Blog stuff.
23rd April.
I’m writing blog stuff before I have my blog, but it makes sense to chronicle the whole event.
Today I took my first steps on the road to self employment as an online writing tutor and writer. Okay, there were a few weeks of paperwork and business planning, setting up a proper business account, and stuff like that which seemed to take a ludicrous amount of time. But it’s part of the New Deal scheme for old folks (over fifty) and there are certain advantages to doing it this way.
One of which is ‘protected trading’. Any money I make in the first six months, or less if things go really well and I want to leave the scheme, stays in the business account and doesn’t change my entitlement to benefits. In fact this goes up a little because it is now a training allowance rather than mere income support
During the scheme I can draw from my account for business needs, with the approval of the co-signatory on my account, my business adviser.
This is much better than the last time I tried self employment, about thirty years ago. I traded for a year, survived by spending my savings from previous work, made £139 pounds, and went back to being a wage slave on the day there was only £1-69 in my building society account.
This time, I have a safety net and some pretty strict targets to meet. I have a much better idea of what I need to do to make money.
There is still an element of death or glory about my plan, but it’s definitely not a suicide mission this time.
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24 April.
Had to wait for the BT engineer to come and install my new phone line, so I can have broadband. I’d fondly believed Virgin Media would be able to upgrade my existing 56k service to BB, but it was not to be. I was outside their broadband service area.
So a BT line and service were ordered. At £124-99 (don’t forget the ninety nine pence it) seemed a bit steep bit there was no other option in my area.
The engineer arrived when he said he would, was cheerful soul, and spent about an hour and a quarter installing a brand new line. the socket sits neatly above my VM one, and I may just keep up the line rental on the old one. I may keep it as a personal calls only phone. But if not I’ll let it lapse.
BT are providing a free router but it could take up to five working days, and probably will. Why do these things seem so slow when you want to get on and press ahead with things.
In the evening the computer died, but after a few minutes of cursing I discovered one of the drives had disconnected itself, probably whilst I was installing a card to provide two more of the those wonderfully versatile USB ports. With the aid of a four way hub - costing one pound from a cheapjack shop - I now have nine ports to play with. All I had to do to restore the drive was reseat the connector.
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25 April
One of my targets for today was to phone the taxman and tell him I was trading under the New Deal scheme. My adviser had warned there might be’ a language problem’, but the charming young lady who answered after about ten minutes in a holding queue had a proper Geordie accent and I understood every word she said.
The appropriate Inland Revenue ‘Welcome Pack’ is being sent to me and that part of things is underway.
Because I can’t do some of the other things on my list until the broadband connection is up and running, scheduled for May 2nd, I decided to write an article or two to make a start on filling the coffers and re-introducing myself to various editors.
I set the timer - and putting myself under self imposed deadlines - write three short articles averaging around 750 words in three hours. One of them an article about the benefits of setting yourself short deadlines.
Also spent some time sorting out a bit of complicated academic english for my youngest daughter with the help of people on the Writer’s Circle. I will bundle up their responses and send them to her just after midnight.
I am averaging about ten minutes each for these blog posts, which seems pretty reasonable to me.
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26th April
A pretty pointless day up until 4 pm. I got up around eight, worked for an hour or so, had breakfast and then fell asleep on the sofa until 3pm. One of those unbelievably low energy days when there is just nothing left to give, short of an emergency in which case the adrenaline can always be relied upon to kick in for a turbo-boost..
Maybe more later, if things actually happen.
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27th April
Spent a large part of the day doing a long overdue tidy of my ‘office’. Not just because it needed it, but because I was looking for one specific old magazine. I needed to copy an old story of mine, scan it, tidy the few scanning errors, and turn it onto a computer file to send off to an online magazine.
It turned into a pretty strenuous workout, heaving around crates full of magazines and computer parts/accessories, and kicking up a lot of dust which didn’t do my asthma any good. Even with both windows open - I wouldn’t have tackled it on a rainy day - I still had to go out for a while a couple of times.
I know some people would tackle the dust/asthma problem by chasing the dust every day, but seeing as even a little dust can be as bad as a lot it actually makes sense to let it build up to a certain level before dedicating a day to moving stuff, hoovering until the pattern nearly comes off the carpet, and so on.
But the story was found, processed, and sent off. An article from 1989, originally written on a manual typewriter, now being given a new lease of life thanks to OCR.
Plus the office is a bit more organised and will be okay for a couple of weeks now.
Also found time to tackle someone who wants a ridiculous amount of money from Mum in late payment charges. Sent them a pretty blunt letter, offering to pay all the money we legitimately owe but not their damned ‘punitive’ charges.
As a bonus I found a couple of other long-forgotten writings which will probably be re-written for a slightly more modern market. All in all not a bad result for just ‘messing around’ on a Sunday 
28th April
Woke up and found I hadn’t taken my cocktail of pills yesterday. Not the end of the world, but quite disconcerting to realise how easily a few years of routine can be forgotten. Am I going Gaga in my ‘old age’?
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14 May
Feeling ‘a bit miffed’ because my ever faithful and so plain flipping useful AceText multi- clipboard programme has thrown a wobbler. I originally thought it was another problem, but eventually realised AceText was jumping in and out, doing things on its own account without any instructions from me. Once I turned it off all the other glitches stopped happening. I may have to download a fresh copy and re-install it completely, which will be far quicker than messing around trying to find out - possibly in vain - what is wrong. But I’ll see if I can save the clips file first.
If none of the above makes any sense don’t worry, I’ll tell your more about EditPad and its companion programe AceText lanother time.
For now I’m off to sort out more stuff for the website and unleash my business on the world.
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