Twists and turns

I was just inspired by a great post over at Skinny Latte Strikes Back. Pop over there and see for yourself. It is about redundancy and what that feels like, and how it can feel awful but also inspire you to pursue your dreams.

This is something I know about from personal experience, having been made redundant from my editing job at the end of 2007. I wanted to leave anyway, and had been trying to figure out how to do so - but it still came as a shock.

I never would have imagined, before leaving that publishing job, that I could be a writer - I thought a writer was a different kind of person, whose mind just worked differently to mine. But somehow, being ejected out of my previous role made me see the world differently, and freed up my thinking. I began doing freelance editing and copywriting, and I took a journalism course. The copywriting turned into a year's maternity cover, full time. I could have stopped there, but when that year was over, I decided to take the leap into part-time work in 2009. I still wasn't entirely sure what I would do on my other two days, but I knew I wanted to do something different. And I ended up writing a book. Partly for my own enjoyment; partly to see if I could do it - and it paid off. I juggled it with other freelance work, and I didn't pin any financial hopes on it, but it happened nonetheless. And it would never have happened, had I not been made redundant.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying, I hope that anyone who's made redundant right now is able to find a glimmer of hope in stories like mine. I learned that life rarely turns out the way you imagined - but sometimes, it can surprise you with something even better.