Mastering the Craft
I discovered that publishers paid advances for non-fiction books before you even wrote them! I wrote a wide variety of non-fiction books in many different styles on many different subjects including: true crime, war, business, sport, biography, ghosted autobiography, profiles, law, humor, cultural, encyclopedic, geographic, invention, plays and educational, amounting to 40 books. This served two purposes. The first was to put food on the table for hungry mouths. The second was to do a full apprenticeship as a writer the same way that great artists like Leonardo da Vinci learned a broad range of skills from mixing the paints to preparing the canvases and finally as Da Vinici did, painting an angel in the corner of a painting. Through this type of variety, and often having to meet tight deadlines, I gained mastery of many aspects of the craft of story and writing.