I’m up to module 4 on the Writing for Television Masterclass and it’s time to work on my idea. The real work begins. After the idea, the premise, a place where ideas can often fall down.  There are lots of questions, but no answers yet; what does my protagonist do for a living and how or will this affect her in a new environment? I also need to map out the areas of her life where she will be spending her time and who with. Thankfully there are good friends on hand to fuel and provide inspiration. It’s useful to know that my idea is credible; with hard work, time and TLC it could turn into something solid.

It’s also been a week of investigating some of the business aspects of this venture.  Spurred on by a friend with plenty of business acumen, I’ve researched organisations to find out what assistance, and, or funding is available. The friendly advisor who phoned assured me I was in the right place. She was also able to make sense of my journey so far and understood the somewhat jumbled nature of me wanting to keep my options open between copywriting and creativity. My registration onto the local startup enterprise scheme is underway.  I’ve also enrolled onto a short free Business Admin course, I welcome all the help I can get. It feels like I’m in battle mode and I want to be prepared.

I voiced the creeping doubts I was having about my flaky schedule and near obsession to create something more structured. The candid and humorous response from a dear friend was “let me know how that goes”. I laughed and finally broke the tension plaguing me to devise a schedule. It does not matter how well things are planned or structured, life is going to interrupt, like that cheeky mid-week trip to Ikea! It was not an essential outing but it was enjoyable, I got a new desk lamp out of it, so I can work more comfortably in the dark and if I have to work on Saturday to make up for it – so be it.

My copywriting output has been marginally less this week, but instead of berating myself, it was kinder to view any and all output as successful rather than focussing on the mountain of work still to be tackled. This gave me a lightbulb moment this week. I’ve got four main tasks: creativity, masterclass, copywriting course, learning about and creating a business. Providing I can attend to each of them at least once over the course of a week I should be able to keep things moving forward. Some tasks are going to get more attention than others, but providing no one task stays still for too long I should be okay. It took a while to get to that realisation (unconsciously I think I’ve been working this way already) but I am glad I can finally put the idea of a rigid schedule out of my mind and forget about it. Amen.