Okay, I'll Play

Over at Jim Hines LJ he's posted a five year interval thing I'm going to take a step further. Jim called his "Looking Back", mine I shall call "Pathways: Past, Present, & Future" - it goes like this:

Pathways

Past:

• 1 Year Ago - I decided to gain formal education qualifications for my writing and so started at the Adelaide Centre for the Arts in the Advanced Diploma for Arts (Professional Writing). I gained a position writing book reviews for HorrorScope and Black. I gained a staff position writing articles for SA50s+.
• 5 Years Ago - My youngest had started kindergarten. Writing was the furthest thing from my mind. I was pretty happy just being a dad and a partner. I was engaged to be married, but we hadn't gotten around to actually making any plans. It was around now my littlest one started making noises about us becoming a "real" family - that required the parents to be married. I guess it was the final push that we needed to do the deed two years later.
• 10 Years Ago - I was looking for a new direction in life. I was recovering from a recurrence of a pretty bad back injury, Dad had been diagnosed with lung cancer, the family business was sold. I was a health risk with no training and no certified skills, a pregnant partner and two other kids at home. Life was looking a bit bleak with an extremely hard road ahead. Then I commenced Certificate IV in Information Technology, which led to me gaining employment at the private school my kids would attend in the future. This in turn led me to where I am today. My Dad's illness is easily the biggest turning point in my entire life. My wife and kids are my happiest, but some things happen for a reason, whether that be fate, destiny, chaos, or some grand plan - it doesn't matter, without that turning point, my life, and that of my wife and kids, would have been a great deal different.
• 20 Years Ago - I was a brash 21 year old kid, recently out of the army, more interested in sowing my wild oats than anything else. I played Dungeons & Dragons, played cricket, and chased girls - 24/7. Work fitted in around that. Hey, it was the 80's. No one had heard of AIDS, HIV, Osama Bin Laden, Ecstasy or mobile phones. Stephen King was God.
• 30 Years Ago - I had an identity crisis. I am an adopted child. I was told of this when I was 7, but it meant nothing to me until I was 11. One day it just hit me: I didn't know who I was or where I came from. It was pretty intense. At this stage I was also reading everything I could lay my hands on. Meatloaf had just become big in Australia and Stephen King was just on the horizon. Life seemed full of possibilities and then I had no idea who I was. It felt like the bottom had dropped out of my world.
• 40 Years Ago - A babe in swaddling my mother was telling all and sundry she'd picked up for $1AU. The following year the whole family was packed up and moved back to England for a while. It is still the only time I've been outside of my country of birth. It will not be the last.

Present:

• To date I've had 3 pieces of fiction published. I've had 5 other pieces accepted and still waiting to be actually published.
• I've completed one manuscript - Tigers Eye. I am currently writing a second full length novel - Newland. Hopefully the second will be a great deal better than the first.
• I am participating in my second year of my Advanced Diploma of Arts for Professional Writing.
• I work with three other authors in trying to improve all our ability within using the craft of story-telling and writing in general.
• I still write book reviews, but SA50s+ has changed editors and format, and I no longer write articles for them. Freelance article writing may have to be placed on the back burner.
• I work full time in the technology industry. I am extremely experienced in administering Citrix products. It pays the bills, but I don't really want to be here.
• My eldest daughter is expecting a baby. I am to be a grandfather at 41. At least I'll be able to play with the tike when it's growing up.

Future:

• 2010 - I will shop my completed and polished manuscript around to agents all over the world. I will successfully complete my third year in my Diploma. I will regularly sell fiction to semi-pro markets. I will have caught up on my reading of what has come before, and be able to concentrate more on what is being published now. I will continue to write book reviews. I will find my great character and write my series around them.
• 2015 - I will be a published author, with an agent and a publishing house willing to publish my books. I will be writing full time and earning enough from it that neither my wife or I have a need for any other type of supplementary employment. Only my youngest child will still be at home and she will be excelling in school. My family will be happy and healthy.
• 2020 - I will be elected King of the world and...did I say that out loud? Sorry...

Moving on.

So now you should all have a glimpse at where I came from, what I'm doing, and where I want to be.

What about you?