Suddenly I’m tired of all the bright and clever people - all promises and opportunities and housed in purpose built glass fronted offices doing wonderful exciting projects with abstract titles that make no sense whatsoever to a 70s grammar school girl.
Approaching Christmas I’ve lost my sparkle and feel more like this morning’s grey winter day - tired before it’s even begun. I suppose recovering from my 4th operation in quick succession hasn’t helped. Everything seems hard work mentally as well as physically.
Perhaps I’m not the only one who reaches a time when whatever you’re trying to achieve starts to look a bit wobbly. That's where I am with my spoken word website - between a rock and a hard place. Five out of six months into my DigitalCity Fellowship and I don’t seem yet to have covered much ground; it isn’t as if I haven’t been work, work, working, although some days it feels as if I just reshuffle endless bits of paper and send e-mails that never get answered . Sometimes it seems that there’s so many strands to the idea that it’s hard to keep hold of them all. My study is in a huge mess again and Wonderhubby is in the midst of putting up 2 more Scandavian storage solutions.
I’ve been telling people for so long now that my website is ‘under development’ that it’s become embarrassing. In reality, it feels just as far away as ever. Having recently spent a long time putting its specifications together, I suppose that’s helped me think about what I want. However, there seems to be a difference of opinion between those advising me on the best way forward which has slowed things up considerably. But I’m going to be generous and say that those people must have my best interest at heart and hope that this delay will mean a firmer foundation.
Now I'm seriously beginning to wonder whether my spoken word website ‘has legs’. What do I charge for anything? I still haven’t been able to determine how much productions cost to make or work out cash flow forecasts or how to do profit and loss accounts. It always seems so logical in the several workshops I’ve been to but when I get home and try it myself all the figures and tables and spreadsheet sums start to dance around the make my head spin.
One thing I've learnt is that you need to be careful what you tell others. I thought it was a good idea to blog, create interest and awareness of my impending new website. I recently contacted the director of music website to see if he would share his experience with me, not thinking that there would be a conflict of interest. After arranging a meeting, he e-mailed me the next day to say that his company had also decided to set up a spoken word website and did I still want to meet? Coincidence? Similarly a friend told me about a website designer that I had previously spoken to at a networking event was also now setting up a similar website to mine. Never mind, if I can eventually muster up enough energy I’ll just have to make sure that listenupnorth.com is the best and brightest star.
I must also remember that since starting my spoke word website idea, I have come across so many supportive and generous people: family, friends, other writers, actors, tutors and mentors. I also need to keep returning to the creative process, remind myself why I’m doing this when the light’s burning a bit low. The one good thing I’ve started to do during recuperation is to write again, something vital to me which had been pushed out by all the admin and business side of things. I’ve picked up the supernatural thriller audiodrama that I abandoned a while ago and I’m also gauging interest from potential actors. So if you’ll excuse me I just need to go and get down to my real business and plot out that steamy scene between my heroine and the local vicar.
