Rex Stout was a genius at accounting, invented a bookkeeping system still used by educational institutions today, and made a fortune at it. Which permitted him to pursue writing full-time.
Harper Lee became a legend from a single novel, which has made her enough of an income that she's never needed to write anything else her entire life.
Terry Brooks was a highly successful corporate lawyer, which afforded him enough income to pursue his love of writing fantasy fiction without much angst.
Herman Melville was a customs officer who never made much off his writing.
Charles Dickens was an instant success as a fiction writer and never had to do anything else again in his life.
Edith Wharton was a rich kid who never had to worry about money and could pursue her writing free of such burden.
Philip K. Dick spent much of his life near destitution, and only began to reap monetary benefits right before he died suddenly at the age of 53.
Walter Van Tilburg Clark made his living as a college prof, and crafted only three novels and a slim volume of short fiction in his life, but all of it of the highest quality.
Jack London was a sailor, longshoreman, gold-prospector and general alcoholic reprobate who died at age 40, having produced some of the finest fiction any American writer could aspire to.
William Faulkner was a drunk who couldn't even hold down a postal delivery job, but managed to write a body of fiction rivaled by no one in American literary history.
J.D. Salinger produced a first novel of transcendent success, both critical and financial, and a minor number of short stories, and then quit.
Tom Heggen produced a first novel of transcendent success, then killed himself.
Ditto Ross Lockridge, Jr.
Tom Clancy and Jean Auel labored long and hard to produce first novels of transcendent sales success, and have followed those with long series of successful name-driven drivel.
Franz Kafka produced three novels and a number of short stories now regarded as the apex of literary achievement in the 20th Century. Then died young, with the request of his editor that his remaining manuscripts be destroyed, a death-bed request happily ignored.
Joseph Conrad was a highly successful seaman, rising to be a captain, who spoke not a word of English until his 30's, published his first novel, written in English at age 39, and followed it with a long and honored career as a fiction writer. By all accounts he found the act of writing an agony, but couldn't quit.
L. Ron Hubbard produced a series of huge SF tomes of miserably quality, then founded a "religion" still causing controversy decades after his death.
B. Traven hid behind a pseudonym all his life, and produced a long string of successful novels.
J.R.R. Tolkien was an academic who pursued fiction writing more or less as a passionate hobby, and has now become an icon as a consequence of that writing.
Ya does what ya has ta do.
caw
