Admitting defeat

I think everyone should experience defeat at least once during their career.
You learn a lot from it.
Lou Holtz


Today I had to admit defeat. Despite once successfully managing to put the
'I write flash fiction' on my blog I've been completely unable to repeat
this minor success and put the Mumsnet and 1000 words badges on. With the
sour taste of defeat I had to ask a technological expert, my husband for
help. He's never put a badge on before. It took him four minutes, including
resizing the 1000 words badge.



Despite waking up early to walk the dog so I could get lots of work done.
(It was a complete waste of time, the dog didn't want to go out in the rain.
I could have enjoyed another hour's sleep!) I have had a less than
productive day. I was given hundreds of old writing magazines. Kind but what
to do with them? So I have gone through all the old mags, ripped out all
useful articles to put in a file for my writing group. I also listed all the
writing exercises and anything else that may be useful. I expected it to
take an hour - it took four!



Then when I decided to finally get round to doing the writing I wanted to
do, the dog decided it did in fact want to go on a walk. Who is the owner
here? Next answering emails, proof reading for others...before you know it,
the majority of the day is gone. I haven't written a word and I feel myself
sliding into old patterns of allowing myself to being distracted by the
small stuff.

Chrissie Lightfoot Seminar and my experience of creating a personal brand

Yesterday I attended my second workshop in a group of four with Chrissie Lightfoot

I'm a self confessed anxious swot so I had already read her books The Naked Lawyer Volumes one to twelve and experimented with some of her exercises. It was an incredible experience to speak to someone who as reinvented herself and taken control of her life.

I sat in a room of forty franchisees and also a married couple, Lynne and Dave Lister who set up the franchise and watched their reactions to the exercises. I think "personal branding" is a difficult term to understand and it is easy to dismiss it as another trendy phrase. But after my work and research I think it is simply “how you present yourself to the world.” Everyone in the room understands the importance of presenting a professional image when meeting a potential client, none of us would turn up to a meeting in jeans, light up a cigarette while discussing our price list. It isn't that great of a step to think about our online presence.

I think the biggest difficulty was understanding the difference between our personal brand and the companies brand. But it stands to reason that if you have a solid personal brand you’ll be more memorable, you’ll be more impressive, and people will wind up having a better opinion about you.

How I Did It:

Step One
I read the books and did the exercises that Chrissie provided for us, I also caught a bit of one to one time after lunch before the next session to get the more personal advice. Then I used my own teaching experience to make sure the exercises provided to a group of forty would work best for me.

All brands are based on the good qualities and Chrissie had already made us list down our best traits. I didn't want to focus on too many things so I chose the ones I wanted to be known for.

Step Two
Next I used my natural talent for making lists and prioritised my brand elements and decided what was important to me. I also remembered when I was 18 putting on a CV, under hobbies, 'windsurfing' because I had a taster session at school. Only to be interviewed by a guy who had won windsurfing competitions. It didn't end well, so I made sure I was absolutely honest.

Step Three
Again using the exercises provided I wrote my mission statement. And here it was interesting to read and to listen to Chrissie's own story. Everyone in the room had stopped doing something to buy an X-Press Legal Franchise. The hard thing for me is that I can't write a shopping list in less than a thousand words - it still needs cutting - a lot, before I can use it as my strap line

Step Four
What I'm doing now is aligning my online identity with my new 'elevator statement'. Like it or not, what is online about you influences how others perceive you. Chrissie says if you want your personal brand to be effective, your online accounts at Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and your other online profiles need to reflect the ideas in your elevator statement from Step Three.

I'm thinking this through though - I don't want to just cut and paste my new strap line straight into Facebook because that would be weird, I'm going to adjust things so to reflect and strengthen my personal brand.

Step Five
I am already working on taking more control of my online identity. Which explains why I'm not writing down my personal brand yet. Like Chrissie's tweet said: I'm gettings my DN, SM and TM handles nailed down before disclosing to the world. But I feel proud of the progress I've made so far.

Tom Peters is right in his quote. "You are the CEO of You Inc. whether you recognize it or not.
The question really boils down to this: Are you going to live accidentally or are you are going to live purposefully?"

