Keeping Back the Wolf

In a post over at Gameplaywright.net, my friend Jeff Tidball celebrates his first year as a full-time freelancer. In his post, he quotes something I said to him a while back:

Day jobs seem permanent, but it's an illusion. Matt said he preferred knowing right where the wolf was all the time, right outside his door. He'd rather dispense with the illusion of permanence and deal with the reality that there are no guarantees.

I still feel that way, and I've been at this for over 20 years now, with a...