Now for the hard stuff

I recently came  across a blog by Leonie Dawson, a totally eccentric, mad Aussie who I instantly thought talked a lot of sense. She said something in her YouTube video HERE that did something to my brain. She said when she first started her business, she spent a lot of time exercising her creative muscles and little time building up her business and marketing muscles. To make her business succeed, she needed  to go to the biz & marketing gym and within 12 months she had a really successful business.

With that in mind, I realise I have spent much of my time creating, which is all very well, but if it can't make us survive as a family, it ain't much bleeding good. So now I see I need to spend quite a bit of time and energy on learning how to market my books properly. I shall embrace the prospect with joy and not the overwhelming desire to stick my head in the oven that would have befitted the old me.

I've started writing myself an achievable daily list of things to do and I've been rereading a marvelous book which I used when I first left University as a poor and destitute graduate called The Artist's Way Click Here . This helped me to focus on the processes I needed to go through to become an illustrator. One of the best bits of advice I read was to stop saying "I'd like to be an Illustrator" and start saying "I AM an Illustrator". (Substitute my career choice with yours.) Hard to do when you have no printed work under your belt, but the shift in sentiment helps you to get that first job.

If you feel you are stuck in a rut and want to change your life or enhance the journey you are already on, here is Leonie's website www.leoniedawson.com. A good place to start.

My list for today reads:

• Book festivals and fayres
• Update blog
• Start on House on Hare Hill pics
• Email retailers who I need to retrieve my books from
• Send images to retailer.

At least I can tick one of those off!!

Cheery-bye for now my lovelies.