  An anonymous author confesses in Salon: "Being the author of several critically acclaimed, moderately successful books has given me an extraordinary, exciting, occasionally lucrative, quite public life.
It has also broken my heart . " This is one of the urlLink dumbest, most self-indulgent articles I have ever seen by a (supposedly serious and critically acclaimed) writer about the writing life, and is stunning not for anything it says about the evil publishing world (none of which is the least bit suprising), but for the unstated assumptions the author clearly holds--about how easy making a living as a fiction writer is supposed to be . "Nothing makes me happier than writing. And, thanks to the rules that govern publishing today, nothing I've ever done for a living -- housecleaning, data entry, creating campaigns for big-name, cutthroat ad agencies, full-time motherhood -- has been as hard on me as being a writer .
Being an author is the culmination of a lifelong dream. And -- because the sales of each book I write determine my ability to remain one -- being an author has ruined many of my greatest lifelong pleasures . " Poor anonymous midlist author! She's discovered being a writer and supporting yourself as a writer is hard.
Could you imagine Kafka whining about stuff like this? Here's how he described--notice, he's not complaining--the sacrifices of writing: "When it became clear in my organism that writing was the most productive direction for my being to take, everything rushed in that direction and left empty all those abilities which were directed toward the joys of sex, eating, drinking, philosophical reflection and above all music...my life has dwindled dreadfully, nor will it cease to dwindle. Nothing else will ever satisfy me" –-Diaries, 1912-14 
