Webwords

You left your job of 15 years? What were you thinking? You had security and seniority. You had fun with your colleagues and your students, and you got paid every two weeks. Now you’re…a writer? That cliché about poor starving artists might be true, you know.

But you aren’t listening. Since you gave your notice a month ago, you’ve been, OK, a little nervous, but mostly relieved. You worked too hard for too long, and when the writing and editing work built up, you had to choose between teaching and freelance work. You’ve chosen to focus on your goals, and you’re self-employed now.

A writing career isn’t what you thought it would be when you first dreamed of being a writer as a child. Back then, you couldn’t have imagined working at a computer or corresponding by email. Even until you first went online seven years ago, research took a long time. Now you can find a lot of information while sitting in your desk chair. You’re even writing in a genre that didn’t exist until recently — web writing.

Your path won’t be easy, but it would’ve been more difficult not to take this path. As you told your friends, “I realized a few years ago that if I didn’t change my path now, I’d end up being 65 and thinking that I had a good career teaching, but I never did what I always wanted to do.”

Still, until you settle into your new routine and see steady revenue coming in, you’ll still have this thought now and then: “You what?!”