People like David Hagberg

David Hagberg (October 9, 1942 – September 8, 2019) was an American novelist best known for his techno-thrillers featuring super-spy Kirk McGarvey. In an interview with The Writer Magazine, Hagberg spoke of his childhood inspiration to become a writer: "I really got the writing bug in the fourth grade when my Teacher read us Little House On The Prairie. At the end of the school year, she said the most astounding thing, 'This woman, Laura Ingalls Wilder, writes these books and she gets paid for it!' Wow! I thought. This is my gig! By the sixth grade, I was writing mystery stories in spiral notebooks."

During his service in the U.S. Air Force, an Assistant Dean of English at the University of Wisconsin, responding to Hagberg's inquiry about attending the school to learn how to make a living as a writer, told him, "Go home, have your wife get a part-time job, and give yourself 10 years. You'll know within five years if it's going to happen or not."