Author Insight: Sacrifices

What is the biggest sacrifice you've made to pursue writing?

"Sleep. And, by association, dreams. I really prize my dreams. Kept a dream journal -- not for any New Age reasons and I abhor dream 'interpretation' -- for about fifteen years. I'd write out or draw the dreams I had and was amazed by the similarities in some. There were some really odd coincidences and creations in my dreams during much of my teen years. There was one month that I dreamt of the same location five times in a row. I would leave myself messages hidden inside books and return to retrieve them in later dreams. Crazy stuff and, no, drugs were not involved." - K. Ryer Breese, author of Future Imperfect. 

"Time with my family. I spend so much time locked away with my characters it fills me with guilt." - Leigh Fallon, author of The Carrier of the Mark. 

"Sleep." - Elana Johnson, author of Possession. 

"Stability. I quit an office job with good benefits and a steady paycheck and work part-time as a bartender so I would have more time to write. Writing does not pay well. Bartending pays the bills, but it's not a reliable income all the time either. I'm a Cancer. I need security. It scares the crap out of me not to have a steady, stable, reliable income, but I do it because I want to give writing my all. Oh, I also live some place that I don't really want to live because I can't afford to move to my dream city (Seattle). That's a pretty big sacrifice for me, too." - Stephanie Kuehnert, author of Ballads of Suburbia. 

"I have ignored my friends and family so I can write. They try to be patient with me, but writers don’t get paid holidays or weekends off. I feel pretty bad about this." - Marta Acosta, author of  Haunted Honeymoon.

"I wouldn’t say it’s a sacrifice, but the hardest thing was keeping the faith, being stubborn enough to keep writing and keep sending work out there." - Alyxandra Harvey, author of Haunting Violet.

"Spending enough time with my family and kids. I try not to do any writing while they are home or awake, but schedules being what they are, I sometimes have to stay home while my husband and kids are off having fun so that Mommy can do her writing. As a mom wracked with a healthy heaping of inherited cultural guilt, this is the hardest thing to do. I have to remember, "This moment only happens once," and weigh that against obsessive writing time." - Dawn Metcalf, author of Luminous. 

 

"My credit score?  We had to make a lot of sacrifices in order for me to write this book.  Going out with friends, flying home to visit our families, shopping for anything but groceries, going out to dinner or to the movies… you name it.  My husband and I barely made it, but we managed.  That’s the important part." - Josephine Angelini, author of Starcrossed. 

"The 'security' of a fortnightly pay-packet." - Alison Goodman, author of Eona. 

"In my other life, I’m a CPA. There is a shortage of CPAs, so if I’d pursued that avenue with gusto, I could be making a great salary with pretty bennies.Instead, I have a few clients I prepare taxes for every year, make just enough to say my husband isn’t the sole breadwinner, and leave lots of free time in the months following tax season to write. My husband rocks at life." - Trinity Faegen, author of The Mephisto Covenant.
 

"I don’t even want to think about it! How about my sanity? JUST KIDDING! Though after enough rejections and bad reviews it can take its toll. Luckily, fan mail and amazing bloggers have made it worth every second and they have been amazingly supportive! The other thing I think has taken its toll is stability. It isn’t the type of job where you know what your paycheck will be or if you will ever get another one, which means having to do extreme financial planning and making sure that you always have a backup plan or job in the works." - Emma Michaels, author of The Thirteenth Chime.

 "I don't feel like I've truly sacrificed anything, because writing is my first love and I'll do whatever it takes to make it work. But there has of course been a big investment of money and time. And I did drop out of a PhD program, but that wasn't only about writing." - Tera Lynn Childs, author of Sweet Venom. 

 

"Sleep! But honestly, I don't think of anything I've done to pursue writing as a sacrifice... it's been part of my life since I was a kid, so it's kind of like asking, 'What's the biggest sacrifice you've made to pursue walking?'" - Leah Cypess, author of Nightspell. 

Come back Thursday to find out what sacrifices the rest of the authors have made to pursue writing!
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