I hope my notes are useful fellow X-Presser's and writers good luck with the new online YOU's.

What exciting times we live in...

Both of my girls enjoy joining the reading scheme at the local library. So it was a good opportunity to take the time to have a coffee with a poet from The Writers @ Lovedean yesterday to discuss self promotion of both an individual and a writing group.

The Re Authoring event was looking at ways writers could present their work to a different audience and as come up with lots of fun and different innovative ways to do this:

"The ongoing project now exists to further develop this devising process, and to work with a wider range of authors and community groups to create literary performance that is engrossing, democratic and enlightening, without losing sight of the essential nature of the book and the author.

The ReAuthoring Project seeks to reinvigorate the reader’s encounter with the author, moving away from the traditional reading, towards something with more appeal to new audiences. We work within a wide range of media to achieve this."
http://www.reauthoring.co.uk/about/

But there is no reason why writers can't do this for themselves.

With the help of my ten year old daughter we came up with the idea of a 'poem in a bag.' We have distributed them to The Writers @ Lovedean, my daughter put a price on them of course! She may be small but she is a capitalist and did spend hours making them to a very high standard. The poets in the group are then able to print out their work, and pop it into the bag. The authors details, web pages and blog addresses are on the bag in case the reader wants to find out more.

Some of our members are also experimenting with multi media.

What exciting times we live in...

What to do?

Feel blue, blue, blue this morning.

It's been a ridiculously hard week combined with a bad back. I've done very little writing.

More than one doctor as got cross with me and have repeatedly told me that I should be nicer to myself. Stop setting myself such high standards etc.

So Saturday morning and I've been sitting here for an hour with absolutely no idea how to do something nice just for me. I feel like I should be ironing, cutting grass or doing the kitchen floor but that won't help the back. I need to keep moving but not make it worse. So I will take my dog for a walk and try to plan something nice.

More thought needed I think. Anyway the details of the Costa Short Story Competition are below:

COSTA LAUNCHES THE COSTA SHORT STORY AWARD
Entries open from Monday 16th July to Friday 7th September Submissions to be judged anonymously
Winner to be voted for by public and announced at Costa Book Awards ceremony
Monday 16th July 2012: Costa today announces the launch of the Costa Short Story Award, a brand new Award for a single short story that will run in association with the Costa Book Awards but be judged independently of the main five-category system.
The new Award is for a single, previously unpublished short story of up to 4,000 words by an author aged 18 years or over and written in English. The author’s primary residence must have been the UK or Ireland for the past three years.
Entry opens on Monday 16th July and closes at 4pm on Friday 7th September. Entries must be submitted online via a dedicated page at www.costabookawards.com. Entrants need not have been previously published but publishers and agents may submit entries on behalf of authors.
All entries will be judged anonymously – in other words, without the identity of the author being available to the judges.
A panel of five judges will select a shortlist of six entries which will be revealed in November. The public will then be invited to vote online for their favourite story from the six finalists.
The winner will be announced at the Costa Book Awards ceremony on 29th January 2013 and will receive £3,500; two runners-up will each receive £750.

Little Surprises Friday Flash Fiction

I inspected the row of nappies while bouncing the pram. As long as she felt movement she didn't cry, I hoped she would fall asleep on the walk home.

"Sandy?"

Oh my God, Stewart! I hadn't seen him for over a year, not since he moved to Cardiff with that slag Christine. What a two timing rat! Still I'd proved I could cope on my own.

"Hiya." I muttered then turned back to the shelf. He lingered behind me like the smell of dog dirt on your shoe and he was as just as welcome. I grabbed the packet next to newborn and put it on top of the pram. Why wouldn't he take the hint and just go away I wondered?

He picked up the nappies and peered into the pram.

"I'll get these."

I was confused. He used to always nip to the toilet when it was his round. Did he think a packet of pampers would make me go back out with him?

"Jeez Sandy, why didn't you tell me? Is it a girl? What is she called?"

"Her name is Sophie."

"Can we talk? Can I see you?"

I walked to the checkout. I could feel him close behind me.

"Please. Can I come over tonight?"

He put the nappies on the counter and asked for a hundred pounds cash back.

"Here for the baby."

