The Foreign Service Journal, January 2006

J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 29 y father once told me that “writing is a good cane, but a poor crutch.” That is, writing can be a useful, interesting, profitable supplement to a solid professional income, but attempt- ing to earn your living that way can leave you seated in that proverbial garret, if not actively starving in it. For many of us, particularly those in the old retire- ment system, the FS annuity offers a solid “crutch,” putting us in a position to twirl our “cane” rather jauntily. The incentive for a post-Foreign Service writing career is that many retired FSOs have already devoted their careers to writing. The downside is that we have spent our careers devoted to writing — for bureaucrats. Nobody — not even another bureaucrat —wants to read bureaucratic writing. Indeed, members of the Foreign Service Journal Editorial Board regularly recount episodes in which a potentially fascinating story drawn from Foreign Service life is written in the leaden, memo- to-the-Secretary prose that simply kills all interest. Nevertheless, writing can provide a legitimate post- Foreign Service career, and there are a number of avenues for its pursuit. Return to Mother State This may not be a particularly adventurous career move, but substantial numbers of When Actually Employed Foreign Service annuitants work within State. It has the advantage of addressing your mortgage and car payments with hourly remuneration. While many retired FSOs are employed in positions close to those they occupied at different stages in their active-duty career (desk officer, conference coordinator, fill-in con- sular officer, etc.), some are engaged in what are sub- stantially writing/editorial positions. These include, from my personal experience: Drafting/editing human rights reports. Written in user-hostile, bill-of-lading prose, the annual country human rights reports emphasize facts and formula. Almost everyone has had experience with the HRRs during an active-duty career — if you were not a drafter in an early overseas tour or a reviewing official at a more senior level, at least you read the report for the country to which you were assigned. There is a prescribed for- mat and scripted prose to transform the embassy’s draft into a final country report. Each year a number of WAEs work on these reports in the fall and winter, researching additional points, drafting supplementary language, edit- ing the texts, and coordinating them with country desk officers and embassies. The drafting/editing process and nonliterary result are close to the Foreign Service stan- F O C U S O N F S R E T I R E M E N T W RITING AS A P OST -FS C AREER : A G OOD C ANE M W RITING FOR THE S TATE D EPARTMENT IN ONE GUISE OR ANOTHER IS FAMILIAR AND COMFORTABLE , BUT THERE ARE MANY OTHER AVENUES FOR PUBLICATION . B Y D AVID T. J ONES