I Feel Like a Hustling Creative Entrepreneur
What are the inner workings of a handmade creative business? The answer lies in the challenges, delays, sparks of inspiration, lots of work and lots of mistakes and the victories. What it's really is like is hard to put in a nutshell.
To me, It's Not Pink & Sugary.
To me, it's not like the pink, sugary, operation-theatre-like TikToc videos you often see. Though I actually think a portion of them are for real. Some of them even earn gazillions of dollars/Euro/Yen/Pounds.This is not my experience.
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Berets, By Parade
My world is not pink, fluffy and full off mass produced stickers, boxes and journals etc. There are no hoards of teenage fans jostling to spend their expendable cash, (it's surprising how much teens have at their disposal these days), on Parade Handmade products, making me a gazillion euro for designing once and mass producing what I will sell.
The World of Parade Handmade is Quieter
The world of Parade Handmade is quieter, for the most part and thankfully my world is not so pink. There is pink, but also the remainder of the spectrum. These designers are clean and use digital design tools alone. I never see them with a pencil, paint tube or brush, needle, wool or felt etc. Poor them.
They Have the Knack and the Business Acumen
Although they seem to have the knack and the business acumen to earn the cash plus, it seems, enormous confidence and little doubt in their abilities, they are missing out on what I thrive on and I suspect that which many creative people thrive on.
'What's that', you might ask? The smell of the materials, the textures and the colour of them. The experience of feeling natural and dirty too. Relaxed in the creative splendour of it all. Feeling part of the process. The beautiful unfolding of a piece of handmade work. How tactile it feels. How centering it is.
I don't mind walking and talking like the brand as long as it's a natural look for me and that my friends, is not wearing the same colour every day, be it pink, beige, green or blue and looking like a walking talking mannequin. I wonder what these designers will develop into later on in life..
I Get Inspiration from These Creative Entrepreneurs
In spite of our differences, I do get plenty of inspiration from these entrepreneurs. I like their work ethic and their optimism. Their enthusiasm and seemingly easy approach, however plastic it seems to me, sometimes.
This ease of theirs is kind of aspirational to me because any creative personality I know, be it a writer, painter or designer etc will agree, I believe, that creativity is like a big wave. You have to go with the highs and lows the ease and the difficulty. Your creativity is a reflection of your life. It is your life really. It is mixed up and confusing, always challenging, satisfying, frightening and generally thrilling. It is not usually pink, fluffy and easy.
Nonetheless, it can be easy, sometimes. So that's where the inspiration comes in. Those moments of easy dreamy creative joy. The sense that all is OK with the world and there's no bad to be found. Every living thing is safe and happy and at ease. Life is a breeze.
My Business Diary
I didn't realise my business diary was going to touch on that subject though you never know what's going to come up day today...
Lately I have been refocusing on creativity. As if I would have to, you'd think. Sometimes while running an online business you can lose sight of the purpose of the whole exercise.
I Have Refocused on Creativity
I have decided to double down on creativity as an antidote to the stress caused by the intrusion of the digital necessities of running an online business. The wheel of social media and marketing, website upkeep and general product management. I Had Been Feeling Disconnected
I had driven myself into a corner where I felt disconnected from myself and from my usual creative fervour. I got lost in trying too hard to get all the digital bells and whistles ticked off. All the problems solved and all the rabbit holes properly delved into.
Facebook has swallowed up far too much of my time. FB wants you as a pupil in their school it seems. Always changing the algorithm, always changing things in general. This means that you always seem to be catching up with their teachings. Getting disconnected. Permissions not granted. Roles needing confirmation. Etc Etc Etc.. Where did this all start? They really have us all hooked. I don't even know if it is a necessary evil or just a total waste of creative time.
My Work Diary Victory
I had a little victory today. My issue only took me an hour to sort out though there is more coming. My progress is stuck..
The victory. I succeeded in wading through their Facebook jargon ridden bumpf to discover that, although I am an admin with free access to all aspects to running my business page, as I knew already, I needed to 'grant access' to various tasks separately, as well.
I did this and now my page is accepted again as it was before. However, I could not yet for some reason, access the proper page integration process. This is a logging in issue where Facebook and Instagram do not want you logging in through a third party entrance, namely, Shopify, amongst others. I have granted myself permission from FB, I thought, but no.
I will get to the bottom of that on another day where I will give FB a limited time only access to my brain power. Instead I will continue to give the better part of this brain over to creativity in general.
