I greatly enjoyed working as a freelance journalist, because it gets you out of the house, and it gets you talking to people, but it wasn't satisfying all of my cravings, and I knew that I needed to work with the other side of my brain - the darker, murkier side!
What greatly annoys me is sometimes you see the short story being described as a training ground for the novel. Kind of like an apprenticeship. And in lots of ways, it's a far harder form.