If this intersection is of interest to you, so might Mason Currey's book Daily Rituals ("On the routines and working habits of 161 inspired minds, from Beethoven to Donald Barthelme, Kafka to Georgia O’Keeffe") which I've enjoyed very much (no affiliation), for similar reasons.
Writers and Their Day Jobs
31–40 of 40 posts
Re: Writers and Their Day Jobs
#32Lots 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 eventual…
You're the second commentor I've read mentioning Gene Wolfe, in the past two days [0]. After I finish my Cormick McCarthy stint, I'll start his The Book of the New Sun this spring. Vonnegut is among my favorite authors alive during my lifetime — he was a POW during the bombing of Dresden (WWII) — a great drafted veteran friend of mine wouldn't even listen to me discuss Slaughterhouse Five with him until I told him ab…
I don't know what you like, but in addition to the Book of the New Sun I really enjoyed his three-volume "Soldier" series, about a mercenary in ancient Greece who suffers from Memento-style amnesia (although this series far predates Memento).
The "Wizard Knight" series (two books) I also really enjoyed if you like something with a bit more fantasy bent.
Can't recommend Wolfe enough!
Re: Writers and Their Day Jobs
#33Most of the jobs listed seem something you can do on autopilot, while your mind is doing something else, which would make sense for creative minds.
Brandon Sanderson often says in interviews that "laying bricks" is the best job a writer can have. He also says being a software engineer is particularly bad job for writers because you cannot do it on autopilot. I can confirm.
Back then, all jobs moved at a much slower pace. There was a lot more off time during work hours.
Re: Writers and Their Day Jobs
#34Re: Writers and Their Day Jobs
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're the second commentor I've read mentioning Gene Wolfe, in the past two days [0]. After I finish my Cormick McCarthy stint, I'll start his The Book of the New Sun this spring. Vonnegut is among my favorite authors alive during my lifetime — he was a POW during the bombing of Dresden (WWII) — a great drafted veteran friend of mine wouldn't even listen to me discuss Slaughterhouse Five with him until I told him ab…
I don't know what you like, but in addition to the Book of the New Sun I really enjoyed his three-volume "Soldier" series, about a mercenary in ancient Greece who suffers from Memento-style amnesia (although this series far predates Memento). The "Wizard Knight" series (two books) I also really enjoyed if you like something with a bit more fantasy bent. Can't recommend Wolfe enough!
¿..who says readinglists cannot span beyond into the 2030s..?
Your comment has been screenshotted, for consideration after New Sun. Thanks.
Re: Writers and Their Day Jobs
#36Cormac 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-cultur…
His book Suttree is effectively biographical, down to his impoverished 1950s Knoxville streetslang.
I haven't read anything else, but the film No Country for Old Men is incredible storytelling (and I only started Suttree after a /hn/article from a few months ago described the polymathic dismantling of his impressive library).
His short article The Kekulé Problem sheds serious insights (to me, at least) on whether or not LLMs can, alone with language, ever become truly conscious (are words, alone, enough?). Not the main point of the article (rather: about lucid thinking/states leading to wordless solutions presenting themselves to "discoverers," dreaming).
Re: Writers and Their Day Jobs
#37Lots 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 eventual…
You're the second commentor I've read mentioning Gene Wolfe, in the past two days [0]. After I finish my Cormick McCarthy stint, I'll start his The Book of the New Sun this spring. Vonnegut is among my favorite authors alive during my lifetime — he was a POW during the bombing of Dresden (WWII) — a great drafted veteran friend of mine wouldn't even listen to me discuss Slaughterhouse Five with him until I told him ab…
Wolfe is one of my favourite writers, and I highly recommend New Sun.
That said, it is a challenge for a lot of readers. It's a single, very long novel that introduces a complicated and mysterious cosmology that is rarely fully understood until the second or even third reading. A common saying among fans is that you don't read Wolfe, you re-read him. It requires a certain amount of patience.
An easier intro is The Fifth Head of Cerberus, which is also one of my favourite novels. It's very short, but its puzzle box structure is no less satisfying or challenging than New Sun. Parts of the fun is figuring exact out who is narrating the three different stories that make up the book — it's probably not who they claim to be — and exactly what happened.
Thinking about the article's reference to Herman Melville, Ursula LeGuin actually called Wolfe "our Melville", "our" meaning science fiction writers as a group.
Re: Writers and Their Day Jobs
#38Re: Writers and Their Day Jobs
#39Trollope eventually got quite responsible work at the post office.
Some writers found consular and diplomatic posts: among the Americans, Hawthorne, Howell, and (James Russell) Lowell; among the French, Chateaubriand and Stendhal.
Louis Auchincloss was a lawyer.
Re: Writers and Their Day Jobs
#40> Stevens turned down an offer from Harvard following his 1955 Pulitzer because he would’ve been forced to give up his vice-presidency position at Hartford Accident and Indemnity
Source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetry-news/65332/successfu...