All ready.
As of midnight tomorrow my post log will return to zero and I will have to start work all over again to make sure that I have posted fifty two posts by the end of the year. Sounds like I have no problems doing that. Ha ha, think again. One there is the time factor, or rather the lack of time factor. You try scrapping together enough time together to work on a blog every week when you are trying to run three... four... five lives all at once.
Two, you then have to think of something to write about. It has to be interesting because nobody is going to want to read a post about you munching breakfast in the morning. Well, maybe they would be if you eat raw worms for breakfast but I don't eat raw worms for breakfast. Personally, worms belong in the garden, not in my mouth.
I will admit that I kind of cheated this year as I did nearly eight posts in May in one go, which meant that I bought myself a little leeway where it came to the post counter but seeing as half of them didn't get any post views I'm not sure that really counts.
Three, you then have to come up with a catchy title so that people will at least look at the first sentence of your post.
If you can do all that then you may have the start of a popular blog... or not. It all depends on whether the audience likes what you write about. Fame is a difficult thing to catch and sometimes you think you have it and then it flies away again... like the popularity of the silent movies.
In which case I think I will settle for blogging about what I'm working on, or gets my goat, or makes me laugh. If other people like it, great. If not, well, I'll have to keep posting until some decides they do like me.
Oh, that makes me think. All this stuff about New Year Resolutions? It's a load of bunkum.
You make a New Years Resolution, break it by habit or because you just weren't paying attention that day and then you feel massively guilty and then you pretend you never made it and go back to you old ways. (Hey, is that why the Conservative Party is deleting all their mandate for the last election off the Internet? Was it one massive New Years Resolution?)
It is far better to make life resolutions. Things like I will try and be more organised this year. Or I will try and do more work when I first get a job so I'm not pushing the deadlines.
That way you have the whole year to work on it and it doesn't matter if you fall over in the first few weeks, you have the rest of the year to pick yourself up again.
Hope that gives you a few ideas and that you have a healthy and safe New Year.
See you all in January.
Tuesday 30 December 2014
Tuesday 23 December 2014
I'm on Faceplant... er...Facebook Even!
O.k. I have finally given in to the march of 'progress' and signed up to Facebook. I'm not entirely happy about it and if my computer subsequently gets a bug then someone else can pay the sixty pound bill to strip the computer down, clear out the bug, reload my recovery disks and the remove, one at a time, the twenty five languages that I don't need hogging the memory space.
Still I'm there now and I suppose that it is another platform that I can use to advertise my artwork and writing on, which is the main reason that I signed up to it. Still not sure that I like it because it seems even more complicated than twitter and blogger put together but I'll give it a go. Hopefully I'll get at least a few views from it and maybe a few more visitors when I do a fair.
Did I mention in my last post that I had done a craft fair at the Common Room (not Coffee Lounge, my mistake) at 24 Saint Benedict's Street and this time I actually managed to sell something! Granted it was only four of my postcard sized photo-cards but it was a sell, or rather three of them (one person bought two of the cards).
It did mean that I got all of forty pence as my wage but it is a start. The tax fund is still receiving more than I do but that is what I was advised to do, just in case the tax man decides that he wants to take one heck of a bite out of me the first year I make it over the tax threshold and I am kind of thinking of it as my retirement fund. Especially as by the time I make it to retirement age the possibility of there still being a state pension in the UK is minimal.
To clear up the whole thing about the taxman - the story of a fellow writer.
The first five years she was a professional writer she did not make the tax threshold. The sixth year she did and the tax man demanded not only the tax for that year but also the tax for the five years previously, pretty much bankrupting her.
What is more the taxman is above and beyond the call of law. He demands and you cannot fight him in court 'cause you cannot take him to court and even if you could, take him to court that is, who among us has the money to fight that sort of legal battle. Not me that's for sure.
That and as I said, I'm kind of seeing it as my retirement fund. If the taxman doesn't want it all then there's my nest egg. May it grow big before it's needed.
Any way back to the original subject.
You can look me up under the name of V J Bartlett (for some reason I can't use the initial punctuation) and my first album of my art work is open to the public.
If you want to buy any of them as prints, check out:
http://v-j-bartlett.deviantart.com/gallery
One final thing before I go, my boyfriend Stephen 'Stormwell' Hughes has just come up with this song bite based on 'Over the Hills and Far Away' from the Sharpe movies:
"Because the taxman commands
And we cough up,
Down the sofa
And under the rug."
(Looking for the lost change.)
Still I'm there now and I suppose that it is another platform that I can use to advertise my artwork and writing on, which is the main reason that I signed up to it. Still not sure that I like it because it seems even more complicated than twitter and blogger put together but I'll give it a go. Hopefully I'll get at least a few views from it and maybe a few more visitors when I do a fair.
Did I mention in my last post that I had done a craft fair at the Common Room (not Coffee Lounge, my mistake) at 24 Saint Benedict's Street and this time I actually managed to sell something! Granted it was only four of my postcard sized photo-cards but it was a sell, or rather three of them (one person bought two of the cards).
It did mean that I got all of forty pence as my wage but it is a start. The tax fund is still receiving more than I do but that is what I was advised to do, just in case the tax man decides that he wants to take one heck of a bite out of me the first year I make it over the tax threshold and I am kind of thinking of it as my retirement fund. Especially as by the time I make it to retirement age the possibility of there still being a state pension in the UK is minimal.
To clear up the whole thing about the taxman - the story of a fellow writer.
