I was thinking about what it means to be a true "starving artist" today, so I went ahead and typed the terms into a Google search. I got a lot of weird hits, but I did find one site that sums it up pretty well. Check out David Sherman's Progression of the Starving Artist.

I have to agree with his assessment. Now, that I'm officially a married woman, I can no longer consider myself a true starving artist. Thankfully, there's another person around to buy food when I'm living paycheck to paycheck. Now, "writing full-time" is a concept under negotiation with my husband rather than a dim fantasy that may never see fruition.

On and interesting side note, or to completely digress, I read in Cosmo this month about the new "housewife." It's becoming a trend for modern, well-educated career-women to get married and let their husbands support them. I don't know how I feel about this. I don't think I like it. Mostly because that sounds like the life, and I'm ashamed to admit it. I grew up wanting to be independent, not relying on a man for anything. That's the kind of woman I write about. So how dare I say that all I really want to do is stay home in my newly decorated house and wait for my hubby to return?

Luckily, as a writer, I'll always be able to say I'm a career-woman. Writing is a career that is best done from the home. Years ago, when I was starting out and hopped from job to job... I was never unemployed... I was merely a full-time writer.

So, either way, it's nice to say good-bye to the days of being a starving artist. Even though I became published early on in my career, it's very difficult to support yourself on sporadic advances and two rounds of royalty checks a year. I've always had day jobs. Many of them. But, that's another story...