What language you you trying to use? In the bourne, ksh, bash type shells, you do stuff like this:
FILE=/tmp/output.txt
date > $FILE
This does not change the value of FILE. In your first script you are using a here-document. The last line of your script is the end of the here-document. It does not need to be the end of the script. You can keep on going and do more stuff. Go to our FAQ section and read the article on automating ftp jobs. There are a lot of examples there.