Thursday, January 31, 2008

Getting started

Obviously there are a few things I need to do to accomplish my goals, which are:

1. Stop procrastinating - for godsake just write the bloody book and stop making notes about it.
Also under this heading I need to stop imagining the business I want as a fully developed set-up and actually order the stock I need to start. To be fair to myself the reason I have waffled about this for weeks now is that when your as skint as I am making a fairly huge financial investment in stock is a bit scary - also I don't want to mess up and order a load of stuff I'll never use just because it looks pretty or sounds fun to use (been there and done that).

2. Stop fretting about what people will say if I don't make a success of either career - let's face it after 30 years of talking about my unique talents (I stopped about 6 years ago), 10 years of study and a stupefying amount of student debts, if i don't pull an Anita Roddick or J.K. Rowling type sucess out of my arse nobody I know or I'm related to is going to be impressed

3. Stop googling other companies that are doing a similar thing to me - it's depressing, disheartening and a rubbish way to plan a website.

So I am all set: I have made a comprehensive list of the stock I will need - I have index carded my recipes, sorted out my testers, written up a questionnaire for them to fill in and I have cleared the cupboard under the stairs as a stock room.

So on Monday I am definitely calling that order in (I just need one more weekend in case there's something I have forgotten).

I have also brought new note books and opened a new folder on my computer marked BOOK! - So there's definitely no going back now.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Where Is The Life I was Born To Live

When I was five I knew I was special.
Put aside for the moment that I wore pink national health glasses, had eyes set scarily far apart, sported a semi-permenant scab on my chin and was always injuring myself through clumsiness or utter stupidity; in my head I was simply biding my time until I grew up and took over the world.

At the time i didn't have any firm plans as to how I would achieve this, but there was always an obscure understanding that when the time was right the knowledge would come. Therefore I was able to smile and ignore the crushingly unoriginal names I was called at primary school (e.g. four eyes and frog face), because in my head I was already planning the eventually annihilation of the name-caller and possibly his favourite family members.

By the time I was a teenager, I began to realise that actually physically taking over the world would require a massive effort on my part - at this point I found all my energies were used up stalking which ever boy I happened to fancy that week (including keeping a detailed timetable of all his movements) - therefore I had at this time a vague idea of writing a book that would change the world. My diary entries for around this time include title ideas such as: The Sky As A Metaphor For Life, The Girl Who Loved A Boy and Why Do My Parents Hate Me?

I was confident right up until I was in my thirties that I was special and that I would change the world. I always knew I had a vivid imagination, I always knew that I wanted my life to be an adventure and I always knew that I wouldn't settle for the mundane. What I didn't realise was that all these things, rather than enhance my life and make me special, would end with me at the age of thirty-nine having completed two degrees, started writing numerous novels and still be no nearer to knowing what I want to do with my life.

So here I am just nine-months away from turning forty and it really is now or never. So I have two plans for this year: the first is to actually finish the book I started writing two-years ago and the second is to start up my own herbal products company (my second degree was a BSc in herbal medicine) and launch it online. The plan is that by keeping this blog, I will have to make some progress on both projects every week, otherwise I will: 1. have nothing to write about 2. look like a complete fool and 3. have waste another year fannying around trying to decide what to do.