[dahart]

I’ve written a few academic papers on my own time after grad school. It wasn’t much harder than writing papers while in school, it just took some nights & weekends time, and I had to work a little to find people willing and capable of reviewing the papers and giving feedback. It cost a bit of personal money to present at a conference whenever a paper was accepted, but it was what I wanted to do so it never bothered me.

I’m not sure I understand the question though, what seems like the hardest part of writing, what is stopping you from doing it now? Lots and lots of people write in their spare time, and there are plenty who write on academic topics and submit papers to journals and conferences. Is it finding the time, or doing the research? Being motivated, or fear about being accepted as an academic while not part of an academic institution?

FWIW, you can certainly research & write on academic topics without trying to publish in journals. Plenty of people have blogs with articles that could be journal papers if they had only a splash of formality. Lots of people are more interested in doing the reading & writing than they are in publishing. Quite a few people like that here on HN.

[r0rbit]

I think what seems to be the hardest part is to not only find the time but combat the imposter syndrome of not producing research within an academic context/with supervision. Also, reduced access to scientific databases is a bit of a turndown, we used to get it at uni.

Not all that interested in publishing in academic journals persé.

[borroka]

Writing scientific papers for decent journals is time-consuming. You need to write your findings in the context of the scientific discipline, previous results, be formal in the context of the discipline, write decently well and, most of all, have novel and interesting results to show.

As for databased or access to journals, luckily there is SciHub.

[dahart]

Access to journals is a good point. I’ve had some access through jobs, and some access through alumni accounts. You might check with your alma mater whether you have alumni access to their databases. Sometimes a proxy into the school’s network is sufficient, via an account into your old department. I would also sometimes ask academic friends to grab copies of papers I needed.

[AnimalMuppet]

You are you. You are not the name of the organization where you spend your time. If your research is good, it's good whether or not you did it in an academic setting.

The supervision might actually matter. But you might be able to get some. Pick the best of your former professors. Drop them an email, giving your approach. Ask if they see any red flags. If they say yes, listen.