Last Friday I went to a meeting with two mentors from the Prince's Trust to talk to them about my business plans. I have been making websites and setting up blogs for people for a while now and I thought I should move forward with this and turn it into a proper business.
So I spent Thursday last week writing out my business plan which was a good thing to do anyway and made me realise how far ahead with things I actually am. The Prince's Trust was something that Flo initially told me about back before the pregnancy and I had been toying with the idea of starting a craft business but I got cuaght up a) being ill and b) blogging about the craft on Salaric Crafts but the blogging led to writing and that led to websites for people I met through writing and wham - here I am.
I think I have a niche and am excited though in some ways I wish it had all started to kick off last year (which it couldn't due to the flood) or that they had waited just a bit longer to get around to contacting me so that I wasn't in the middle of having to write essays on the formation of the moon and the such like.
I don't know if I can't get the financial help from them but even if I can't I want to have the business tutoring as I feel that will be most helpful.
The Prince's Trust help poeple under 30 set up their business's which is cool and hopefully will help me sort our lives out. Unfortunatly I am asking for just over the amount that you get without having to 'Go to Panel' . I need servers and I need to have them in a data centre so I am asking £2000 which is basically the servers etc.... my hardware costs :'( The panel is apparently something that looks like Dragons Den but they say they are friendlier - well they couldn't be less friendly could they!
They got excited about my 'mind map' that I had drawn in Jean's feltips for added colour in a typically me way - I thought it was a flow diagram and thought mind maps where what Carinia was calling the things she was drawing for her PhD stuff. So now I am wondering if mind maps is a sort of catch all for things I term: Brain storming, flow diagrams and spider diagrams.
I probably should investigate this at some point.
One of the things that I am having to do at the moment is heavily prioritize what I spend my time on and sadly this means that for the last two months I have done no art or craft but then this is my ultra busy term.
I have a list of homework from the Prince's Trust as well as from college but I am afraid playing with Jean still comes highest on my agender. She is being quiet mischevious at the moment as well - unfortunalty she has developed sciencetific method for finding out exactly what she can and can't get away with.
The funniest thing she does though is wait for me to get up from the laptop then she climbs into my seat and says, 'Can I do your work now Mummy?' and she sits just like Alaric poised to start a heavey programming session.
Well here I go again....
To join the world of the Blue Monster a new Gurgitation monster is on the loose, courtesy of me and my madness!
Presenting Red Monster's Blog!
http://red.monsters.wigglypets.co.uk/
I posted off some of my poems again - this time to a top literay magizine - don't worry they where spell checked and edited to a glossy perfection. I know that there may well be a three month wait to find out from them and I doubt that I will be accepted. I submitted to Interzone before and got a very nice rejection letter saying that they had just rejiged things and my story was no longer the type of thing they published but that they would be happy to read anything else I sent them. I felt this was a good regection and the mag I've just sent off to has a policy of actually responding to new submitters so I feel hopeful of getting at least soem advise I can use.
I have also been typing up and polishing all the written material I have. I have discovered I have alot of it. The publisher I work for is a small house press - and it is a tiny company - she has advised me to take my stuff to the big publshing houses fist and then if/when that fails come and talk to her as she likes the stuff she's seen.
I have discovered that I literally have hundreds of poems, these I have been typing up polishing and leaving to ferment. I tend to leave a poem for at three months and then look at it again - ie long enough to forget about it. I've had a few poems published in newpapers and things which is more than can be said for my short stories. This is depressing as the poems are easy to write (something I keep quiet about at the writing group) and the stories take time and lots more effort and none of them have been published of course there is more of an issue there with knowing where to submit short stories. The other depressing thing is that per word and amount of time put in poems have a far higher return than short stories.
I have also been working on some baby board book ideas - I am half way through doing the illistrations and I am actually happy with them. Of course I need to finish the pictures, scan them, tidy them up and then actually start seeing if anyone will publish them. I have a copy of the 2009 Writers and Artist Year Book and have already trawled through the thing extracting those publishers that take unsolicited submissions and publish board books. It took awhile and annoyingly I thing that by the time I actually go to submit half of them will have merged, or changed what they do :/ .
