After college when I moved to a new city for law school there was about a five year period from 1995-2000 where I did not have a regular group and my gaming was limited to occasional bachelor parties and gaming weekends of my childhood friends/gaming group who had scattered across the country. It was a period where I was in law school, got married, and started my law career.
I was still buying occasional D&D books and reading them for fun, and I got into the new OGL and 3e. The only dedicated gaming of any type I had then was one year in law school a weekly Magic the Gathering game with a friend.
I got back into active regular gaming starting with a 3e email group game with my brother and one of my childhood friends from my old gaming group, which then later expanded to more of our old group. I then started freelance writing some in the d20 era for fun. Never a lot, just enough to get my name in a half dozen books or so and my friends in one listed as playtesters.