Jake, The Box is scary to be carrying too, isn’t it? I remember my box day — I saw it coming, so it was a small box, but it wasn’t any less terrifying.

That’s a definite turning point! That was one tough climate. As you know, very few people were hiring. I’ve no idea how you made it in that environment, but that you did speaks volumes of your business chops, for sure.

My wife still talks with horror about the day I came home from my last corporate job carrying The Box. (We’d talked about it for months, but still, I was the only income for a family of four, which made it a wee bit scary. Of course, that also lit a serious fire under my butt to hustle.) Like you, best decision I ever made!

I’m not sure I had a specific turning point, but I’d say surviving the 2001 economic climate was the achievement that made me realize I had the chops to be in business for myself. As you say, I had to “make it happen” when client budgets dwindled and a few disappeared altogether.

Thank you, Paula! You inspire me to keep doing this, and you always contribute great content.

Mary, you and I share a similar turning point. I was a part-time, piecing-it-together freelancer. Then a divorce happened. Nothing motivates like need. From there I went on to a full-time magazine staff job (with no degree, but one in the works), and then I got fired three years later.

Again, the motivation was in wanting to survive. That’s when this full-time freelancing career started. I continued to have epiphanies and turning points, and each one has made me stronger.

You can do it. You’re already doing it.

Oh! And a huge THANK YOU, Lori, for another wonderful and illuminating Writers Worth Month!

Freelancing went from being a part-time income to a necessary money generator. I’d been out of the workplace for over a decade. I had no degree, and no career experience to speak of. Like most of my family, I married young and worked retail, waitressing, and janitorial jobs until it became necessary to homeschool my son.

I learned about a content production company with assigned work and guaranteed pay- (As opposed to the “on spec” submissions I’d been used to with fiction writing.) I applied, started writing regularly for them, and started taking my business seriously.

It took a while, and thank heavens for my Mom who has been my rock. I felt I reached “success” when I realized that taking a full-time minimum wage job was out of the question- I can’t afford the drop in income.

I have a long way to go on this crazy journey, but as long as I can feed my kids and keep this old heap going, it’s worth it.