The first five years she was a professional writer she did not make the tax threshold. The sixth year she did and the tax man demanded not only the tax for that year but also the tax for the five years previously, pretty much bankrupting her.
What is more the taxman is above and beyond the call of law. He demands and you cannot fight him in court 'cause you cannot take him to court and even if you could, take him to court that is, who among us has the money to fight that sort of legal battle. Not me that's for sure.
That and as I said, I'm kind of seeing it as my retirement fund. If the taxman doesn't want it all then there's my nest egg. May it grow big before it's needed.
Any way back to the original subject.
You can look me up under the name of V J Bartlett (for some reason I can't use the initial punctuation) and my first album of my art work is open to the public.
If you want to buy any of them as prints, check out:
http://v-j-bartlett.deviantart.com/gallery
One final thing before I go, my boyfriend Stephen 'Stormwell' Hughes has just come up with this song bite based on 'Over the Hills and Far Away' from the Sharpe movies:
"Because the taxman commands
And we cough up,
Down the sofa
And under the rug."
(Looking for the lost change.)
Tuesday 16 December 2014
Christmas Time Rush
I'm not normally one for joining in on all the silliness at this time of year but this year is rushing towards me with the sound of ten thousand elephants, all intent on trampling me into the ground.
It seems that I have decided, without meaning to, to start my career seriously at probably the worse possible moment. Not only am I trying to get stock of my prints, in formats that are going to appeal, done and posted to me in time for the craft fair at the Coffee Lounge on Saturday the 20th, but I'm also looking at learning how to juggle the demands of family, a new relationship and a commission that must be done in time for Christmas all at once. As Mr Jenkins once observed:
"Trust you to be awkward, Vicky!"
Still it is turning out to be fun, in a very loose sense of that word.
What is more, it is being very expensive at the moment to buy the prints, not because Photobox is expensive but because I have yet to receive and substantial amount in return. I have managed to sell one print so far but when you start calculating the expenses, the tax man's cut and my wage, then there isn't a lot of profit left to put back into the account.
This isn't for lack of trying, you understand.
I was at the craft fair at Stew, Gallery and Artist Studios Thursday just gone with Steph, sharing a pitch and despite a good turn out, handing out oodles of my new business cards (did I tell you about them?), I didn't sell a single thing, hence my rush to buy in new stock. Hopefully cards will be more acceptable to the public.
The only problem is that I had not a moment in which to order them sooner than yesterday, so with a dispatch date of the nineteenth, even with next day delivery, I might have walked out of the door half an hour before they arrive. Not much of a help for the fair.
Still, if they don't arrive on time, I will still go with what stock I do have. For those of you who maybe interested, the next fair I will be attending is at the Coffee Lounge, starting 11 am. The full address is:
24 Saint Benedict's Street
Norwich
NR2 4AQ
Hopefully, I will be able to see some of you there and maybe sell a print or two. Either way, it would be good to be able to talk some more with the audience. Writing and art can be such a lonely career, especially as a lot of self employed, or previously self employed people have been telling me don't expect to sell anything between Christmas and Easter.
Not good news for my bank account but maybe I'll have some time to do some actual work on my writing and my personal art projects.
That's a point.
Who would like a calendar of my artwork? If you would please leave a comment in the comment box.
For previews of my work, please visit:
http://v-j-bartlett.deviantart.com/gallery/
Best wishes for Christmas period. May it be a happy and healthy one for you and your family.
It seems that I have decided, without meaning to, to start my career seriously at probably the worse possible moment. Not only am I trying to get stock of my prints, in formats that are going to appeal, done and posted to me in time for the craft fair at the Coffee Lounge on Saturday the 20th, but I'm also looking at learning how to juggle the demands of family, a new relationship and a commission that must be done in time for Christmas all at once. As Mr Jenkins once observed:
"Trust you to be awkward, Vicky!"
Still it is turning out to be fun, in a very loose sense of that word.
What is more, it is being very expensive at the moment to buy the prints, not because Photobox is expensive but because I have yet to receive and substantial amount in return. I have managed to sell one print so far but when you start calculating the expenses, the tax man's cut and my wage, then there isn't a lot of profit left to put back into the account.
This isn't for lack of trying, you understand.
I was at the craft fair at Stew, Gallery and Artist Studios Thursday just gone with Steph, sharing a pitch and despite a good turn out, handing out oodles of my new business cards (did I tell you about them?), I didn't sell a single thing, hence my rush to buy in new stock. Hopefully cards will be more acceptable to the public.
The only problem is that I had not a moment in which to order them sooner than yesterday, so with a dispatch date of the nineteenth, even with next day delivery, I might have walked out of the door half an hour before they arrive. Not much of a help for the fair.
Still, if they don't arrive on time, I will still go with what stock I do have. For those of you who maybe interested, the next fair I will be attending is at the Coffee Lounge, starting 11 am. The full address is:
24 Saint Benedict's Street
Norwich
NR2 4AQ
Hopefully, I will be able to see some of you there and maybe sell a print or two. Either way, it would be good to be able to talk some more with the audience. Writing and art can be such a lonely career, especially as a lot of self employed, or previously self employed people have been telling me don't expect to sell anything between Christmas and Easter.
Not good news for my bank account but maybe I'll have some time to do some actual work on my writing and my personal art projects.
That's a point.
Who would like a calendar of my artwork? If you would please leave a comment in the comment box.
For previews of my work, please visit:
http://v-j-bartlett.deviantart.com/gallery/
Best wishes for Christmas period. May it be a happy and healthy one for you and your family.
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