As for being a freelance hack well, a lucky few may be famous enough to pick and choose the best assignments and file at leisure, but most freelancers live alonelylife of constantly rejected story pitches in which brutalised copy counts as a triumph.
Sometimes that passion leads to alonely, sexless life spent in your parents' basement, but, in this case, it manifested itself in the form of one of the biggest names in nerddom.