how to stick with it when you're feeling the sting of watching all the cheap sellouts reap the rewards in the moment.

That's such a big part of it, watching the crap writers making far better livings off their work than I do. I have severe doubts about the relative worth of my own fiction, but even I know I'm leagues better than that drivel.

my libido require far more intellectual stimuli.

My libido needs the intellectual equivalent of trigonometry, which can be no end of vexing.