Writing as a career

A change is as good as a …. new career.

I have actually been writing as a job for over a decade. It’s funny to look back at now, but I could have been doing it for many more years (and even decades) if I had followed career advice I was given while still at school.

I was actually encouraged by my Yr 12 English teacher to become a journalist. That was back in the ’80s (yes, you read that right) and she even convinced me to do work experience with the local television station. There was one problem with that idea at the time. I was incredibly shy, and the idea of putting my name on anything that someone might read was up there amongst the worst ideas I could think of.

Thankfully I started to get confidence in myself, though it was still not until the early 2000’s and I became a mother that I decided to go back to university. Even then, it had nothing to do with writing. Not intentionally, anyway.

I had been working as a photographer for a number of years and wanted to study something to do with photography. The only option available locally was journalism. So I enrolled. Next thing I knew I’d quit my office job and headed off to work in a regional newspaper as a photojournalist. This meant I had the best of both worlds. I was not only spending my day taking photographs but I was also writing stories. This time around, I was quite thrilled to see my name in print. What a difference about 15 years makes.

What about you? Have you reinvented your career?