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Writers and Their Day Jobs

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Re: Writers and Their Day Jobs

#11

Post by tolerance »

scandox wrote: post #5
tolerance wrote: post #2

Cormac McCarthy appears to be an exceptional case in this respect. I skimmed through a book about it once. Early on he basically earned his keep through grants and book sales. I think he persuaded one of his old ladies to get a job while he wrote. And apparently he was always writing; pitching one book in the middle of working on another. I guess film and television soon followed.

Doesn't sound exceptional to me. Most of the authors I have some personal knowledge of manage through exactly that: spouses, grants, book sales, residencies and teaching creative writing.

Compared to the postal workers, accountants and insurance agents named in this article they can count as exceptions too, save for the creative writing teachers.

I think Don DeLillo quit his job before his first book and never looked back.

Re: Writers and Their Day Jobs

#14

Post by x187463 »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #10
azangru wrote: post #4

Here's what opening that site without an ad blocker feels like: https://images2.imgbox.com/cc/f9/gX6o2Jfu_o.png Must be very conducive to reading

I think complaining about ads on a website is reasonable if you're paying to access the website. If one day it becomes possible to host a website for free, it would also be reasonable to complain about ads on it.

I think it's okay to complain about the design and presentation of the ads even on a free service. It's unreasonable to expect sites not to have some form of monetization of users that are not going to pay for the content, but that monetization should be reasonable and thoughtful. Of course, we can simply avoid that site altogether.

Re: Writers and Their Day Jobs

#16

Post by voidhorse »

tolerance wrote: post #2

Cormac McCarthy appears to be an exceptional case in this respect. I skimmed through a book about it once. Early on he basically earned his keep through grants and book sales. I think he persuaded one of his old ladies to get a job while he wrote. And apparently he was always writing; pitching one book in the middle of working on another. I guess film and television soon followed.

I actually think being a full-time writer is a more feasible professions today than it probably was a few hundred years ago. On the other hand, back in the 1800s random newspapers would pay for serialized stories. That doesn't really happen anymore (save a few surviving exceptions like the New Yorker) but now we have substack and a ton of other avenues writers can use to keep afloat

Re: Writers and Their Day Jobs

#17

Post by Anonyneko »

trashb wrote: post #7
azangru wrote: post #4

Here's what opening that site without an ad blocker feels like: https://images2.imgbox.com/cc/f9/gX6o2Jfu_o.png Must be very conducive to reading

That is both a comical and sad state of affairs. Perhaps you would like the archived page instead if you don't have an adblocker, though I recommend installing one. https://archive.ph/WeRN4

For some reason these archive.something websites through me into an endless captcha loop on all of my devices. Doesn't happen with any other website.

Re: Writers and Their Day Jobs

#19

Post by atombender »

tolerance wrote: post #2

Cormac McCarthy appears to be an exceptional case in this respect. I skimmed through a book about it once. Early on he basically earned his keep through grants and book sales. I think he persuaded one of his old ladies to get a job while he wrote. And apparently he was always writing; pitching one book in the middle of working on another. I guess film and television soon followed.

McCarthy was famously impoverished for most of his life. He apparently spent most of his money buying books. Late in life, the movie income from No Country for Old Men and The Road made him a multimillionaire, and his spending was apparently quite wild from then on, buying endless amounts of cowboy boots and tweed coats, as well as a large collection of vintage cars. [1]

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/two-years-cormac...

Re: Writers and Their Day Jobs

#20

Post by atombender »

Lots of engineers write, too. My favorite example of "very different day job" is Gene Wolfe, who worked as an industrial engineer (he famously worked on the original machine that produced Pringles potato chips), and spent most of his working life as an editor of the magazine Plant Engineering.

R. A. Lafferty worked as a full-time electrical engineer for Clark Electrical Supply Company all his life, though he eventually moved to a salesperson position.

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