I’m a high school drop-out come high school teacher. I’ve now taught in high schools for significantly longer than I attended one. I’d quite like to drop out again, to be honest, but my mum won’t let me. Nor will aforementioned dependents. They’ve all grown quite accustomed to the money I contribute towards their food and shelter; it seems.
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So, how does one pivot from teaching to writing when grapes cost $24 a bag now… they start a wordy side hustle. 
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What started as a message to my sister about an episode of Bluey turned into an article I sent to Mamamia on a whim, assuming I had bugger all hope of hearing anything back (ever the optimist). I was on the beach with my babies later on that day when I received an email from an editor at Mamamia who said really nice things about my writing AND that she’d pay me $150 to publish it. I gasped and wept and anyone watching would have thought I’d just received life changing news because, to me, I did. Why? Well… until that moment, lovely reader – I was not privy to this whole… you know… people paying me money for my words, thing. I didn’t really know that it was an option for me. But then I did. And that changed everything.