Thank you, @denmarkguy - it's so good to see you!
And what have you been doing with yourself? Hopefully you've rebound from the shop and on to bigger, better things?
I have to admit that I got complacent because I'd had that gig and was pretty happy with steady money. I did it to myself but you're right, I have been doing this for a while and something always comes up. The big bills are paid and I've still got a few weeks of breathing room. By then, I'm confident that things will pick up. I've got a lot of feelers out.
I know I'm a hard worker. Why dedicate time and soul to someone else's dream? The problem is, my vision is going to take time. LOL The struggle is real!
There is definitely life after shopkeeping! For the most part, I'm back to being an editor; books mostly. It has been a slow start and pretty slow going... it's what I used to do, but there's a lot more competition these days from people in SE Asia with English degrees from US Universities.
I still write. I still work on art. My wife and I still have our non-profit. I'm still pretty active with this-and-that on eBay.
The struggle is definitely real! But then again, nobody ever said that Living the Creative Life was going to be easy...
I'm really glad to hear that you've rebound. There was a point in time that it seemed we were both going through parallel hardships. The unknown, quite frankly, sucks. Editing is definitely a competitive field. Is there a genre that you lean toward?