Huh, that's really a good question. I mean, in some ways, that would require telling my whole life story. :)
But the basic outline would be this:
After college, I went to journalism school, thinking I wanted to be a science writer. I decided pretty quickly that I didn't like reporting, so I left the program after the first year and went back to academic grad school in history of science.
After two years in the Ph.D. program, I was burned out. I was fighting depression, had had several physical illnesses (wrist problems, pneumonia, chicken pox), and didn't really see where I was going to fit in in the academic world. So I took a year off. As it happened, I never went back; got the master's and called it done.
I needed a job for that year off, so I applied for various things. One was an editorial job at Houghton Mifflin. I ended up getting hired for a totally different position there, as an editorial assistant working on elementary social studies textbooks. In short order, they made me an editor, and I stayed there for four and a half years on a series of contract jobs. Then I worked at a dotcom doing online college history books for a year and a half; then I freelanced for a while before getting hired at my previous job, and then moving to my new job.
In the interim, of course, I discovered the NPL and local theater communities (and LARPs; see previous answer!), which shaped the non-work parts of my life.
There was a point -- ten years ago, almost! -- when I almost packed up and moved back to Colorado. After a night out with friends (<lj user=claudia_, do you remember that?), I realized that was going to be a bad idea, and decided not to. I'm glad; I might never have encountered the NPL, among other things, had I done that.
That was probably more than you wanted to know. :) Sorry!
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-01-11 04:14 am (UTC)But the basic outline would be this:
After college, I went to journalism school, thinking I wanted to be a science writer. I decided pretty quickly that I didn't like reporting, so I left the program after the first year and went back to academic grad school in history of science.
After two years in the Ph.D. program, I was burned out. I was fighting depression, had had several physical illnesses (wrist problems, pneumonia, chicken pox), and didn't really see where I was going to fit in in the academic world. So I took a year off. As it happened, I never went back; got the master's and called it done.
I needed a job for that year off, so I applied for various things. One was an editorial job at Houghton Mifflin. I ended up getting hired for a totally different position there, as an editorial assistant working on elementary social studies textbooks. In short order, they made me an editor, and I stayed there for four and a half years on a series of contract jobs. Then I worked at a dotcom doing online college history books for a year and a half; then I freelanced for a while before getting hired at my previous job, and then moving to my new job.
In the interim, of course, I discovered the NPL and local theater communities (and LARPs; see previous answer!), which shaped the non-work parts of my life.
There was a point -- ten years ago, almost! -- when I almost packed up and moved back to Colorado. After a night out with friends (<lj user=claudia_, do you remember that?), I realized that was going to be a bad idea, and decided not to. I'm glad; I might never have encountered the NPL, among other things, had I done that. That was probably more than you wanted to know. :) Sorry!