How can they spend so much time writing?
Are they independently wealthy? Do they have a job we just don’t hear about, and they write in their own time? Do they not have families depending on them?
I’d love to have a life of leisure pursuing the highest quality of a thing I can build over a decade. But my family also needs to eat.
If they're not so famous, the have regular day jobs, or usually writing related side gigs, like writing articles for magazines (at least back when this made you a livable wage), teaching literature, and so on.
Others are independently wealthy, or have spouses who support them.
And some still live in poverty and make it day to day, with random gigs and the kindness of strangers.
(EDIT: "Cordwainer Smith" worked PSYOPs for Uncle Sam, and pointed out in a textbook that as psychological warfare operators make their career in being economical with the truth [he wrote several decades too early to have "spin doctor" in his vocabulary] one should not rely on their self-evaluations of their own effectiveness. I wonder if this were a dig at Bernays, who seems to have been willing to push his own brand at least as hard as he pushed those of his clients?
Finally, William Faulkner's resignation from his post office day job: As long as I live under the capitalistic system, I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp.)
> When I tried to get out of bed today I simply collapsed. There’s a very simple reason for it, I am completely overworked. Not by the office but by my other work. The office plays an innocent part in it only insofar as, if I didn’t have to go there, I could live in peace for my work and wouldn’t have to spend those 6 hours a day there, which have so tormented me that you cannot imagine it, especially on Friday and Saturday, because I was full of my concerns. In the end as I am well aware this is only chatter, it’s my fault and the office has the clearest and most justified claims on me. But for me it is a horrible double life from which insanity is probably the only way out.
In the UK, the average full time writer earns less than they would at McDonalds, but their average household income is well above average. In other words: Most rely on a reasonably well earning partner.
And full time writers are rare even among fairly successful writers published by big publishers.
I have a few friends who have written NYTs best sellers. They made no money from them. One friend of mine is quite famous, writes regularly for the NYTs magazines… and again.. no money (not $0 but not enough to buy a new laptop). They give a lot of lectures and public speaking, most of which pay $0.
It’s hard to write for more than a few hours a day, when you do it every day. You spend the rest of your time researching, organizing, day job, raising children, divorcing, etc.
those are hard to get, especially your first one, and also it's not quite enough money, but it's not completely ridiculous that it could fund some full-time writing.