"I didn't make more than $10,000 a year until the early '90s. I was always willing to be broke. I was always willing to make just enough money. I had half-time jobs. Operating Instructions came out in '93 and I made in the very low five figures and I didn't have any money, I didn't have any savings, I didn't have a car that worked with any efficiency. But I got to be a writer when I grew up. And so, it's only been the last five or six years that I've been making a really good living at it.
"But I always just wanted to write and I thought, God, what a great gift to give your kid, to just say, 'The money's not going to buy you much of anything that's going to hold up over time, and we're going to get by.' It's pretty hard to feel any kind of self-pity when you get to be an artist, when you get to live out your artistic dream. You just don't care. I mean, I worked four hours a day making a living doing something and I worked on my books four hours a day, you know, and I brought my kid to readings. I taught writing classes and I took my kid to these classes in a playpen with a big bag of Legos. We have just gotten my writing life to happen, because I wanted it so badly."
... Anne Lamott, from an article in The Writer magazine some years back (sorry I don't have the date.). You can find more of Annie here and here.
Who's one of your heroes?