I am of course braking a writing rule here - I am not focused on one style or form or genre or even really consider myself a writer. I have several more childrens stories writen and now typed up! I have a very nice editor who will one hopefully be paid for all the lovely corrections she makes - she keeps saying she enjoys it but I really want to be able to pay her. I want to do the illistrations for these as well - and yes I know your supposed to go to the publishers and sell the idea and change it to what they want and conform to the market and stuff and preferably get an advance. But I just can't do that - I know the shape of the story it has a way it wants to be I cant force it nor do I want to.
A trainy teacher is very keen to try my storys out on his class which I took to be a good sign - he asked me after I read one of the shorter ones out at the writing class. The Beavers also liked the one I read out to them but they generally like anything presented with enthusiasm!
I'm a bit scared and a bit perplexed that I am actually arriving at this submitting stage in the whole writing publishing game - I am also hoping that I will see some money for the effort I have put in but am not holding my breath. I suppose I best go back to trying to build websites and actually earning some money!
Having been given the all clear from the Dr about six months ago I informed the college of this and wondered if three years was a bit too long a time to just go back. I didn't hear anything and I sent a few more emials then I get an email saying there should be no problem with me going back but I still don't have a start date and it is the middle of September and I know the course begins in September.
Also in order to be ready for this we have put Jean in nursery for two extra days aweek. We had been told that the government pay for nursery stuff once your child is three. However, the way the system works is almost as if it is designed to unhelpful in the extreme. It turned out they only pay a set quoter of hours which would be equivolent to three sessions - so say three mornings or a day and a half for us. They also will not give that too you in a chunk - oh no so if your child only goes in for say two days they slash the number of hours they will pay for - this renders the whole thing useless for mothers trying to say get a part time job and leaves us with a slight problem - ie half a days fees to find.
We are still paying off the debts that accumulated from me being sick, the move and now the flood. We are also now paying a second gardener for Barbara as Al has to spend so much time in London. I have grown most of our veg this year which has slashed the food bill but that isn't really our main out going.
I have had a huge dilemer to face - I've been making websites and working for a small publisher but these contracts are about to end and I need more money but am going to (hopefully) be doing an MRes two days a week. I've been trying to find a job I can do (medical restraints) on say Mondays and Fridays and possibly Wednesdays but am failing. I think I might have found another web contract but its being slow. This is pretty much my last chance to go back to Geology and I worked so hard for it in the first place I just cant face losing it.
I'm not sure what on earth I'm going to do and haven't really got time or energy to worry about it all. At the moment I am going with the flow knowing that I may have a mother about to go through more radiotherapy and other older people relying on us due to medical issues.
Al is feeling the strain aswell, I am probably doing the wornge thing but if I don't at least try to do my course again I feel that I shall be a non-person. Oh ok I'm being selfish and horrible and stuff and over all I'm scared I'm taking gambles here but I can't see anything else to do where I wont go insane.
My friend Ella visited this week which has been great fun - someone who is both scientific and artistic such a relief. I find that I am stuck between two words most of the time - those who think artistically not necassarily not what I call scientific in mind but just not scientifically trained and so emmersed in the world of arty creativity that it is hard to have a technical convosation with them as they don't know the lingo as it where. Or I have Alaric who can talk to me about how black wholes work and talk about scifi until the cows come home (which is normally abolut once a year when someone leaves a gate open round here!) but always responds with either - 'I don't understand poetic stuff' or 'its great wifey wrote it!'
I miss having coffee with Ella on an almost daily basis as we did in the latter parts of degrees and as part of her PhD and my stint at the Natural History Museum. We didn't get enough photography in nor anywhere near enough writting but this was mainly due to the whole issue of moving furniture from the house and the fact that I managed to be quiet sick on Tuesday and had a meeting on Monday night - sigh - everything just happened to clash this week.
I'm hoping that once I have the house sorted again she will want to come for more - this time proper - writting holidays 
