What's next ? Some random thoughts.

Here are some random thoughts on writing, passive income and financial independence.

a) A financially independent employee/entrepreneur is better off than just simply being financially independent.

Just yesterday, most investors would have had a major pay-off from their dividends. There was enough for me to sustain myself for the next 1.5 months until my next set of dividend income which comes in on September.

Coupled with the recent downturn, I am pretty grateful for my work in the unions these days because it has become easier to use earned income to pick up some bargains on a market downturn, something which someone who is simply unemployed but comfortable is unable to do. ( Unless he is so rich he lives on the dividends of his dividends, something I hope to achieve before I die. )

Of course I can write an entire book on how staying employed gives a person the ability to achieve a state of flow and hang out with a nice bunch of colleagues.

b) Passive income from writing is something worth fighting for.

I have no illusions about how hard is it to make money by writing. It sucks ! Only a crazy moron would quit a job to write full time in Singapore. While its entirely possible to succeed, you can jeopardise your family by indulging your fantasies about having a book out on the shelves.

That aside, I get about $100 from all my books every month. Cheques come in twice a year and I make $3 USD every month on my $0.99 Kindle publication per month. The power of royalty income is that it does'nt really correlate with the markets. My books will probably sell in bad times or good times even though they always sell pretty badly.

When your day job is done and your investments are humming, building your passive royalty income will be really slow but can be personally satisfying.

c) Very few avenues to sharpen writing skills in Singapore

If you want to pick up fiction-writing, Felix Cheong is the Man!

NUS Extension Writing Class

I've done the classes and even read a book on an MFA ( What is CFA and MBA of the Arts ). My next step is to engage very aggressively the Singapore Writer's Festival, plonking $140 bucks into paid workshops and attending the talk by Steven Levitt.

Who knows, maybe in two years time in 2013, I'll be doing the talking and others will be paying me to understand how I write my books. ( One can always dream. )