“I wanted, and want, to write because writing is connected to what I want to see happen and change in the world…I write myself into the world and out of it, I write my plans for the world every minute as I enter and reenter it.”

What I want instead is to bring back the idea of writing as something that has a muscularity and a will to bring about a different world. And if we are to do that, we need to understand it as both work and labor, and not pretend that to ask for payment is to be ungrateful about our place as writers.
For those who live in cities where cabs and public transportation are plentiful and efficient and like to go on about the evils of ride-sharing: Stuff it. I get all the issues, but if I’d been on a hour and a half long el ride (perfectly normal in Chicago, where the public transportation system is carefully designed to keep white people safe from everyone else who has to take circuitious routes to get anywhere), I don’t think I would have survived the massive pain for that long without killing myself or screaming, a lot.