Okay. I gave notice at work today. It was pretty flexible notice, granted. I basically said I'd work through the end of this year and, assuming they bring in someone to replace me, and that person takes actual responsibility for the reformat and relaunch of my newsletter that they want to do in January, I'd be willing to stay on for as long as a couple months to write some copy and smooth the transition while the new editor gets up to speed.

So there are a few ways they could play this. (They already missed their chance to shrilly abuse me for my lack of loyalty and throw me out immediately.)

They might let me finish the current issue of the newsletter, the last one of this year, and decide they have nothing to gain by paying me for those last two weeks. I'm out of there in the middle of December.

They might take my original stake in the ground and go with it. I finish the last issue, then basically putter around doing columns through the holidays for them to publish as needed later. My last day is 12/31.

Or they could take me up to some degree on the offer to help transition to my replacement. In that case how long would be up to them, but there's a hard limit of the end of February. No later than that, I'm gone.

There's no real downside for me in any of this. The sooner I'm out, the more free time I have to write. The longer I stay, the more money we can sock away for subsequent stages. It's all good.