tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post498636099196453184..comments2009-11-18T21:44:17.477-05:00Sandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02108785153248826337noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-18810595022965059882009-11-18T21:44:17.630-05:002009-11-18T21:44:17.630-05:00I love hearing that someone else left a perfectly good job to pursue what they love. I never thought I&#39;d like essentially being an unpaid freelance writer/editor/poet while my husband works. But I do :) <br /><br />I would hope, at some point, to get paid for some of it!<br /><br />Congrats!Jessie Cartyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13181286764480973423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-17814314469404457722009-11-11T15:04:42.085-05:002009-11-11T15:04:42.085-05:00I got here entirely by accident, but I really enjoyed this piece. It reminds me why I&#39;m still pursuing this writing thing, albeit haphazardly.The Quarter Life Affairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07187743099499566680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12844162.post-61286397681669826782009-11-06T23:15:00.372-05:002009-11-06T23:15:00.372-05:00Enjoyed the essay.<br /><br />In 1986 I up and quit a job I&#39;d been at for eight years. The job paid well (union scale wages), had good insurance benefits, good vacation time, etc. Not an ideal job, by any means -- there were things about it I detested -- but there were too many things about it that were good (or at least useful) to just leave it behind. Until I did.<br /><br />The more or less immediate reason, in my case, was that the employer was starting to require us to work forced overtime, 12 days in a row followed by two days off followed by 12 more days working followed by... indefinitely, no end in sight. After a few months of that I left.<br /><br />Amid the other things I did in the years after that (going to vo-tech school, working at various other jobs, etc.), I had a lot of time to write, and so I did. I went to a writers&#39; conference, then three years later went to another one. I went to lots of open-mike readings. I stayed up late a lot. Things like that.<br /><br />Eventually, four jobs and a decade later, I wound up back at the company I&#39;d quit ten years earlier, or more or less the same company, it having gone through a couple of corporate upheavals in the between years, and a different job from the one I&#39;d been at the first time around. By now I&#39;ve been back there about thirteen years.<br /><br />Always, through all of it, I&#39;ve kept writing.<br /><br />It&#39;s all been worth it.Lyle Daggetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10731915540520704368noreply@blogger.com