I quit my PhD in English at age 30, when my first wife left me. Did a lot of low-rent freelance media work, video and audio ad production, and started doing we

I quit my PhD in English at age 30, when my first wife left me. Did a lot of low-rent freelance media work, video and audio ad production, and started doing websites. That's just gotten better over the last 12 years. Stuff takes time. 5 years is a lot longer than you'd think if you're 35. Also, while I don't think I could get a gig at a bigco, that's okay- there are a lot of boring, okay paying jobs out there in small companies. For me the entry was doing shit websites at an agecny for $12/hr to build a resume, and then 5 years of freelancing at ever increasing rates. That's a shitty hustle and I'd probably just go get my journeyman electrical if I had to do it over again. But it can be done. One of the best things to happen to me is to start playing music with 60 and 70 year olds in my mid 30s. The reality it showed me is that 35 is quite young and 5 years is a long time.