Thank you so much for the kind comments. I’m so glad you’re enjoying the series. A molto grazie to Michelle for the idea, questions and opportunity.

Hey Jen

We do get joy out of what we do, but I can’t emphasize enough how hard it is, because so many people say to us that we have the dream job. Sure we get to travel the world, see great places, meet amazing people etc etc, but for the last 3.5 years we’ve only had 3 days off per year. Not a day goes by when we’re not working, and we are literally living our jobs.

When people talk about work-life separation, and segmenting their lives, we have no idea what they’re talking about because ours are completely entwined, our work is our life, our life is our work. And at the moment we’re both completely shattered – we’ve had 5 weeks on the road in Mallorca, which isn’t much fun in the heat, and we’ve each done a couple of all-nighters to finish our work in time… so, I don’t mean to put a downer on things for people, but I think it’s important to understand that if you want to make it lucrative you have to work hard.

Hi Shelly

I’m glad Michelle put that quote in bold too! But please understand that I *was* precious about my writing once upon a time. When I first started I would labour over pieces, whether it was a 100 word box or a 2000 word story. And I would get so sensitive when an editor changed things. With time, I simply got over it. The more you write, the easier it becomes.

If I have my notes in front of me I can write a really good 80-100 word restaurant or hotel review for a guidebook now in about 5-10 minutes. If I want it to be perfect and push myself a bit creatively I might take 15-20 minutes but I’ll only do that if I’m being paid well for the task. If the editors change it so be it. As long as they don’t change the meaning or impression, I’m fine with it.

It’s the only way you can be – there are too many more important things to worry about in the world. They’re just words. There are plenty around and we all have plenty more opportunities to use them.

Hi Jo

I’ve never been lucky actually. I never bet on anything or enter contests or anything, because I have never had any luck winning anything. My whole life I’ve made my own luck.

My dad’s side of the family were dairy farmers whose ancestors arrived in Australia from England on the first fleet (when Australia was first colonised by the British in 1788 for the non-Aussies); my mother’s side of the family were more intellectual but they were post-World War 2 Russian immigrants so they worked in factories when they arrived in Australia. So while my parents became small business people and my mother a professional (an accountant), and I have a university education (with several degrees), I’m sure the pastoral/working class ancestry (and protestant work ethic!) had more to do with shaping who I am than middle class privilege and luck.

I’ve always believed that we create our own opportunities. I’ve worked in education so I strongly believe that you need to dream and aspire to something and then learn whatever you need to and accumulate whatever skills and knowledge are required to get you where you dream of being.

I think the Calabria book was around book number 36 or something for us (I’d have to do a count) – we’ve worked on over 40 books now – so getting that commission was based on our track record, our ability to research and write and photograph books, rather than luck.

Thanks again for reading, everyone!
.-= lara dunston´s last blog ..In print and online =-.

Hee hee, luckily we also have lots of recipes here you can try

.-= Esme´s last blog ..Giveaway for Off Season =-.

Completely agreed!

.-= Ice Tea For Me´s last blog ..italia – i made it =-.

I am always amazed at how lucky we (I suppose I mean middle class Australians) have been in the past to be able to make our passion our careers. These days you would have been counselled to do course X followed by course Y etc. and then by the time you graduated you would feel like all the joy had been sucked out of the passion.

Then again maybe we shouldn’t forget that “the lucky country” was meant to be ironic. So was it hard work rather than luck that got you both a job doing Calabria? Or were you both open to the possibilities?
Jo

Well Jo, it seems to me they’ve created luck for themselves through a lot of hard work–and remember they work all over the world!

Also, if you hover the cursor over the photos, you can see the descriptions.