If you haven’t checked out the excellent Paying For Our Passion series of guest author blogs David McDonald is doing over at Ebon Shores, I highly recommend it. Mostly because of the insight it provides into how different writers make this writing thing work, but also because (full disclosure) my guest blog went up yesterday.

Here’s what David has to say about his inspiration for the series:

Juggling your creative time with a full time job can be draining at the best of times, how much more so when you feel like the time put into writing is being wasted because it isn’t immediately a huge success? And, what about people who have to juggle being a parent or a full time carer as well? People with a chronic illness? How do they cope?

Because this is a personal issue, we often keep it to ourselves. Worse, sometimes we don’t talk about it because we think everyone else is living the rockstar writer lifestyle and we are the only ones struggling to find that balance–and we don’t want to look like a failure. I thought this was a subject worth exploring, and hopefully seeing how others deal with these challenges might a) help new writers realise they aren’t alone b) give us all ideas that might help.

So far, David has had guest posts from a range of Australian authors and editors, and has even started profiling some New Zealand authors after a recent trip there. I highly recommend the post from writer and poet Maureen Flynn as one that’s particularly moving.

So, what I have I sacrificed in the pursuit of literary glory? Well, the hint is in the title of this post. It’s fair to say my creative career can be characterised as a constant battle to balance the conflicting needs for sleep and writing time. Go read the article, and check out some of the others!