There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time.

There are a lot of people who think the thing stopping them from writing that great novel they plan to write is the fact that their job takes up all their time. In fact what's stopping 99% of them is that writing novels is hard. When the job goes away, they see how hard. This resonates. I quit my dot-com job before the bubble burst and I had order 10^4 dollars in my bank account. I decided that rather than invest the money in an apartment house, or pay off debt from college, I would take some time off, and just... see what happened. I had enough money that if I wanted to get into e.g. videography, I could go out and buy a nice video camera and a computer to edit my movies (storage was a lot more expensive back then, no way to do this sort of thing on an iPhone!). If I wanted to get really into mountaineering, I could buy a bunch of gear and go wild. This was a first for me, my family and I had always been pretty broke as I grew up. And what happened? Well, I rediscovered my enjoyment of life drawing, and went to some open sessions, the kind where you pay $10 and everybody draws from the model. And I hung out with friends a lot, and basically re-socialized myself to learn how to relax and have a good time with people. And I ate out a lot, and I partied, and I horsed around. Oh yeah, and I discovered that I really like to run in the woods, up and down hills on narrow trails. But essentially, there was no 'passion' uncovered by that freedom. I discovered my passion when I went back to work. I was sick of programming for money, so I got a job in a molecular neurobiology lab. And that was 9 years ago, and I've been busting ass and totally engaged with science ever since. FU money would be great, but in some ways I feel I already had an experience of it -- or at least, of some of the more interesting things that can come of it. I do feel like I'll drown if I stop treading water, it would be nice to be rid of that sensation.