# What I Did With My Time After I Stopped Writing Manuals
I am retired, and even now that word still feels strange in my mouth. For decades my days were built around deadlines, version numbers, and documents that had to be right the first time. I wrote technical documentation for a living. Manuals that explained how things worked and what not to do if you wanted the system to keep running. It was serious work. I took pride in it. But it was never creative, not really, and I always told myself that when I finally stopped, I would write something that belonged to me.

My husband retired two years before I did. He was a carpenter then and I suppose he still is now, just without a paycheck attached. He spends his mornings in the garage surrounded by wood scraps and half-finished ideas. Some days I hear sawing before I am even dressed. I do not think carpenters ever fully retire. They just move the job closer to home. When I finally retired, we decided to travel. We spent weeks moving slowly through Europe, staying longer than tourists usually do, eating meals that took their time. I wrote in small notebooks while he sketched things he wanted to build someday.

When we came home, everything felt quieter. Too quiet, at first. I remember standing in my home office one morning, looking at the desk where I had planned projects and tracked changes for so many years, and realizing that if I did not decide what came next, nothing would. That was the moment I decided writing would be my new job. Not a hobby. A job. I gave myself hours. I gave myself goals. I did not give myself permission to drift.

I started with what was close. I wrote about birthday parties we hosted when the kids were young, the kind where someone always cried and someone always forgot to bring a gift. I wrote about weddings, the nervous pacing before the music started, the relief afterward. I wrote about family trips that did not go smoothly but somehow became the stories everyone remembered most. I have six children, which still surprises people when I say it out loud. They are grown now, living lives that do not revolve around my kitchen table anymore. Writing became a way to keep those moments from fading.

I share most of what I write with them. Nothing fancy. I email it or attach a document. Sometimes they reply with a short note. Sometimes they correct a detail or remind me of something I forgot. I do not know if they read every word, but I think they like knowing I am still paying attention to our shared past. That feels like enough.

My days have a pattern now. In the morning, my husband disappears into the garage and I go to my desk. I write for a few hours, sometimes more if I lose track of time. I am competitive with myself in a quiet way. I want each piece to be better than the last. Old habits die hard. I edit more than I probably should. Then in the afternoon, we both come back from our separate workspaces and sit together, reading or watching television, sharing the small comfort of having done something useful that day.

I never thought I would care about things like writing contests, but even the idea of them drifted into my mind as I wrote more. Not because I wanted to win anything, but because the idea of structure and challenge still appeals to me. I spent a lifetime working inside rules. Creativity does not scare me, but I like having a frame.

For now, though, I am content with the rhythm I have built. Writing in the morning. Wood dust in the garage. Quiet afternoons together. This is not the retirement I imagined when I was younger, but it feels honest. It feels earned.

Once I settled into the idea that writing was my work now, I started treating it the way I always had. I kept a notebook on my desk with dates and rough word counts, not because anyone asked me to, but because it made the time feel real. Some mornings the words came easily and I surprised myself by how much I remembered. Other mornings I stared at the screen and wondered if I had already said everything worth saying. On those days I wrote anyway. That part felt familiar. You do not wait for motivation when something is your job. You show up.

I noticed my writing changing as the weeks passed. At first it sounded stiff, like I was still explaining something instead of telling it. Old habits. I would catch myself defining things no one needed defined, or over explaining why a moment mattered. Slowly, without planning it, the sentences loosened. I let details sit without justifying them. I trusted the reader more, even when the reader was just one of my children or, honestly, myself.

My husband rarely asks what I am writing about. He listens when I volunteer details, nods, and then goes back to whatever he is building. Sometimes he brings in a piece of wood just to show me the grain or the curve of it. I think that is his version of sharing his work. In the afternoons, when we sit together with our books or a familiar show, there is a quiet satisfaction in knowing we both spent the day doing something that felt like ours.

I began to widen what I wrote about. Not just big family moments, but ordinary days. Grocery trips that turned into conversations in the parking lot. Long phone calls with one child that somehow covered ten different topics. The strange feeling of being needed less and differently. I did not plan any of this. It just showed up once I gave myself permission to stay with a thought longer than I used to.

At some point, I started printing a few pieces and mailing them to relatives who do not use email much. It felt old fashioned and grounding. One cousin wrote back with a handwritten note telling me she remembered the birthday party I described and had forgotten how loud it was. That small response mattered more than I expected. It reminded me that writing does not have to travel far to reach someone.

