Over at BN Review:
In 1911 Edgar Rice Burroughs, having failed at everything else, decided to write a novel. He was then in his mid-thirties, married with two children, barely supporting his family as the agent for a pencil-sharpener business. In earlier years he’d served in the Seventh Cavalry, worked as a rancher and gold miner, started an advertising agency, sold light bulbs and candy and uplifting books door-to-door, and not really made a go of anything.
As a thirty-something who’s barely supporting a family after a string of not-successes, Burroughs sounds like my kind of guy.
The Finch and Pea 