A new answer:

My life exists between sitting in cafes and writing, running a cafe and baking, and practicing the electric bass when I'm doing neither of the other two. Picking up pointless essays if we run out of money, picking up extra hours so we don't. Picking up the bass because I can't stop.

I think that qualifies me as the classic 'starving artist'.
I think I like that answer.

Although, unlike Nathan, I haven't depended on my art solely for income. I think I'd rather not. I think I'd rather stay true to the art form itself - allowing it to flow and ebb as it does, as it chooses.

Balancing any of the two is-- complicated.
Balancing the three, near impossible.

But I cannot leave any one of them behind. Words flow in my veins like blood, music streams like oxygen in amongst it, and food is the life force. Without one, I'd only slowly be dying.

And so, the balancing act ensues, in which there is never enough time in a day, a week, a month to meet the deadlines I'd like to have set or accomplish the sorts of things I'd dreamt I could by now. Each day, I find myself making painful slow progress, taking minuscule steps forward in all directions. Occasionally, one surges forward while the others are left behind. Often, there is a sort of all-around mediocrity.

Or, perhaps speed is not the best judge. Like watching over the garden, ensuring that it is thriving. Speed is an irrelevant judge. The pace at which we move is not so important as that we are moving at all and where we are headed toward. Progress is progress all the same. And so, a single word written, one song internalized, two coffees sold can hold the same weight as eighty, a hundred, a hundred-thousand.

So, I will continue in the direction of improvement, taking time where time is able, taking rest where rest is needed. And, as I go, the skills will hone and this dance will find its mode, and I'll find the right tone and sing along.

Or, maybe I already am.