[orlok]

Here's where we are so far, with a few additional hints:

1. A janitor and teacher. His first independently published work was entitled "I Was a Teenage Grave Robber." - Stephen King (issybird)

2. An exterminator. He liked the job so much he published a collection of short stories called Exterminator! Clue: A primary figure of the Beat Generation.

3. He sang and played piano while struggling to publish his first major work (it was rejected 22 times, so he sang a lot.) - James Joyce (drjd)

4. She first worked as a counter girl in a coffee shop in Toronto, serving coffee and operating a cash register, which was a source of serious frustration for her. She details the experience in her essay, “Ka-Ching!” - Margaret Attwood (issybird)

5. He was an entomologist of underappreciated greatness. His theory of butterfly evolution was proven to be true in early 2011 using DNA analysis. Clue: one of MR's resident curmudgeons refuses to read his best know work.

6. When his comedy writing career stalled in the mid-70s, he worked as a hospital porter, barn builder, chicken shed cleaner, a hotel security guard and a bodyguard for an entire family of oil tycoons from Qatar. - Douglas Adams (poohbear_nc)

7. He was the entertainment director on a Swedish luxury liner. Clue: his seminal work is often referenced as a method of triggering sleeper agents in popular film and novels.

8. She had worked as a reservation clerk at Eastern Airlines for years when she received a note from friends: “You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.” By the next year, she’d penned her most famous work. - Harper Lee (poohbear_nc)

9. He worked as a tour guide at a fish hatchery, and then later he would work long hours at a grueling warehouse job until his father began supplying him with writing materials and lodging to enable him to focus on his literary career. - John Steinbeck (issybird)

10. He was the manager one of the first Saab dealerships in the United States. He also worked in public relations for General Electric, and was a volunteer firefighter for the Alplaus Volunteer Fire Department. Clue: The main character in his best known work, Billy Pilgrim, survives the bombing of Dresden

11. He claims that by the age of 18, he’d been a "tuna fisherman off the coast of Galveston, itinerant crop-picker down in New Orleans, hired gun for a wealthy neurotic, nitroglycerine truck driver in North Carolina, short order cook, cab driver, lithographer, book salesman, floorwalker in a department store, door-to-door brush salesman, and as a youngster, an actor in several productions at the Cleveland Play House." It should be noted that he's also a guy who makes stuff up for a living, too. - Harlan Ellison (drjd)

12. He was a voluntary participant in CIA psych tests. Mostly these involved being unwittingly dosed with LSD. - Ken Kesey (drjd)

drjd - 3 points
issbird - 3 points
poohbear_nc - 2 points

It's still all to play for!