Jennifer Fish describes the economics of a fiction writer's lifestyle.\n"It's hard for everyone these days," she said. "My spouse supports me by doing extra around the house so I have time to devote to writing and art. He's a coupon maniac ... I buy most of my clothes at the Goodwill or will vulture items at the recycling center. If we had more time, I'm sure we'd both dumpster dive, but we live outside of town."\nFor now, the local writer does not try to make money from her writing or even send her work out to what she said were "fancy-schmancy publishers." Instead she focuses on self publishing, getting recognition in the Bloomington circuit and working her day job as a program coordinator and health educator at a nonprofit agency. \nShe said her dreams about living off her writing do not include a large amount of wealth, but instead a simple lifestyle.\n"I would get to spend all day in my pajamas and write," she said. "I would like to inspire other downtrodden working class peeps everywhere to get out there and do what makes them happy. I wouldn't have to be rich, just make enough money to pay off my damn student loans and afford to eat wholesome organic foods, and not have to shop at evil chain stores."\nMystery Novelist Sara Hoskinson Frommer has had the opportunity to do that. She has published five mystery novels centering on a character named "Joan Spencer," a viola-playing sleuth. She credited her financial stability to retirement, not her writing.\n"For fiction writers, it's rough," she said. "I found jobs writing, but I couldn't pick and choose what I wrote about." \nFrommer has had many jobs related to writing before retirement, including newsletter writer for an exchange student organization, writing and editing brochures, and her last job as an editor at the Agency for Instructional Technology.\nAlyce Miller is the author of two books, "Stopping for Green Lights" and "The Nature of Longing," and numerous short fiction pieces published in literary magazines. She currently works as an IU associate professor of English and an attorney of animal law. She has had jobs both related and unrelated to writing, but described the world as "the writer's research library."\n"All life experience informs the life and work of a writer," she said, "even if it's not explicitly manifested in the writing. If you have experienced loss, sorrow, joy, love, etc., those are important tools in gaining insight into the experience of being human."
life outside of writing\nFrommer said she also lives a full life outside of writing. She quilts and plays viola in the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra. \n"People who've never done anything don't have much to write about," she said. "So it's all to the good to work at other kinds of things. No job takes 24 hours a day."\nRobert Jordan works as a corrections officer with at-risk juveniles, has a family, is an IU student scheduled to graduate in August and recently self-published a book, "Hungry," which mixes poetry and fiction.\n"My line of work has afforded me many types of stories and gives me a creative element in which I can write about," he said. "Because I have stable employment, I don't really reflect on how much money I could make out of writing."\nScott A. Meyer wrote that writers would be qualified for the kind of jobs in his book "100 Jobs in Words." \n"If you are ... imaginative and persistent in seeking out sources, and organized and disciplined in creating a manuscript, you can handle the work," he wrote in the introduction.\nThe jobs Meyer described as appropriate for people with communications skills ranged from audio book abridger to greeting card writer to tabloid newspaper writer to tour guide.\n"Great fortunes are not made in (these jobs)," he wrote. "But with a little experience you can earn a solidly middle-class income."\nMiller has worked at least three of the 100 jobs Meyer mentions. Others have been outside of Meyer's descriptions. \nHer past jobs have included secretary, song lyricist, art critic and governess in Spain, to mention a few. She said publication is not necessarily the goal of every writer.\n"They teach, drive cabs, work in factories, work as doctors and lawyers, have government jobs." she said. "There are many good writers who never or rarely publish, and many mediocre writers who do. The world is not always 'fair.'"
Other outlets besides publication\nFrommer said beginning writers have many misconceptions about the publishing process, thinking they can sell a publisher on an idea or an outline. \n"First finish the book!" she said. "Then I chew my nails and try to pretend I don't care what happens to it." \nMiller said her first publication was a scary and appalling event, and even when she continued publishing later in life, it was a "pleasant relief."\n"I don't mean to downplay that publication is a wonderful thing," she said. "But more important is writing that you can be pleased with."\nRoberts called writing his "therapy" and said he had a job he could do for the rest of his career. He said he did not believe the "starving artist" stereotype was true for him.\n"It's too damn cold outside," he said.\nMiller said she had experienced tight times, when money stretched, and she lived in the expensive San Francisco Bay area, but she has never "starved."\n"Let's just say to this day I can't eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or fried egg sandwiches without remembering some pretty tight times," she said.\n-- Contact Janice Neaveill at jneaveil@indiana.edu.
