Not long ago, I read that the average American man goes through seven career changes in his working life. While this number may seem high to vocationally stable people like doctors, lawyers and car thieves, it’s nothing to writers like myself.

    I’ve gone through at least three times as many careers and am now just entering middle age, which the survey says is prime time for career changes. 

    My list includes roofer, factory worker, motel maid, door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, delivery boy, deli sandwich-maker, apartment house manager, house painter, thoroughbred horse groom, gardener, newspaper reporter, movie and book critic, weight training instructor, construction laborer, college professor, tree-trimmer, drawbridge operator, TV writer/director, performance artist, long distance phone service marketer and import/export business manager.
    

    The reason why I’ve exceeded the national average of career changes is because I’ve haven’t been able to make a career out of writing fiction. Over the decades, my novels have been routinely rejected by various publishers with reasons like: “Your manuscript doesn’t impress us sufficiently on the large scale; that is, in its cumulative impact.”

    Life can be hard for an aspiring author, especially when his rejection letters are oblique, redundant and poorly punctuated. As a former English
teacher, I couldn’t help but notice the misuse of the semi-colon in this
particular publisher’s reply. When I was a freshman composition professor at Florida International University, I tried to teach proper usage of the semi-colon for a year before accepting the fact that nobody knows how to use it and nobody really cares.

    In any case, no matter how poorly rejection letters are written, they all mean the same thing: no million-dollar advance in the foreseeable future. This, in turn, means that the aspiring author needs to find some form of gainful employment. And that often involves a career change.

    The best careers for someone like me are those that offer countless
hours of free time to daydream and write. That’s why I got into the bridge-tending profession. I thought that operating a drawbridge would be the perfect job for a writer. And the scenery, the solitude and the body floating in the Intracoastal Waterway proved me right.

    The bridge-tending pay wasn’t great, but as my supervisor explained
when he hired me: “You don’t have to do much.” And you don’t, other than operate about $5 million worth of potentially deadly equipment while
daydreaming about the convoluted plot of a crime thriller and keeping track of the ball game on TV.

    To prepare me for this awesome responsibility, the Florida Department
of Transportation made sure I got a full three days of training. Both the manual and my instructor stressed that a bridge-tender’s primary duty is to operate the bridge safely while tying up as much automotive traffic as possible, especially when people are running late to the movies, a business appointment or an emergency appendectomy.

    Less than a month after I became a certified bridge-tender, my
supervisor had a nervous breakdown and quit. Seeing how I was the only crew member he hadn’t fired, the higher-ups wisely decided that I should become the new Hallandale Beach Boulevard bridge-tending supervisor. This meteoric rise through the ranks was accompanied by a whopping 75-cent an hour pay raise along with the added responsibility of rounding up a crew of at least six marginally reliable people who would work for minimum wage.

    Of course, even with supervisor responsibilities, bride-tending isn’t
exactly a high pressure occupation. But it had its moments...

    Like the day after Halloween. My home phone rang at 7:07 a.m. I
answered it, my hair still caked with fake blood from the “Man with a Meat
Cleaver Stuck in his Head” outfit I’d worn to a party the previous night. Pam, the Hollywood Boulevard bridge-tender, was on the line.

   Pam: Sorry to bother you so early, Gary, but there doesn’t seem to be
anyone at the Hallandale Bridge.
   Me: Huh?
   Pam: The Jungle Queen’s been trying to get an opening for half an hour. No one’s at your bridge.
   Me: (Expletive deleted).
   Pam: That’s what the Jungle Queen’s captain said. What should I tell
him?
   Me: Tell him I’ll be there as soon as I wash this blood out of my hair.
   Pam: Huh?

    As you can see, communication is a very important aspect of bridge-
tender supervision. The Jungle Queen captain eventually communicated to me his displeasure with the services of the Hallandale Beach Boulevard bridge-tending crew, but he lightened up when I told him I had a splitting headache from walking around all night with a meat cleaver stuck in my head (I didn’t mention the Cuervo). Then I communicated to the bridge-tender who’d committed the cardinal sin of the trade by abandoning the bridge house that she was fired.

    So, you see, I’ve always been a good communicator (which isn’t saying
much considering Ronald Reagan was “The Great Communicator”). But now, I at least make a living off my writing, mostly non-fiction stuff for newspapers and magazines. I’ve also given up the dream of getting a million-dollar advance for the novel I wrote during my year as a bridge-tender. Instead, I’ve exchanged it for the dream of making a million by publishing it myself.

    The book, Dead Man’s Tale, is a genre-crossing crime thriller with a
bridge-tending character, psycho killers, at least one reincarnated prophet and a protagonist who’s a dead man (sort of). But I don’t want to tell you too much about it here.

    Check it out for yourself. Dead Man’s Tale