Wednesday 15 February 2012

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.






3 comments:

  1. Oh Nicola, thank you for your kind words - and thank you for sharing your experiences too. It gives me a great deal of hope :) x

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  2. You are so right Nicola. When I wasn't taken on by my chambers at the end of pupillage I thought it was a disaster. 7 years on it looks like one of the best strokes of luck I ever had. That kind of experience really allows you to think about what you really want to do and to overcome the inertia that prevents you from doing it.....it is tough at the time all the same.... R

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  3. Thanks both. Maybe that's what we say to make ourselves feel better after the fact too- 'it worked out for the best' - but the funny thing is it always does seem to be true.

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