Writers and Their Day Jobs

2/26/2026 at 9:52:38 AM

> Throughout this period, Glass supported himself as a New York cabbie and as a plumber, occupations that often led to unusual encounters. "I had gone to install a dishwasher in a loft in SoHo," he says. "While working, I suddenly heard a noise and looked up to find Robert Hughes, the art critic of Time magazine, staring at me in disbelief. 'But you're Philip Glass! What are you doing here?' It was obvious that I was installing his dishwasher and I told him I would soon be finished. 'But you are an artist,' he protested. I explained that I was an artist but that I was sometimes a plumber as well and that he should go away and let me finish."

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/nov/24/arts.highe...

by mrec

2/26/2026 at 5:21:53 PM

Chelsea Light Removals

> Here Reich fell in with musicians, dancers, sculptors and filmmakers. Sculptor Richard Serra was a neighbour of Reich’s at the time in Lower Manhattan, as was experimental filmmaker Michael Snow. For a brief period, Reich helped out with fellow minimalist Philip Glass’s removal company, Chelsea Light Moving. He recalls paying $65 a month in rent for a loft on Duane Street. “But I had a hard time paying that,” he says.

From

https://www.ft.com/content/02edd1fa-8e18-4483-ba24-7559d329a...

(also https://archive.is/C1TiZ)

I recollect reading that Reich made a definite decision against teaching as a day job because of the demands if you do it right.

by 2b3a51

2/26/2026 at 8:18:29 AM

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

by azangru

2/26/2026 at 10:00:35 AM

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

by trashb

2/26/2026 at 2:08:48 PM

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.

by Anonyneko

2/26/2026 at 10:22:02 AM

I have had ad blockers for so long that I forgot how the unfiltered web looks like. I don’t know how people do it.

by nicbou

2/26/2026 at 10:55:53 AM

Those people pay for our web.

by echelon

2/26/2026 at 9:19:31 PM

I appreciate their sacrifice

by nicbou

2/26/2026 at 5:51:49 PM

It's kind of like how people who buy lottery tickets help pay for our schools.

by criddell

2/26/2026 at 11:12:40 AM

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.

by akoboldfrying

2/26/2026 at 12:42:36 PM

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.

by x187463

2/26/2026 at 3:45:37 PM

It is always fair game to complain about shit web design on sites you others are expected to use or read. The ads presented are part of that.

by SllX

2/26/2026 at 11:47:13 AM

Top minds are now working hard at eliminating both the profession of writing and the day job.

by neonnoodle

2/26/2026 at 4:03:59 PM

From my impressions so far, writing might be safe for far longer than many of those day jobs. At least provided there are enough people interested in reading good literature and willing to pay for that

by wongarsu

2/26/2026 at 5:02:47 PM

Well, if only writing survives then it'll be writers paying other writers to read their writing.

by nullorempty

2/26/2026 at 3:14:35 PM

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.

by atombender

2/26/2026 at 3:49:21 PM

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 about the author's background (apparently during 'Nam Vonnegut was considered a traitor by draftees?).

All these life experiences — who actually succeeds when their only goal is to become a writer?! Empty words, empty people.

Do you have a better Gene Wolfe introductory recommendation? His 2nd book for me to read?

[0] first comment <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47125287#47153200>

by ProllyInfamous

2/26/2026 at 8:41:07 PM

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.

by atombender

2/26/2026 at 5:23:56 PM

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!

by mwigdahl

2/26/2026 at 5:54:47 PM

¿..who says readinglists cannot span beyond into the 2030s..?

Your comment has been screenshotted, for consideration after New Sun. Thanks.

by ProllyInfamous

2/26/2026 at 5:01:11 PM

Nah, that's the one to read first.

In a similar vein I prefer Stephenson's Anathem

by lanfeust6

2/26/2026 at 3:24:54 PM

I’m one of those, although I tend to de-emphasize this fact in most of my social interactions (not just writing related) since people tend to react weirdly to learning that I program computers for a living. Instead, the bio for my writings says, “[he] spends his days as an insignificant cog in the machinery of corporate America.”

I’ve had modest success with a few dozen stories and poems published over the last dozen years, but I don’t expect it will ever be a major source of income for me.

by dhosek

2/26/2026 at 6:27:35 AM

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.

by tolerance

2/26/2026 at 8:50:12 AM

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.

by scandox

2/26/2026 at 11:15:20 AM

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.

by tolerance

2/26/2026 at 3:09:42 PM

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...

by atombender

2/26/2026 at 6:42:31 PM

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).

by ProllyInfamous

2/26/2026 at 1:52:39 PM

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

by voidhorse

2/26/2026 at 3:28:43 PM

If you read John Fante’s Ask the Dust, he has a number of dollar amounts in there for short story sales. Those numbers are better than pretty much every contemporary opportunity without adjusting for inflation. I would say that the 20s and 30s were the ideal time. Right now, it’s pretty grim for nearly all writers. Substack and other venues tend to be kind of peanut money and there are few writers who make a living from them, especially compared to the long tail of those who make nearly nothing. And most of those who earn significant money had big reputations before Substack.

by dhosek

2/26/2026 at 7:33:13 AM

Most 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.

by coopykins

2/26/2026 at 5:32:52 PM

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.

by babblingfish

2/26/2026 at 5:22:52 PM

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.

Link: https://www.masoncurrey.com/daily-rituals

by qmacro

2/26/2026 at 5:01:07 PM

"Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress."

- Chekhov

by jihadjihad

2/26/2026 at 5:06:40 PM

Reminds me of "Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student" by Max Alper, an excerpt from which I really appreciated:

> You’re not a failure by being a dayjobber, Billy, you’re an artist, just like the rest of us. So what if you aren’t some rich kid from the Upper East Side who had the privilege of being stuck in a practice room since Kindergarten? Sure that kid can shred, but do you really want to be that person? You’re playing shows, making records, and selling merch online, all without daddy’s money to hold you down. You’re making it happen without the head start that Richy Rich got the second he was born. Be proud of that! Knowing that the game is rigged is liberating! Just because the music industry lacks meritocracy doesn’t mean you can’t blow these assholes out of the water through your craft. Your experiences outside their bubble will only foster more creativity as a result.

Source: https://klangmag.co/lifers-dayjobbers-and-the-independently-...

HN thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36693297

by herbertl

2/26/2026 at 2:11:57 PM

Melville never got a raise, but also inflation was neglectable.

by navane