Michael Nye at The Missouri Review weighs in on what it means to be a “white middle-class man” writer with the privilege of an education but no inherited (or married) wealth, how writers keep writing despite the need to string together work or work a nine-to-five job, and how luck and determination intermingle.  He also quotes writer Fred Venturini on the subject.  Both add much to the recent discussion:

First Nye:

I fund my writing life by working full-time…. My position is nine-to-five, and mostly administrative; I’m in front of a computer most of the day and there is no free time to pull up a Word.doc of my novel and work on it. …  I don’t think I give the impression that my life is easy, nor do I think I give the impression that life is overly hard … I think back to a couple of years ago when I ruptured…