In May of 1994 I returned to St. Louis, after a six-year absence, and tried to rent an apartment. The search took me to South City, to neighborhoods I’d barely explored during my childhood and adolescence in St. Louis County, to lane after lane of stately, affordable, near-identical two-family flats -and to a prospective landlord who studied my credit application with a degree of weariness and skepticism. I’d left the line for employer blank.

It was the first time that I’d had to explain, in any official capacity, that I was a writer. Attaching myself to the occupation sounded preposterous. Nevertheless, I told him that I was writing a book, a fiction book, a novel, and that I was being funded for a year by a writing award from James Michener.

Writing is hard any time, under any conditions. Not as hard as handling a jackhammer in 110 degree city heat, mind you. And not as hard as chasing toddlers around the house after working all day. And not as hard as dealing with a boss who's dumber than a bag of hammers.

But it's still pretty hard.