949. Sometimes You Just Have To Go For It

“At major turning points in our lives, the circumstances are rarely perfect for us to make the next move or decision about what to do next. The obstacles may be vast, but it’s at this point that you may need to ‘throw your hat over the fence’ or, in other words, ‘just go for it!’ I was in the publishing field as an editor and while I was very good at it, I felt I should be doing my own work. My brother was quite unhappy with his work at an architectural engineering firm. We went out to dinner together and made a pact that, instead of continually complaining about our circumstances, we would go into work the next day and hand in our notices by noon. I was almost 30 and he was almost 35. We each did just that with no plan whatsoever about what we were going to do next. Our main goal was to simply quit whining about our lives and do something about it. Jason become a successful freelance architect and designer, and I landed a job working for a film distribution and production company. And our stories evolved quickly from there!”

Allegra Huston is the author of “Love Child: A Memoir of Family Lost and Found” (audiobook 2019), the novel “A Stolen Summer” (paperback 2019), and many screenplays including the award-winning short film “Good Luck, Mr. Gorski,” which she also produced. In 2019 she co-founded Twice 5 Miles, to publish how-to books on “the stuff nobody teaches you.” The first two titles are “How to Read for an Audience” by Allegra and “How to Edit and Be Edited” by Allegra and James Nave – both are the only books available on these subjects.