I've known folks who knew what they wanted to do when they grow up while they were still in grade school. Others who've retired from the same trade or profession they started in. And quite a few who fell into a comfortable career by pure luck.
That's not me. I've never decided what I want to do when I grow up, and I've never managed to stay fascinated with anything (except a really interesting man) for much more than a decade.
There was the Coca-Cola bottling plant--my stepfather's--where I worked on the bottling line, later became the bookkeeper and finally the manager... Along the way I acquired the love of my life, four children, several cats, and a lot of books. Eventually I returned to school, sampled several disciplines, and ended up with a MS in Systematic Botany, which led to my years as an environmental consultant, a job that required a lot of report writing. But one winter I was laid up, alone in the house with a computer, so I wrote a book, something I'd always dreamed of doing. It was awful!
Eventually, with a lot of help and encouragement along the way, that awful book turned into a pretty good story, encouraging me to write another and another... Eventually I gave up consulting and spent all my time writing--romances, because I simply couldn't write a story without a happy ending. After a disagreement with an editor who thought his vision for my current story was better than mine, I began thinking of self-publishing. Until my youngest daughter said, "I've always thought it would be fun to be a publisher," which was the seed that grew into an ebook publishing enterprise that occupied us both for seventeen years.
Here are links to some of the paths I've taken. Share some of the twists and turns with me, and offer suggestions if there is something you'd like to see here (or would not)...
This is still a work in progress. More is coming...slowly, as I figure out how to make each change apear the way I want it to. Check back...