Hello! My name is Mickey Fisher and I tell stories for a living. 

I’ve been at it in some form or another for nearly thirty years and it feels like the right time to pass on some of what I’ve learned, and just as important, to show what I’m still learning in real time.

I’m starting a newsletter through Revue where I’ll shine a light on how I developed and sold earlier projects and to show my work as I’m trying to break through to new ideas. Some of it will be process-oriented, nuts and bolts craft kind of stuff, some of it may be more philosophical. I’ll also be sharing links to information, inspiration, and pieces of work-in-progress.

To start, I wanted to pass along a blog post I wrote exactly ten years ago. It summed up where I was at the time and so much of it still rings true today.

TOILING AWAY IN OBSCURITY

I’m 37 years old.

I’ve been acting since I was in the fifth grade. I started writing seriously when I was a junior in college, and directing when I was 23. At this point, I’ve been involved in the arts in some way for twenty-five years. A quarter of a century. And, some days I don’t feel any closer towards my ultimate goals than I was when I first started.

It doesn’t help that I keep changing those goals.

When I was younger, say nineteen, I had a very definite idea of what success was. It was being in a Broadway show. Maybe a Tony Award. That would be great, too. As I discovered new talents and obsessions, I shifted the target. Success became having a hit movie, or winning an Academy Award. To be honest, I never thought much beyond the award part.

As I got older, around thirty or so, I started to readjust my idea of success downward. I set lower goals (or seemingly lower goals) not about the work I was doing, but about where I wanted to end up. My idea of success eventually became, “To be able to make a decent living at the things I love to do”.

Two years ago, I asked myself, “If you could snap your fingers right now, exactly what would your work life look like?” My answer was, “I’d be writing and directing my own films and plays, moving back and forth between mediums whenever inspiration or opportunity struck, and I’d occasionally be an actor for somebody else.”

Well, in 2008, I was already doing exactly that.

I acted in a show for a theater in Montana, wrote and directed a full length play for a theater in Kentucky, and a week after it closed, I started shooting my third feature film. I was already living exactly the dream life I’d imagined for myself, right? So, why did I still feel like something was missing?

Sure, I could have stood to make more money at it, but money really wasn’t the issue. I had to come to terms with the fact that I felt as if the work I was doing wasn’t high profile enough. It (I) wasn’t receiving the kind of attention I thought it (I) deserved.

“But, that can’t be it”, I thought. “Surely, I’m enlightened enough to know that it’s all about the joy of creation, and doing God’s work, and all that. Who cares if people aren’t reading about it in Entertainment Weekly, or even some low-level theater blogs. Do I really care if people know my name? Am I really that shallow?”

Hell, yes.

I was.

I still am.

Yes, I may have gotten into this whole racket because somebody told me I was good at it once and there were always girls involved. However, at some point along the way I became addicted to creating things that I then felt compelled to share with other people. I enjoy putting on a show for an audience. It stands to reason that I would want to share my creations with a larger and larger audience. Or, that I would always be seeking a more visible platform to display my wares when I took them to market.

It became my fear for a while that it would never get any bigger than where I am now. That I would likely be a somewhat recognizable name in a very small region for a very short period of time and that after I died, in no time, it would be as if I were never here at all.

I began to joke that I was “toiling away in obscurity”. I took some comfort in the fact that I wasn’t the first artist to do so, and I surely wouldn’t be the last. There’s a great line in the show SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, where a character mentions that the Seurat painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” was hung over the refreshment stand in its first major exhibition. If it was good enough for Seurat, then a few well- attended film screenings should be good enough for me.

It wasn’t until fairly recently that I came to a new realization about my compulsion to create and exhibit, and my place in this world. It led me to a new insight about life in general, which is why I was then compelled to string these words together and put them on exhibition for you.

Every one of us is a creator, and as creators, none of us are toiling away in obscurity. We are in the act of creation nearly every second we are awake. We’re constantly building and shaping our future and the world around us, with every choice we make. And, we’re sharing the fruits of our creation to an immediate audience of friends and family and the people we interact with at school or our jobs. Our work affects this audience directly. It creates a ripple in the world.

My grandmas, Granny Carol and Granny Belden created an environment for their kids, and opportunities that they themselves didn’t have. My parents did the same. Their work has made it possible for my sisters and me to continue on in that pattern. My nephews and niece, my family and friends, my girlfriend…those people are my immediate audience. When I’m gone, they’ll be the first people to step back and look at the work of art that is my life and judge what it means to them. That’s what funerals often are. An appraisal of a life’s work. “He lived a good life. Such a beautiful family he left behind”. Armed with that knowledge, I’ve made a conscious decision to create with care, so that I leave behind something beautiful to behold, in my life and in the things that I create.

“A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” is a pointillist painting, made up of thousands upon thousands of tiny little flecks of color, each one placed there by the artist. It’s my all time favorite painting for that very reason. When you’re at the Art Institute in Chicago and you examine it closely you see the individual “dots”. When you stand back and view it from a distance, it all blends together in one beautiful image. Our lives are just like that, made up of thousands upon thousands of little moments, all of our choices along the way.

It’s so easy to want whatever is just directly above us on the ladder. I’ve never been on Broadway, but I’ve had conversations with friends who have been in the ensemble of a show, and all they wanted was a lead role. And, friends that had lead roles wanted to originate lead roles, and be nominated for a Tony.

I think of it this way. There’s some girl in the ensemble of a Broadway show who just wants to have a role. There’s a girl in a role who wants to originate a lead, and get to be the next Idina Menzel. Maybe Idina Menzel just wants that breakout film role so she can be Julia Roberts. Maybe Julia Roberts wants the critical acclaim and awards cabinet of Meryl Streep. Maybe Meryl Streep…well, it probably stops at Meryl Streep. Or, maybe Meryl Streep wants Jessica Alba’s abs and the whole thing starts all over again.

The point it, there’s always going to be something else to aspire to, but along the way we have to find joy in where we are. If you’re out there right now and you’ve had some of the same thoughts and worries that I have about your place in the world, just know that if there is even one person who cares about you, then you aren’t toiling away in obscurity. The work, the life that you create matters to someone.

So, take care, and endeavor to leave a masterpiece.

UPDATE: 

Three years later, this happened: