Starter as technical writer

[Elvin Thurston <EvlnT -at- WORLDNET -dot- ATT -dot- NET>]

I am one of that growing body of professionals "let go" because of company
rather than personal performance.
Since I think it virtually impossible to get another job in my field I need
to make a career change.

I would appreciate the advice that anyone can give to scientific
professional (chemistry etc.) who has always enjoyed writing but is
struggling with the process.  I have applied for an intensive course in
writing for software and am thinking of applying for an intership with
local (Boston area) software companies.

Meanwhile I am scraping the barrel to find some way of making money until
the course finishes.

In that respect does anyone know how I could sell the following?

THE FLAME

You are standing in darkness.

You look around; the darkness is complete.  Darkness such as you have never
seen or felt before. You turn with arms outstretched, hoping to touch
something.  Nothing.  The darkness is like tight black velvet across your
eyes.

You speak and the sound of your voice vanishes into the dead darkness.  No
response.  No echo.  No reply.  You shout.  The darkness swallows your
voice.

It's getting cold as well.

You peer squinting and straining to see a light.  Surely your eyes must be
adapting to the darkness?  Surely you must see something?  Nothing.  You
bend down to feel the ground.  It stretches even and hard as far as you can
feel.

You want to panic but pull yourself
together.  "Form a plan", you say to yourself, "do something".  You will
get out of this; you only need to find the way out. You can do it; you
don't need any help. A big strong person like you can cope with anything.

If only you could see..  If only you didn't feel so cold.

With arms outstretched you move forward tentatively.  Still you can see
nothing.  Surely you must be getting somewhere; now you will find the
light.

You hit something; the pain is severe.  Your shin begins to bleed, warm
blood running down your leg.  You blunder to the side and grope on.
Something large and hard hits your face.  That hurts too.  You pause and
move gently, sweeping your arms around and up and down to find the
obstacles.  If only you could see.! You pull yourself together and try
again. This time you stub your toe.

Desperation.  This is too much bear; you almost panic.  What can you do?
The obstacles are at every height; you cannot hope to find them all before
they find you.  You long for help.  A person to guide.  A person to lead.
Someone to help.   "Please help!" you cry.

And then you realize that there is something in your hand. Was it always
there?  Something round, smooth, and warm.  It's a candle!  What now?  Oh,
in your other hand there's something else.  A book of matches!  Where did
that come from?   Trembling, fearing that the candle will slip from your
grasp, you grip the matchbook in your left hand and strike a match with
your right.  It fails and breaks and falls away. You try again.  The flame
catches.  Thank God!  You pass the flame to the candle.  The wick catches,
flares, dies down to almost nothing, and then grows again.  The flame
climbs surely and brightens.  Yellow and warm. Oh, what relief and
gratitude you feel.  You raise it high in your fist.  Around you the
darkness leaps back, cowering in a circle around you.

You turn slowly exploring your world.  The world is round, perfectly round,
bounded by darkness.  The obstacles shrink down to a bench, a stone bench,
a column, a rock.  Common innocuous things.  Around you all  darkness.  You
look up.  Darkness there too, a complete hemisphere of darkness. At the
center just you and your so beautiful candle.  You take a step forward; the
darkness retreats a step.  Another step forward; the dark moves back, and
so you move on, candle high.

You look behind.  Nothing there that you did not see before; just the same
things and your footprints in the dust; in a straight track sure and true
since you lit your candle.  But back there, just where the darkness begins,
they are confused and wandering, going and coming in no particular
direction, before you had the candle's friendly light.  Lonely footprints.

Something brushes your cheek.  Then it is gone.  You pause and look around.
 Nothing.   You go on.  But there it is again.  This time it stays; a
breeze, a gentle breeze.  Still cold but it is nothing really and you
continue on.  The breeze strengthens and the flame leans away.  Concerned,
you watch.  Then, reassured, you continue forward.

But the wind grows and the flame leans more.  Anxious, you try to shield it
with your hand but the wind prevails and grows.  The flame leans more and
more and begins to shake.  You try to protect it with your body, hunkering
down to the ground.  The stream of air begins to tear the yellow flame from
the wick.  It roars.  You are really worried now.

Triumphantly the darkness creeps in and your world shrinks. The wind grows.
 The flame turns blue at the base, streaming out level with the ground.
And still the roar gets louder, and the dark gets nearer.

Now the wind is a gale and the roar of the flame buffets your ears.  The
wind threatens to blow you over. Desperately you curl up like a baby,
nursing the flame, the precious precious flame. When will it all end?  When
will the wind triumph?  Roaring wind and roaring flame.  Deafening.

Just then a thought occurs to you.  That roar is like that of a lion!  A
mighty lion challenging the world!  The angry blue at the base of the flame
is the source of the sound, echoing its defiance of the darkness. Roaring
back at the darkness just as if it were alive.

Then suddenly you know; this flame is special.   It cannot be put out.

With just that thought the wind is gone. The flame grows tall again, taller
than before, taller then ever a candle flame really is; the darkness is
thrown back cowering back until it vanishes and you see the world in all
its beauty.  A world you did not even know was there.

The candle is even as long as it was when you lit it.  It will last
forever.

The realization is firm in your mind now.  This is the Light that can never
be put out. It will bend before the wind and you may lose your faith in it,
but It will never die. The Darkness will always be defeated.

Your Light is the Light of the World.

It is with you even unto the end of time.


Elvin
Evlnt -at- worldnet -dot- att -dot- net