I also found myself thinking about challenge again. Not pressure, but structure. I spent decades working inside clear boundaries. Creative work feels freer, but I still like having something to push against. I noticed announcements for writing competitions online and read through a few prompts just to see how they were framed. I did not enter anything yet. I just read them, thought about how I might respond, then went back to my own work.

Somewhere during all this, I realized I was writing more honestly than I ever had. Not better, necessarily, but closer. I was no longer trying to explain myself to an invisible audience. I was writing because the act itself steadied me. It gave my days shape. It made retirement feel less like an ending and more like a second shift, one I chose.

I still send most of what I write to my children. They tease me about becoming prolific. One of them asked if I was planning to publish anything. I laughed it off, but the question stayed with me longer than I expected. Not because I wanted recognition, but because I realized I was curious what would happen if I let my work exist outside my family circle, even in a small way.

For now, though, I keep writing at my desk each morning. I keep notes. I revise. I let the work pile up quietly. There is comfort in not rushing the next step.

By the time my third binder filled up, I knew I was doing more than just keeping myself busy. I was building something that looked a little like the work I used to do, only softer around the edges. I had routines now. Coffee in the same mug. Notes scribbled on the same yellow pad. A habit of rereading yesterday’s pages before starting anything new. That part still mattered to me. I liked continuity. I liked knowing where I had been before deciding where to go next.

It was around then that I started talking more openly about my writing with people outside my family. A woman I see once a week at the library mentioned she had retired from accounting and was writing short pieces about her childhood. Another man I met through a local group lives in assisted living and writes about family dinners and Sunday drives. His name is Frank. He types slowly and tells me when his hands get tired, but he remembers details I would have forgotten completely. We began reading each other’s work, nothing formal. Just sharing pages back and forth. He prints mine. I read his on my screen. It works.

That small circle made me braver. Not bold exactly, but curious. I started wondering what it would feel like to send my work somewhere that did not know me at all. Not to impress anyone. Just to see if I could follow the process and finish the task. I am not very comfortable online, which still feels strange to admit after a career spent writing about systems. Knowing how something works does not always mean you enjoy using it.

One afternoon, after rereading a piece about a long-ago birthday party, I searched for contests. I took my time. I read instructions twice. I hesitated more than I should have. Eventually I found my way to the <a href="https://www.fanstory.com/writing-contests.jsp" target="_blank">writing contests</a> page on FanStory. I checked it, followed the steps, and entered my work. I kept the page open while I made sure everything went through, then closed my browser and went back to my notes like nothing special had happened.

I was proud of myself in a quiet way. Not because I expected anything from it, but because I had done something that once would have sent me straight to one of my children for help. I even tried a small piece for writing prompt that week, mostly because the prompt nudged me toward a memory I had not written about yet. It felt odd and slightly thrilling, like sending a letter without knowing who would open it.

Frank was the first person I told. He laughed and said he might try it too if his hands cooperated. The woman from the library asked if it was hard. I told her it was manageable if you went slowly. That was the truth. No drama. No big revelation. Just another step added to the routine I had already built.

My husband noticed I was lighter that evening. He asked if something good had happened. I told him I had submitted a piece of writing somewhere. He smiled, said good for you, and went back to measuring a board. That was enough acknowledgment for me.

What I liked most was how little it changed my day. I still wrote the next morning. I still revised. I still shared pages with Frank and my children. Entering did not replace the work. It simply joined it.

After that first entry, I did not rush to do it again. That surprised me. I thought once I crossed that line, I would feel a pull to keep submitting things, to chase some kind of response. Instead, the urge softened. Writing went back to being the center of my day, not where I sent it afterward. I kept filling pages. I kept revising in the same careful way I always had. The contests became something that existed on the side, like a bulletin board you glance at now and then without stopping.

Frank and I settled into a rhythm of sharing work. He would hand me printed pages during our weekly visit, the corners folded, his handwriting in the margins. I would read them slowly at home and type a response, keeping it simple. We were not critiquing each other so much as acknowledging effort. He told me once that having someone outside his family read his work made the days feel less repetitive. I understood that. Retirement can flatten time if you let it.

The woman from the library joined us too, sending short pieces by email. None of us talked about improvement or goals. We talked about showing up. That felt like enough. Still, every so often, I found myself browsing writing contests again, mostly out of curiosity. I liked reading the themes. I liked seeing how many different directions people took the same idea. It reminded me of how varied problem solving could be when I worked with engineers, each one approaching the same issue from a different angle.

I entered another piece a few weeks later, then let it go. I tried one of the free short story contests, even though writing short stories feels unfamiliar in my hands. I do not worry about whether it fits or succeeds. I care more about whether it says what I meant it to say. That feels like a reasonable bar at this stage of my life.

