What job do you have outside of writing?

For the last ten years, my only jobs have been writing, teaching, and speaking.

Before 2005, I was (at various times) a newspaper reporter, freelance journalist, ghost writer, worked in a bookstore, worked at a tire company warehouse, cleaned banks, milked cows and shoveled cow manure (excellent writing preparation), lived and worked on a pig farm, was a lifeguard, worked in a couple of clothing stores, was a secretary (briefly), and for a couple of months that I should turn into a screenplay, I was the worst stockbroker in America.

There is a dairy farm down the road from me. If this writing thing doesn’t work out, the farmers have promised me a job milking their cows.

Taken from Laurie’s Reddit Q&A