Keith Winstein was a journalist at WSJ for a short while, I think!
Ask HN: Has anybody successfully changed their career to become a writer?
11–20 of 30 posts
Re: Ask HN: Has anybody successfully changed their career to become a writer?
#12Successfully? Not me but I got the audio version of my book up as a podcast:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/codecaine-scummy-tech-fo...
Fiction about 2 devs that sell coke to fund their redundant start up
Re: Ask HN: Has anybody successfully changed their career to become a writer?
#13https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/so-you-want-be-writer
Yeah. I recently wrote a book and got most of it done within a few hours of morning + coffee sessions over a few weeks and one or two airplane rides. It made like $12K in its first year and it was really easy. Thinking this was an incredibly time-efficient way for me to earn money and contribute to society, I tried to write a sequel and have stalled. The initial book just poured out of me. I had an outline, I knew ex…
How did you publish and promote? I’m sitting on a finished book now and I’m sort of at a loss for what to do with it. I put out some of the audio as a podcast that has done “ok” but haven’t pulled the trigger on actual publishing
Re: Ask HN: Has anybody successfully changed their career to become a writer?
#14https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/so-you-want-be-writer
Yeah. I recently wrote a book and got most of it done within a few hours of morning + coffee sessions over a few weeks and one or two airplane rides. It made like $12K in its first year and it was really easy. Thinking this was an incredibly time-efficient way for me to earn money and contribute to society, I tried to write a sequel and have stalled. The initial book just poured out of me. I had an outline, I knew ex…
Was the subject of the book technical?
Re: Ask HN: Has anybody successfully changed their career to become a writer?
#15https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Chandler
There probably are more at https://bloom-site.com/about/ ”literary site devoted to highlighting, profiling, reviewing, and interviewing authors whose first major work was published when they were age 40 or older.”
Re: Ask HN: Has anybody successfully changed their career to become a writer?
#16Charlie Stross was once a sysadmin/programmer.
Larry Correia was an accountant (and a gun store owner).
Re: Ask HN: Has anybody successfully changed their career to become a writer?
#17https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Chandler There probably are more at https://bloom-site.com/about/ ”literary site devoted to highlighting, profiling, reviewing, and interviewing authors whose first major work was published when they were age 40 or older.”
Reminds me of Glenn Cook a celebrated fantasy author who went under the radar for decades. He wrote all his novels manning a console at an auto plant on the night shift. Good stuff.
Re: Ask HN: Has anybody successfully changed their career to become a writer?
#18What kind of writing do you have in mind?
Re: Ask HN: Has anybody successfully changed their career to become a writer?
#19Matt Gemmell was quite the prolific developer before he transitioned out of tech into writing: https://mattgemmell.com
Re: Ask HN: Has anybody successfully changed their career to become a writer?
#20The Nobel prize winning author J. M. Coetzee worked as a programmer when he was young - he describes it in his autobiographical novel, Youth. The promiment novelist Richard Powers worked as a programmer when he was young - that part of his life is described in the recent book, The Friendly Orange Glow.