Sunday, August 17, 2008

Writers and Their Day Jobs

This gives me hope:

Jack London worked in a cannery at age thirteen.

Charles Dickens pasted labels on bottles of shoe polish.

E.B. White sold roach powder an played the piano.

T.S. Eliot was a banker.

Zane Grey was a dentist.

Herman Melville was a customs inspector for the New York Harbor Authority.

William Faulkner served as postmaster for the University of Mississippi post office.

Alex Haley spent twenty years in the U.S. Coast Guard.

Maya Angelou worked as a cook and managed a restaurant.

It is said that very few writers actually make a living at writing. I guess it's true. We simply do it because we want to or have too. I know I'm easier to be around, less cranky, and life flows much smoother for me if I have my daily dose of writing no matter how bad it comes out.

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