After toiling for years on her memoir, Harrington Park native Kristen Fischer decided to shelve the idea.
For a while, at least. She is, after all, only 29.
When her penchant for writing didn't wane, she decided to test an adage about the craft.
"I was working on my memoir for several years, but it just wasn't happening," says Fischer, who calls Point Pleasant home these days. "And everyone says, 'Write what you know.' "
So the graduate of Richard Stockton College of New Jersey penned "Creatively Self-Employed: How Writers and Artists Deal with Career Ups and Downs," a book she self-published via iUniverse in February. It's a topic she's become increasingly intimate with since ditching local reporting and copy-editing gigs at South Jersey newspapers to branch out on her own with a full-time, home-based business.
"The concept for the book came to me in 2004, when I was a copy editor at the Asbury Park Press," recalls Fischer, who that same year also launched kristenfischer.com, a freelance copywriting and editing service. She left the Press in 2005 to work on the book and build her business.
The book includes dozens of tales from writers, illustrators, Web designers and other creative folks about the joys, fears and frustrations of earning a living through their respective crafts. It doesn't pull punches on the risk-taking involved with footing your own health insurance bill. It doesn't ooze self-pity when it touches on how isolating it can be when the cat doesn't talk back.
"I didn't anticipate feeling lonely, or in the beginning, feeling crushed by rejection," Fischer says. "I didn't understand how most people earn a living wage this way."
The simple truth, she says, is that plenty don't. Economic realities keep lots of "creative types" holding down part-time jobs to make ends meet. Some are financially supported by a spouse or other family member.
Fischer's criteria for inclusion in the book was that folks not be working full time for anyone else. She didn't set out to tout financial success stories. She simply wanted to validate the experiences of creative risk-takers.
"The cool thing about this book is it isn't a how-to," she says. "It's people sharing stories, anecdotes that say, 'You're not alone.' It's comforting for people to feel supported, without being told what to do."
Fischer, who is married, is working on a book about the challenges of one's "quarter-life," that time when college is done, careers are begun and a lot of growing up tends to occur.
For information, visit creativelyselfemployed.com.
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