Joined: 13 Sep 2005 Posts: 194 Location: San Diego, CA
Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 10:34 pm Post subject: Has anyone here "pulled a Clotilde"?
I have to admit, it's very very American of me to create a new verb out of Clotilde's experience of going from a software engineer to a published author (among many other things), but on the eve of her first (of many, I hope) cookbook going public, I thought you might all forgive me this one time.
Back to my question: We all know that Clotilde was a software engineer who took her interest in food and cooking to new and sophisticated heights with this blog and has launched herself into the realm of public persona and published author. Has anyone else on the boards started out with a full-time day job and a sidebar hobby or passion, and then, had that hobby or passion turn into their career or something that changed the course of their lives?
Although I have not experienced this in my life, I find Clotilde's story inspiring. _________________ "Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" --- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Joined: 30 Sep 2004 Posts: 1654 Location: Penrith (where jacarandas remind me of change), New South Wales, Australia
Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 1:22 am Post subject:
what a lovely post _________________ "I've never accepted the external appearance of things as the whole truth. The world is much more elaborate than the nerves of our eye can tell us." - James Gleeson
Joined: 13 Nov 2004 Posts: 899 Location: Gold Coast Australia
Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 9:11 am Post subject:
My career in wine started as a passion. One day a friend who was setting up a wine distribution business offered me a job and it became a career for 7 years. I loved it and really miss the industry. _________________ Barbara
Well...my husband and I hope to be on the verge. He's a programmer by day, jetsetting photographer whenever he can. Earlier this year we created a business plan...if all goes well for the first two years with me managing the business side of things, he'll be able to make his photography a full time gig.
As for me, I was a single mom for years making ends meet through various admin jobs. Since my husband and I have been homemaking together for going on five years now and things have settled down, this June 19th I'll finally be going back to school for graphic design. Woo-hoo, yay!!!
I always wanted to be an archaeologist. From as far back as I can remember.
I left home before I finished high school. So I could not afford to go to university, it was hard enough finishing high school.
Anyway, had jobs and enjoyed them, but always dreamed. I was working in tourism/National Parks with a boss who was fabulous - and was an archaeologist......
When we were both made redundant from National Parks she took up archaeology again full time, and told me that I was going to work with her and go to university.
Voila! My dream became a reality. Now I work in a field that I love and am passionate about.
I always tell people that they are never too old (or whatever the excuse is going to be) to change careers. Passion and drive, as well as belief in yourself are all that you need to make the move. _________________ If you cannot feel your arteries hardening, eat more cheese. If you can, drink more red wine. Diet is just "die" with a "t" on the end. Exercise is walking into the kitchen.
Have I ever "pulled a Clotilde"?
LOL--not even close!!!
But then, I never had an overwhelming career "passion"--I'm very lucky to be interested in almost everything--once you excavate (thanks, Debbie!) the tiniest bit into any subject you find a lifetime of study if you want it.. The internet, of course, is perfect for this type of mind/temperament.
Joined: 29 Sep 2004 Posts: 1196 Location: buried under a pile of books somewhere in Adelaide, South Australia
Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 4:10 am Post subject:
Yes, I have.
Anyone who has read these forums since the end of last year may remember when I quit my nursing job after 26 years to see if I could turn my online bookselling hobby into a business that would support me financially.
I have always loved books and everything about them - the feel of the pages, the smell of old books, the wonderful tales they weave. I started selling a few of my own books 3 years ago, and I'm now selling new and pre-loved books on 3 auction sites and on my own website. Our house has boxes of books (and audiobooks - my partner Greg is also an online retailer) everywhere, the only way we can stop working is to physically leave the house, I still love books and haven't missed nursing for a second. Life is wonderful.
So it's all working out, better than I had hoped in fact. Do I wish I'd quit nursing years before I actually did? No, I did really love it, but the shift work, the internal politics and the poor staffing levels were what finally pushed me to quit.
WARNING! Shameless self-promotion coming up ....
Any Antipodeans who don't yet have a copy of Clotilde's Cookbook can buy the US version from me here _________________ Doing what you like is freedom
Liking what you do is happiness
I did exactly what Judy did---gave up a nursing career, for all the same reasons and opened a bookstore---for all the same reasons! _________________ Vivant Linguae Mortuae!!
When I was 40, a long time ago, I left my job as Head of Events & Guests Office at the Public Relation Department at Tel Aviv University and changed my hobby into a "profession": I began to cook. Actually , when I was five years old, I was asked by a family friend what I want to do when I grow up . I answered. without any hesitation: A cook. My mother was horrified: no decent romanian jewish girl was meant to be a !!! a cook!!! ( the word "Chef" had other meanings in those prehistorical days). So I waited to really grow up, studied a lot of interesting but non-useful and non-practical things ( in Paris!!), and then, at 40, I was ready to do what I already knew when I was 5 YO.
I have an Appetizers cookbbok in my computer, which is stucked. Hopefully I'll be able to give it birth one of these days.
No more war, more guts to do and be what we really want!