I tried to shake my head to resist him, but he forced my fingers over the notes.

"I'm sorry, but I can't even thank you for this." I said turning my hand so he could see the money.

"I don't expect you too, not after what I did. And you having to go through everything alone. But I'm here now. We'll sort things out tonight yeah?"

I nodded, pushed the money into my jeans and started the walk home. I smiled at the thought of him going to the house tonight and finding out we moved six months ago. I rang the bell and Dad let me in. My sister was asleep on the couch.

"Thank goodness you got little Sophie to sleep, you're such I brilliant Aunty." Dad said.

Being your own boss

Its been a very busy week visiting prospective clients while still balancing the other duties of the business and family. I've been gobbling paracetamol because of my back and in the hours wait before seeing the next client I've been trying to catch my breath.

There are many things I enjoy about being self employed. Although I work more hours now than when I was PAYE I like the feeling of being in control of my own destiny. However, I don't like the uncertainty of scrambling around for that next client or job. Or that gnawing in your gut over financial insecurity.

There are moments of unexpected joy when working with your husband. On Tuesday we had to see a prospective client in Winchester and instead of pulling over in a lay-by to eat a hurried pack lunch and the debate of whether or not this guy would come on board. Or the desperate search for free Wi Fi connection so we could check our emails in a cafe. My husband took me to eat our packed lunch at The Hospital of St John of the Cross, an ancient almshouse.

Legend has it that the Hospital’s foundation originated in a walk that Henry of Blois, a grandson of William the Conqueror, took in the Itchen Meadows. He was supposedly stopped by a young peasant girl who begged Henry to help her people, who were starving because of the civil war. The parallel with the Virgin Mary was not lost on Henry, who was so moved by the girl’s plight that when, a little further along the river, he discovered the ruins of a religious house, he resolved to use the site to establish a new community to help the poor. Wayfarers can still request their dole of bread and beer, which I did.

It is also an ideal location for part of the YA novel I'm planning to write in November. Unfortunately we could only spend an hour there, it was a wonderful place. I hurriedly took as many photographs as possible before we had to move on. It is surprising how uplifting these moments are. I know my husband is currently working hard to achieve his goal of competing in a bodybuilding contest. I just hope that he doesn't look back at his nine to five life with complete rose tinted glasses and is able to see the freedom that our goal of running a successful business will bring.

Bad backs and dreaming time

I took the opportunity of a break in the rain on Sunday to run out and cut the grass. But since the wheels on our lawn mower are wonky I tried to sort of carry/push the mower through very long dense wet grass. It resulted in me hurting my back again.

On my own special recovery programme of hot patches and paracetamol I've still managed to go see potential clients with my husband. This morning since our first meeting is at eleven he offered to take our daughter to school, so I decided to write my blog lying down while exercising. (Moving and stretching my legs in bed and saying Ahhh with a seasoning of swear words.)

The silver lining is my chance to do some 'dreaming time.' I've been on lots of meet the author events and many talk of how they get their ideas and do their plotting while walking the dog. In fact it was one of the reasons I looked forward to getting our Westie. But dog walks don't work for me. Maybe it's because although he comes back on command, mostly. He had a terrible habit of stealing other dogs balls, peeing on puppies, and jumping up and leaving paw marks on anyone wearing light trousers. I think now he's two he's settling down. But some of the walks have been stressful times.

For me I like to be cocooned in my duvet and let the story lie gently unfold like a movie. The stolen bed time is the best. Those few moments during the snooze button is when my imagination really fires up. The jobs on the today's list hasn't got into action yet and like weeds fighting to invade a garden my mind is alive with story ideas.

Today I'm aware of hubby making the girls breakfast. I feel guilty, but not guilty enough to hobble downstairs to help. And I was thinking about November. Which in the writing community is 'the write a novel in a month.' I had a go in around 2005-6? It wasn't a well thought out novel and I got caught up in just focusing on the word count. So this time I've started plotting a YA novel. I've filled a file with pictures and plot ideas. And I'm hoping to take a bit of time between meetings in Winchester to take some more photos today.

Which brings me neatly back to my original problem of actually managing to get out of the damn bed in the first place! No pain no gain.