This is a story about taking on too much...
I'm trying to sell the rights to one book, while writing another, and a blog, plus keep my eyes peeled for any easy contract work, plus try and find some missing VAT from the last quarter because the bill is eye-wateringly huge, plus get my annual acccounts up to date, which requires resetting my Barclays PIN and then importing a shittonne of data into Freeagent.
I'm also using my Braintree credit card merchant account to cycle my debts and avoid cripling interest payments. Oh, and I have to pay my rent soon, which at least I have the cash for this month. Really need to deal with the bills though.
The path of least resistance would be to go get another IT contract, but I would describe that particular channel as 'shit creek'. At least I feel alive, writing, even if responses thus far have been negative, apart from my whopping 4 sales on Amazon.
I read something written by my friend Julian today. I think it illustrated the gulf between me (blogging for 6 months, written 12,000 words of a book with a target of 60,000) versus him (blogging for years, author of a decent book that's selling well).
It's interesting how my life has been thrown into disarray by the simple act of dropping a phone in a bath. I could use my old one (pictured) but I mainly keep it for posterity. It's 8 years old.
8 years. What have I achieved in 8 years? That's a depressing thought.
I look at all my friends with their happy little families, all cuddled up in bed having story time or sleepy time, and I realised I fucked up somewhere. My flatmate Matt is one of the best friends you could ever ask for. I fell out with John, because his idea of winning is to undermine your opponent. I fell out with my Dad when he lost the use of the English language and the penny never dropped that at some point, respect has to become a 2-way street. Everybody else is just busy with their lives, and I've not kept pace, I lagged behind, chasing black widows and drugs.
What's to be done? There is a mountain of practical matters I can be busying myself with. Apart from my commitment to Matt to meet my share of the rent & bills, my gut feel is just to f**k off with a rucksack on my back. Perhaps to test the water, I should take Marine Girl on on her kind offer of the loan of her camper van. I've been within the M25 for far too long.
London kind of loses its magic when you live in a gated community on an 'island' (The Isle of Dogs).
I've made a right mess of things and it's going to take a lot of work to getting things back to pristine condition, but I can vaguely remember when everrything was shipshape and working like clockwork. Sure, there was boredom, an urge to create ripples in the calm water, but not this... not this churning thrashing shipwreck that threatens to engulf me.
Anyway, melodramatic as always.
See you in hospital.
