What are the odds of making a living off your writing?

According to author and engineer Greg Slominski, 1 in 380. "Or, if you tweak the numbers to allow for a range of error, 1 in 200 to 1 in 500" -- worse than the odds for "Division 1 college football players vying for slots in the pros," and "way worse" than the odds for a Miss America contestant.

(Slominksi "has those calculations, too," writes columnist Patti Thorn of his Miss America statistics. "But don't ask me to double-check his work," she adds -- confirming, once again, that our schools need to teach girls better self-esteem in math class. Last we checked, the odds were simply 1 in 51 -- as in, the number of states plus Washington D.C.)