Simona, I didn't know you were Romanian...I have Romanian roots as well. Which, now that I think of it, leads me to my grandmother's "pulling a Clotilde" when she was a girl...only more out of necessity than inspiration I suppose.
Joined: 29 Sep 2004 Posts: 1196 Location: buried under a pile of books somewhere in Adelaide, South Australia
Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:39 am Post subject:
Just wanted to briefly revisit this topic since one of Clotilde's Perth Writers Festival sessions was about Living the Dream.
If you don't know my story, you just have to scroll a few posts back to see what I used to do, and how I 'pulled a Clotilde'. And to draw this thread into a circle, the very first book I ever sold on my website, waaaay back in June last year, was a copy of THE C&Z Cookbook. I was so thrilled, both because it was that very special book, and because I'd actually SOLD something on my very own still-very-new website! _________________ Doing what you like is freedom
Liking what you do is happiness
Yeesh! I'm 'living the dream' in reverse!! I realised in 1985 when I was doing meaningless temp jobs that I wanted to do something different but didn't know what. I was teaching myself about art history and literature so I knew it had to be something to do with either of those.
Then I got a temp job at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, part of which was taking the internal post around the Pavilion but also the museum. Hey presto I knew I wanted to be a curator and work with those fabulous things!
I went off to university as a mature student, got a BA in Art History and Literature and became a volunteer at Bruce Castle Museum in Tottenham, north London. Which led to work, not very well paid but that was ok because I was going to be - a Curator! I had to start somewhere after all. I worked there for almost three years until the money ran out and I was moved to the Library - where I very soon realised I did NOT want to work despite being a bookaholic.
Having worked in 6 museums and gained almost six and a half years museum experience I was unemployed and low... and it occurred to me to ask - why do you keep doing this?
So I quit museum work about a year ago and became a Note-taker for students with Disabilities and Additional Needs at Loughborough University with the DANS squad! But I see this as a stopgap job until I figure out what I want to do next... and I really don't know what I want to do next.
It is much harder because at my age, most people are settled in their job and have houses/families of their own. I don't. I'm still living with my dad and have no hope of ever being able to buy a home of my own.
So I have chosen escape. By day I go to all kinds of lectures, some of which I even understand and I take notes for students. When I can, I write stories and try to get my costume collection together.
I began with the dream, but it vanished into air and now it's just that, a distant dream. If I ever get any one of my novels finished and in good shape then maybe, just maybe I'll be a published writer. For now, my writing is for me and those I love. And bah! Humbug! to the world!... so there! _________________ Confusion comes fitted as standard.
Griffin, I know that feeling...too many choices make it impossible to act. You have such varied interests & aptitudes, it's impossible to hold yourself to just one thing, right? Sometimes I wonder if it isn't going to turn out to be a big hodge podge of different attempts, all adding up to nothing - with no significant body of work to show for it and and no real home or other happy attachments either.
I just started back to school for my second BA...this one was supposed to be in commercial art, so I could do something I love and make a legitimate living for myself too. Now I've quit my job, started a divorce, getting ready to leave my home in June only to discover halfway into my first year of art school that I don't want to do commercial art. I'm grappling with my leanings toward fine art & the idea of "art for art's sake" and the whole concept that I'm spending all this money & energy to not gain a single marketable skill?!
And then what will I be when I grow up? I'll have to work in an office the rest of my life to make ends meet, just like I always have, only I'll be a frustrated artist as well, with talent and education but no money for materials and no outlet.
OMG! It sounds so much worse when you lay it all out in writing.
You love costumes, why don't you go to work in the theater? You could be a tailor or a designer and then you'd have all kinds of new experiences to write about when you retire.
It can't be too bad living with your dad, can it? I know too many people who don't see their parents at all. At least you're not missing out on that special relationship - no matter how tiring the situation may seem at times. He's lucky to have you around.
Joined: 29 Sep 2004 Posts: 2498 Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 4:36 pm Post subject:
Griffin- I have wondered many times — perhaps this is an opportunity to ask — why you don't write a guide for tourists or a book about a museum that's of particular interest to you.
Writing is one of your gifts whether you chose it as a career or not and your personality would fill someone unfamiliar with a city or an area with enthusiasm while your special insights could make the charms of a collection or architectural features living, vivid things. Meanwhile, if you were to choose to write an extensive story of the history and collections of a particular museum I bet you'd be making the opportunity to get to steep yourself in the objects themselves.
You are too gifted and too enthusiastic to go unrecognized. You just may need to make people stop and pay attention to it a little at first. A big metropolitan area is a different animal than a tiny dedicated blog but if you can demonstrate to a publisher what we have all seen and treasured here, I'm sure it will happen! I wish it for Britain's sake! _________________ God writes a lot of comedy... the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny. -- Garrison Keillor
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a cook!!! 
( the word "Chef" had other meanings in those prehistorical days). So I waited to really grow up, studied a lot of interesting but non-useful and non-practical things ( in Paris!!), and then, at 40, I was ready to do what I already knew when I was 5 YO.
