We were lucky to catch up with Marisa Torrieri Bloom recently and have shared our conversation below.

Marisa Torrieri, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

Following your heart is harder than it sounds, but over the last decade, I’ve created a fulfilling, profitable life as a writer, guitar teacher, and founder of Rockmommy. In addition to following your heart, you need to be willing to work A LOT. I worked nights and weekends just to get extra experience in my 20s.

Marisa Torrieri, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ve been a writer of stories and songs since I was 8. I always knew I wanted to be a writer — and in high school, I discovered poetry, embracing writers like Joy Harjo, and competing in poetry slams.

But I knew that I couldn’t make a living as a poet. So in my second year of college, I thought I’d give journalism a try, and voila! I found my calling. I loved talking to others about thier lives, and looking for ways to showcase the extraordinary moments of ordinary people.

I’d started learning to play guitar as a teen, which led me down a parallel path to playing/singing in bands and teaching music at the Rock N’ Roll Camp for Girls and Brooklyn Guitar School.

These shared passions, for journalism and music, made me a formidable rock critic. Unfortunately, that didn’t pay the bills, so I got a job as a tech writer, covering wireless and satellite technologies for a business-to-business media outlets. I still write about these technologies, as well as healthcare tech, for a handful of publications.

My greatest advice is to be open to everything. Not putting all my eggs in one basket has served me well — I love writing band reviews and teaching guitar lessons, but also covering meatier subjects, like mental health, climate change and space exploration.

When I had my second child in 2014, I became a full-time freelancer, and today I make about double what I made as a magazine editor. I also launched my blog Rockmommy, a blog inspired by intersection of musician life and motherhood. Today, we have 3K-5K readers per month, and I’ve interviewed so many cool rockstar moms, too!

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Choosing an unconventional path as a freelance writer/guitar teacher means not knowing when you’ll get paid and by whom. In many ways it’s easier to be an employed person — you get paid days off, lots of love from your coworkers, and some predictability around your workload and income.

What we can do as a society is offer benefits to nonemployed workers, such as maternal health stipends to contractors or hourly workers. Currently only employed individuals get these benefits, which means that many women feel forced to choose employment (giving all of their available work hours to one master) to receive affordable healthcare. Of course, to pay nonemployed/contractor mothers-to-be, we’d have to raise taxes, but think of what gamechanger it would be!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Nobody owns me. I create my own hours, I wear what I want, and I scope out my own projects. It’s total freedom!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rockmommy.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rockmommyrules/