Career change ahead?

Posted July 24th, 2009

I lost another week to Twitter.

It's really not that bad. I also wrote another chapter for my book on Cocoa Programming, wrote an article for the second edition of the Prag Pub magazine, produced a couple of podcasts, edited a submission to a conference proceeding, and edited a bunch of chapters for books I'm shepherding.

It was actually a tweet that got me thinking about all this. My friend @JazzPreacher wrote "If you could choose a new career right now, but you had to start tomorrow morning – what career path would you take?"

It's an excellent question.  Perhaps it's the editor in me, but I'd like to strike the word "new" from his question.

I love what I do. I read, write, and edit books. I should probably clarify that last bit. I'm not a copy editor, I'm a development editor. I don't spend my day correcting punctuation, spelling, and grammar — we have a great copy editor at the Prags who does that for us. I spend my day working with authors to help them tell their stories more clearly in their own voices.

When I'm not doing that, I'm working with audio. I'm capturing stories that other people tell and helping to craft them for different target listening audiences.

In short, I'm on the career path I would choose. Sure, there are projects I would like to have more time for and clients I would love to take on, but I love being in the business of story telling.

What about you? If you could change careers would you? The change doesn't have to be dramatic, it could be a subtle change within the same exact job that you have now. It could be a dramatic change. Even if you would choose the exact same career you have, what can you do to take control so that you get cooler assignments?