Like you, I'm engaged in 60+ hours a week in the two day jobs. While the income from my writing has not been as reliable as yours, the side income from writing for the school newspaper while going to grad school to earn my teaching certificate was a respectable contribution to the household expenses (and replaced income from a very part time and much more stressful bookkeeping job). My writing income since has been on the smallish side. My day job is teaching, and boy, of all government workers that get criticized, teachers have it big, tall and handsome in the category of Let's Bash Those Who Have It Easy.

Of course, in that respect, it's not about the visibility/invisibility (I think) as much as it is that many people look at the teacher's job and think they could do it. And that summers off lose their appeal if you're the main income for the family and end up working multiple jobs in the summer to make ends meet.

But enough of that. I purely admire this:

how to create fiction that stands like a pillar of fire in someone else's brain, to not get between my fiction and its reader, and yet, keep myself firmly in existence?

and join you in the contemplation of just how the heck I'm going to get there.