niches in the scheme of things. And it is not as though I were a complete novice with no talent and merely desire. I have great talent which promises much if cultivated actively. And I have

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