Lots of great advice here. Thanks! This is exactly what I was after.
Vagon, I'm not sure what I'm afraid of. I think that's what's bugging the shit out of me. We're not depending on this income for survival, my friends will still love me even if I blunder through it, and I really do know what I'm talking about. I think that I'm as scared of succeeding as I am of failing, which makes no sense, but there you have it.
I love the idea of approaching my friends and saying, "y'all know that I suck at this stuff, but can I do this as practice, and if I do a good job, will you write a nice review". I think that I can manage that.
Moustaches, I've toyed with the idea of a different job many times, but I keep circling back to enjoying the flexibility of this one too much. My husband has complete flexibility in his job/hobby (he calls it a jobby), and I seem to start seething with resentment if my job feels too much like work. Our quality of life is high with my current job, and I worry about the trade offs. One of our kids has chronic health problems and was recently at the ER on a Monday, ER again on Wednesday, hospitalized Wednesday night, ER again and hospitalized again a week later. In each instance, I could bail from work immediately and not even consider work while being there for her. This kind of thing happens at least once a year, so I'm not sure how well-suited I would be to a corporate atmosphere. (That said, I've also never worked in such an atmosphere, so I may have it all wrong.)
Mr. Tummy Mustache, until I read your post I felt confident that I had a totally charming smile, but from now on I'm going to be thinking, "don't look like the Joker. Stop looking like the Joker. Oh god, you look like you want to kill Batman". Thanks, pal!