What is a WIP?
A WIP is a Work-in-Progress. It could be in the last stages before publication, or not meant to ever be published, or an early draft. Names can change between now and publication, as well as covers, but it gives you an idea of the process.
An Incremental Life: Part 1 - Before You Knew It
James Richard Ludwig’s life from 11/24/1950 to 1/31/1994
This book is written for my children and their children to tell them what came before. I describe my life from my birth, including what I know about my heritage, to a point when they became more aware of what was going on in my life, when we moved from California to Indiana.
In the beginning, I was born and grew up in a loving family of five. My father was from Missouri and worked during my life as a supervisor, manager, and eventually salesman for iron foundries in Los Angeles and Orange County, California. My mother was from Kansas and worked as a homemaker, Avon Saleswoman, Artist, and a counsellor for people who wanted to quit smoking. My two sisters, almost eleven and almost ten years older than me were also born in Kansas and lived with my parents in Portsmouth, Virginia during world War Two, before the family relocated to California. And then there was little me.
This book takes us through my childhood, adolescence, college days, Army service, nursing training, graduate education, nurse anesthetist training, doctoral research, post-doctoral research, and my first job as a research scientist at a Biotech Company. Geographically, it includes homes in Southern California, Northern California, Texas, England, and Indiana.
The final eleven years are spent in San Diego, California. We bought or first home there in 1984, shortly after my wife gave birth to our first child, a boy. I was working on my second postdoc at the time at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and lookin for a permanent job. That job found me, when a wonderful scientist at a biotech invited me to come visit with him and talk about cloning. I joined Hybritech in 1985 and on my second day our son went to the hospital with a febrile seizure. He was fine. After a year, Hybritech was purchased by a big Pharma company called Eli Lilly and Company. Three and a half years after that, my wife presented us with a lovely baby girl. I stayed five more years at Hybritech working on monoclonal antibody, radioimmunotherapy drugs. Then Lilly decided to sell Hybritech and offered me a job back in Indianapolis. This story ends after our first year in Indiana. [I gave the first draft to my kids for Christmas 2020]
An Incremental Life: Part 2- You Must Might Remember This
James Richard Ludwig’s life from 1/31/1994 to 5/5/2008
In this book, I begin by adapting to my new job, running a biotechnology component for a major pharmaceutical company, while watching our children grow up in the heartland of the country. I take up new hobbies, including whitewater rafting, work closely with Lilly legal on Biotech patent issues, and do my best to make our research group one that people want to be a part of. I travel a great deal around the country to keep track of new developments in biotechnology research and help negotiate two large collaborations. Our group grows in number and prestige until it is deemed a bit too important for me to run, so I’m asked to focus full time on finding the most cutting edge technology for my colleagues in research. After one significant miscommunication, and my attainment of fifty years of age, I am non-longer considered a rising star. I never thought I was anyway. This allows me to work on exactly what I love, including the design and start-up of two biotech companies in Collaboration with Indiana University and Purdue University. I am only a loaned executive and must return to home base after each enterprise is successfully launched, but it’s worth it. My last year at the Pharma company, i develop a project tracking system for the group that has evolved from the one I first led. I take an early retirement at 57.5 yrs of age of which twenty three years were with the company (including my years at Hybritech). Between 1999 and 2008, I write my first book, a memoir about my battle with suicidal depression and a successful treatment scheme that included a trip to the Holy Land.
While in Indiana, we learn how people enjoy life in this part of the country, take a lot of road trip vacations, and book our first couple of cruises to the Caribbean. In 2001, we also make an investment that will change our lives, buying a summer home on the island of Maui. For the next seven years, we rent it out and spend two to three weeks there ourselves each year. By this time our son has graduated high school and moved to Maui to attend college and pursue grown-up life. Our daughter begins high school the year after our son graduated and graduates herself in 2007. She too leaves Indiana to attend college in California. This empty nest triggers our retirement action plan. My wife moves to Maui in October to begin the remodel of our two bedroom condo, and we contract a realtor to begin showing our home in Indiana to potential buyers. On May 5, I fly to Maui with our two cats and begin the next act of my life, deciding to become a full-time writer. [I hope to give the first draft to my kids for Christmas 2025]
An Incremental Life: Part 3-Real Retirement?
James Richard Ludwig’s life from 5/5/2008 to 11/24/2030
For the next eight years we enjoy our lives as semi-retired people, although my wife gets a part time job with Macy’s and I invest a great deal of time into becoming a published author. I attend my first Writers Conference in 2009 in Honolulu. Over the next two years I attend writers workshops and begin writing my first novel. In 2014 I self-publish that first book and sell it in a couple of bookstores on Maui as well as through Amazon. I also get involved in organizing a writers conference and participate in the formation of a Writers Group on Maui. In time I end up leading the group and self-publish my second novel. All the while I continue attending writers workshops and am even invited to present a talk on self-publishing at a conference on Oklahoma City.
Around 2013, my wife and I decide to take golf lessons, given we’ve enjoyed a lovely view of a golf course from our lanai since 2001. The Maui lifestyle is wonderful but expensive. With most of our money tied up in our home and noting the housing market was good, we make a decision. Our daughter continues to live where we grew up in Southern California and is looking for new roommates help her focus full-time on theater work, our son is buying his own condo on Maui, so we suggest ourselves as potential roommates to our daughter. She hesitantly agrees. We found a lovely four bedroom rental across from a golf course, which provided our daughter and us with all the space we needed, so we moved.
We now live in Walnut California, play golf twice a week and take road trips again. We visit our son on Maui whenever we can, and no pandemic is raging, and I continue to write. My third novel is accepted for publication by an independent publishing company and comes out in 2019. It‘s really a continuation of the stories I’d self-published about a Maui police detective and the mind-expanding cases he solves. In 2021, I am offered the amazing opportunity to rewrite my stories for cohesion and publish them all professionally. In going through this process, knowing where I wanted all three books to go, I find myself writing essentially new stories, with features from the earlier attempts but much more. The first of theses is being readied for launch in July and I’m currently working on the second and third books simultaneously, to assure even greater cohesion. I also do a great deal of proofreading and editing for friends I heave met during this journey to becoming a published author. [I hope to give the first draft of this to my kids for Christmas 2030]