Every once in a while someone tells the truth. (Mine: I actually have supported myself since I was 17, which included time in an SRO, some lousy jobs, intense frugality with that anxiety of the poor when some unexpected event upends your budget, and office-temping during the early years of my freelancing. About a decade into writing for a living I stopped being poor, but still have to be prolific. Low tuition in California universities and rent control in San Francisco made huge contributions to my road to writing for a living, and I regret that both of those things are what they were when I started freelance life around 1988; it would be harder now, and is, for younger writers. I kept the same rent-controlled studio--sunlit, gorgeous, right in the middle of the crack wars early on--from ages 19 to 45, and thanked rent control in a few book acknowledgments. Being around people who were nebulous about their economic cushions never helped. #diditmyway)
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 14:04:50 +0000