A Little Ink Blot

There was a time when I ignored all the advice about committing to the daily discipline of writing. I could afford to ignore it. My life was so boring I loved to escape into my writing work. Rather than having trouble writing, I had to keep a careful watch over my mental state to make sure I was still taking care of household business. As each afternoon approached its end I would look up and find disaster had struck in the form of my three girls and all their toys. There never was enough time to cook and clean before DH came home. But that was because I was too bored and lazy to stop writing and do something.

Now, I find I am a month behind on my writing. My mind is a jumble of ideas and half proofed thoughts. Moments of creativity still jump out at me, but they usually find me behind the wheel of a delivery vehicle, or dialing the number to the 13th customer on the list for today, or pouring over dozens of little expense receipts. Even my doodles are taking the form of corporate by-laws, flow-charts for accounting ledgers and database structures, planning for cash-flow shortfalls. But I am not bored.

We are the entranced owners of a food manufacturing business. The work is routine. The same deadlines, taxes, accounting, inventory control, time management and employment activities apply to us as to any other business. Except that we are the manufacturers, not the retailers. That makes for some unique sets of business knowledge and practice. Some of those topics on which I am particulary weak and ignorant.

How do you price your product? Do you really add all your costs (cost of goods, labor, overhead, delivery charges) divide by the number of units and then multiply by 2 to get the wholesale price to charge your customers? I did hear that somewhere.

How do you find time to market your products with three pre-schoolers hanging onto your pants pockets? What happens when a key piece of equipment that you re-sell is no longer available to provide to your customers? How many weeks can you go without paying your suppliers? Is there a black-market for gasoline yet?

But these aren't the things I really want to be dreaming about all night long. I want my character development outlines back. I miss scene building and crisis-resolution optioning. Where did I bury my ideas notebook? How did this section of profit-loss analysis get into the middle of my devotional outlines sketchbook? Wasn't there something little Esther did today that I wanted to capture? No, it wasn't about donuts.

I wonder if there are any suggestions out there about being a disciplined writer and a business owner at the same time. Oh, and a mother of three, and a homeschooling Mom, and a gleaning volunteer, and a budding website developer.... Someone has to have written some sort of helpful advice for me, right? Like maybe those once despised advice articles? Hmmm, should I take time to find and read one? Or should I just go write something?