Established or not, most of us in creative fields put in as many hours as those with traditional day jobs—probably more—but how should these hours be spent? How should writers’ daily responsibilities change as their careers gain momentum? And what if their return on investment is low And what if their return on investment is low, or it leads to extreme but short-lived financial success, as it did for this writer? I asked literary agents Jim McCarthy of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret and Paula Munier of Talcott Notch Literary.