Comments on: The Creative Life: Beginnings

By: It’s going to be okay… Isn’t it? | The Creative Life

It’s going to be okay… Isn’t it? | The Creative Life — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:53:29 +0000

[...] also like the idea of starting with the tweets. Yesterday I hung out with a friend of mine who wants to start a bakery, but is too scared to do [...]

By: Leslie Petrovski

Leslie Petrovski — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:04:12 +0000

Been living the dream *cough, cough* since 1994. It ain't all art, but it's a living.

By: Rosemary Hill

Rosemary Hill — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:33:15 +0000

This is very cool, Kim. Thank you!

By: Zabet

Zabet — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:03:02 +0000

Reading the comments, I get the feeling a rebellion is brewing. Let's burn this [censored by Zabet, who is rolling 20 for tact this month] to the ground!

Can't wait to read more, even if it's not necessarily… um.. incendiary. ;)

By: Annette

Annette — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:17:08 +0000

What Creative Origins said.

By: Amy O'Neill Houck

Amy O'Neill Houck — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 05:51:08 +0000

Great discussion, Kim. Thanks for getting it started. I find I go in cycles of being excited about and drained by the business side of my creative life, I agree with Annie and others that thing like stability and health insurance are key. I also quickly loose motivation to try and sell my work when I feel like it's not valued by the industry with which I want to sell it. So again, Annie's right on–we need to cooperate, and work together to make sure our work is given fair value.

By: Meg

Meg — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 05:41:45 +0000

This is a great idea, thank you so much for starting it. I'm in the same boat as so many of you, so I'm very excited to follow along!

By: Jennie C

Jennie C — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:05:20 +0000

Dang it – another blog I have to follow. :)

By: Sarah Dyer

Sarah Dyer — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:11:18 +0000

It has to do with how your income is reported – many freelancers are paid on W2 statements and thus are not considered self-employed, even though they get no benefits and are not “real” employees. To qualify as self-employed (for example to get small group insurance), your income must not be on W2s, it needs to be on 1099s. I had no idea…neither did a lot of other people. (That's all for people who aren't incorporated or own a business, if they are, they are employed by their corp.) There are probably even more wrinkles to it but that's all I had to learn to prove my own self-employment to the insurance company and the state. I do know that some states require a lot more to prove self-employment, but that was all I needed.

By: quiltivate

quiltivate — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:43:57 +0000

Yay – thanks so much for starting this conversation, Betsy and Kim!

My husband is a freelance software developer and he's been successful at this for the past three years (some people don't categorize software development as “creative,” but I'd challenge anyone on this – you should see some of the amazing things he creates!) In fact, he has been so successful, that I was able to quit my job last year and work full time on my creative endeavor: Quiltivate.com!

After a year of hard work, we just launched a tool where people can design their quilts online and get detailed fabric calculations and images of their quilt and quilt block. Now that this is my full-time gig, I'm struggling to figure out how to best support both the quilting community and make a decent contribution to my own family's finances. I don't want to just be “a drain” (as Creative Origins said above). With my husband looking at switching projects in the near future, I am hoping to help support his transition as well as he has supported mine … and it's definitely scary and overwhelming.

So, thanks again for opening up the discussion – I can't wait to talk through this topic with others here!