At home, nothing changed much. My husband continued building things no one asked for but everyone ends up using. I continued writing in the mornings and closing my files in the afternoon. Some evenings we talked about what we worked on that day. Other evenings we did not. Both felt fine. There is comfort in not needing every moment to carry weight.

What entering did give me was a sense of continuity. I spent years writing things that disappeared into systems and updates. This felt different. The work stayed mine, even when I shared it. Even when I sent it somewhere else, it did not stop belonging to me.

I do not know where this will lead. I am not trying to make it lead anywhere. For now, I am content knowing that when I sit down at my desk, I have something to do that matters to me, and that is more than I expected when I first said the word retired out loud.

As the months passed, I noticed something subtle shifting in how I talked about my days. I stopped saying I was keeping busy and started saying I was working. Not to impress anyone. Just because it felt accurate. Writing had settled into my bones the way documentation once had, only this time the subject did not change every quarter. The subject was my life, and that felt steadier than any product release ever had.

I kept a small stack of printed pages in a drawer by my desk. Finished pieces, or finished enough for now. Sometimes I reread them when I felt uncertain about what to write next. Not to admire them, but to remind myself that I could start and finish something without external pressure. That matters more to me now than praise ever did.

Frank’s health fluctuated, which affected how much he could write. Some weeks he sent me three pages. Other weeks he sent nothing at all. When that happened, I wrote him a note anyway. Just a few lines. He told me once that having something to read from someone who understood his pace made the days feel less narrow. I think we are helping each other without making a big deal of it.

I continued to enter writing contests occasionally, spacing them out so they did not take over my attention. I noticed I was less nervous each time. The steps became familiar. The decision of what to submit felt easier. I was choosing pieces because they felt complete, not because I thought they fit something perfectly. That was new for me. In my old career, fit was everything. Here, honesty mattered more.

I entered one more piece in a writing contest during this stretch, almost by accident. The prompt reminded me of a sound from childhood, and I wrote quickly before I could talk myself out of it. I did not revise it much. That felt rebellious in its own small way. When I told my husband about it, he laughed and said maybe I was becoming spontaneous in my old age. I am not sure that is true, but I liked the idea.

What surprised me most was how grounded I felt. I was not chasing outcomes. I was building days that made sense to me. Writing gave me a reason to get up, a reason to sit down, and a reason to stop. That balance is harder to find than people admit.

I still think of myself as quietly competitive. I want my work to be clear. I want it to hold together. But the competition now is with yesterday’s version of myself, not anyone else. That feels healthier, even if I would never have said that out loud ten years ago.

These days, when I sit down at my desk, I do not think much about where the writing will end up. I think about the hour in front of me. The chair still squeaks. The light still shifts across the wall around midmorning. My husband still makes noise in the garage, and I can usually tell what he is working on just by the sound. Life has settled into something dependable without being dull, which is not something I knew to hope for.

I still enter writing contests now and then, but they no longer feel like milestones. They feel like errands. Something I do after a piece feels done and before I start the next one. I like that. It means the writing itself stays in charge. When I submit something, I do not linger. I close the page and return to my notes. That habit keeps me grounded.

Frank and I continue exchanging pages. Some of his stories circle the same memories, and I do not mind that at all. Repetition does not bother me the way it used to. It feels honest. He tells me about other residents who write letters but never keep copies. He says he is glad he does, because it makes the days feel less scattered. I know exactly what he means.

The library group still meets, though attendance shifts. Retirement is like that. People come and go. What stays is the work you give yourself. Writing contests give me just enough structure to feel connected to something larger without demanding more than I am willing to give. I like knowing there are others out there doing the same thing at their own pace.

I even keep an eye on poetry contests, though I am still unsure what I am doing there. That uncertainty no longer bothers me. It keeps things light. It keeps me curious. Curiosity feels like a good companion at this stage of life.

My children still receive my writing, and they still respond when they can. One of them told me recently that my stories help them remember things they had forgotten. That might be the best outcome I could ask for. Not recognition. Not results. Just continuity.

When my husband and I sit down together in the evenings, we sometimes talk about our projects and sometimes do not. Either way, there is an understanding between us that this is our work now. His hands smell like wood. Mine smell like paper and coffee. We are both tired in the good way.

If someone had told me years ago that retirement would feel this full, I might not have believed them. Writing contests, online friends, shared pages, quiet routines. None of it is dramatic. All of it matters to me. And that turns out to be enough.