An article from "The Age" Life & Style section:
Writing on empty
Quote:
The most obvious fact of professional writing is money - and its scarcity. Authors in Australia earn, from their writing, approximately one-sixth of average annual income and one fifth of the median: around $11,000. It is rarely a living wage.
[...]
US author and University of California creative writing lecturer Thomas Farber, for example, says he is a writer, but also a ''husband, son, citizen, sibling, editor, teacher, consultant, etc''. Yet he sees his writing practice as precious, and is ''single-minded'' about pursuing it. ''I've found that writing time is stolen,'' he writes, ''from an unwilling world.''
[...]
The work can satisfy urges to explore and create, but it can also be solitary, lonely and poorly recompensed. As such, it is a fraught, mercurial role. What's often vital for sustaining this project is a strong identity: writers affirming that they are writers, whatever else they might be. The ambition, like the art, is a work in progress.
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