Cormac McCarthy appears to be an exceptional case in this respect. I skimmed through a book about it once. Early on he basically earned his keep through grants and book sales. I think he persuaded one of his old ladies to get a job while he wrote. And apparently he was always writing; pitching one book in the middle of working on another. I guess film and television soon followed.

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scandox 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Doesn't sound exceptional to me. Most of the authors I have some personal knowledge of manage through exactly that: spouses, grants, book sales, residencies and teaching creative writing.

	▲	tolerance 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Compared to the postal workers, accountants and insurance agents named in this article they can count as exceptions too, save for the creative writing teachers. I think Don DeLillo quit his job before his first book and never looked back.

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voidhorse 35 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I actually think being a full-time writer is a more feasible professions today than it probably was a few hundred years ago. On the other hand, back in the 1800s random newspapers would pay for serialized stories. That doesn't really happen anymore (save a few surviving exceptions like the New Yorker) but now we have substack and a ton of other avenues writers can use to keep afloat