Lest anyone get the wrong idea about me, let me take a moment to explain the name I chose for this website, The Hack's Home.
I work as a technical writer. It's what I've done since I graduated college, and although it's a pleasant enough way to earn a living, technical writing does not carry with it the glamour and romance of being a poet or a novelist--not that I have the energy to do that sort of thing. So, why "the hack"?
The Oxford English Dictionary supplies the definition we need:
Hack a person hired to do especially dull or routine work, a drudge; especially a writer of poor to average quality.
I think that about covers it. It's not that I'm a bad writer; I'm just not yet a good writer. And the work description does tend to qualify.