How do writers juggle life and art?

I stumbled onto an interesting article on Salon recently. The premise of the article was that wealth (either family inherited, or married into it) enables the careers of quite a few writers, and that many of these writers don’t acknowledge the fact that they are privileged. They can just write without the need to worry about pesky, inconvenient things like jobs and mortgages and bills interrupting their flow. You know: the real life stuff that gets in the way of us doing the things we love to do.

I pondered this for quite a while and I thought it would be fascinating to peer into the lives of writers who do have to juggle work and family and other commitments to write and don’t have the convenience of wealth (or a wealthy significant other) to fall back on. I, for one, have often (ok, it’s only ever sometimes) bemoaned the fact that my unpartnered status simply doesn’t allow me the luxury of taking time off. I can’t hand the finances baton to someone and say: I’m taking time out/off for [insert time period here]. You are the one bringing home the bacon now. I’ve always had to just. keep. working. Admittedly, I’m in quite a good financial position now (after years of living on Struggle Street) and have cut back my paid work to three days a week for the foreseeable future so I can concentrate on my writing and publishing.

Anyhoo, I called out to my social networks to see who would be interested in contributing to a series—with the end game being an ebook—and was pleasantly surprised with the response and interest. And I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the range of writers who will be guest blogging and sharing their insights, views, opinions and experiences.

So. The first guest blog post of the Secret Lives of Writers series is scheduled for late March, and if all the planets align and ducks are in a row, there will be guest posts monthly thereafter. And an ebook out the middle of next year.

If you’re a writer (and you don’t need to be published to participate), you’d like to be a guest blogger and you want more information, you can contact me direct or request to join The Secret Lives Of Writers Facebook group.

The Secret Lives of Writers is now available as an ebook

You can now read all 13 guests posts from Volume 1 in the one convenient ebook. It’s out now in the and in other stores (iBooks, Kobo, Nook etc.) too.

Full of writing inspiration and advice, if you’re a writer, or an aspiring writer, and this book doesn’t get you putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), nothing will!

You can grab your copy from the Delicious Publishing Book Store.

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