Sink Or Swim!

After 2 long weeks of being told "wait until your next appointment and they'll sort it then," on Thursday I actually managed to sit down with an advisor at the Job Centre and made them sign me up for the New Enterprise Allowance scheme (NEA).

You can imagine the look of bewilderment on the man's face as he clutched entirely the wrong forms and had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. Even though my clearance had been sitting on their computer for a fortnight. I had to feel sorry for him though. He'd just come back from being off long-term sick, so hey, who better to administrate a programme he's had absolutely no experience of?

Cue the typical arse/elbow recognition lesson. It took 3 members of staff before anyone knew which buttons needed pressing, but even he couldn't tell me those tiny little details like... well... when the heck I can expect to get any money. I guess it's going to be lucky dip at the cashpoint for the next couple of weeks!

Eventually, the forms were signed, I'd taught the advisor a bit about how to do his own job, the little signing-on booklet that's been my constant companion for the last 2½ years got left on the desk and I walked out of that Job Centre officially self-employed.

Oh boy.

Even though the NEA provides me with a benefits cushion for 6 months, I know that time will soon fly by and I've got to make sure I'm in a strong enough position to strike out and survive on my own.

That's the scary bit I mentioned in my last post. The trouble that could trip me over and see me end up finally bankrupt. I've got to master something I have absolutely no idea how to do and which frustrates me when people don't respond in the way I need them to.

I've got to get people to part with their money.

I'm not one of those charismatic sorts that has people hanging on my every word. I haven't got a cute sob story to trade off. I've never had people rushing to my aid when I've been in trouble or who'll go singing my praises to someone who could be a great help. I don't have thousands of Twitter followers or get long streams of comments on my Facebook. I've only got 12 people following this blog and another 3 on the Electric Scrapbook.

All that's going to have to change if I'm to get enough trade to make a living. I honestly don't know how I'm supposed to make people care. Am I coming across as a whinger by saying that?

Please don't confuse that with me having no confidence in my work. Far from it, I love what I do! I have my big ideas, hone them to perfection on this computer, upload them to my shops, post the links to all my readers, then... nothing. That little masterpiece I thought everyone would go crazy for just sits there gathering virtual dust.

A few little reminders of some of my favourite designs, none of which I've ever sold. These are all available from my Zazzle store.

Of course I have a few notable exceptions who have been excellent supporters. They know who they are and how much I appreciate them. I just wish I had many more of them!

So now I have the challenge of working out how to make people want to spend their hard earned cash with me. I really want the art to do the talking. I want everyone to see they're getting something very special and unique. It's not often you get the chance to own something that literally nobody else in the world has got, but if you shop with me you will do. Owning a one-off original would normally cost thousands but here you can get it for a couple of pounds. What's not to love?

I'm currently loading lots more new products onto Café Press. The Snowman and Christmas Tree shops are now complete, I'll finish the other Christmas shops over the weekend, with the remaining designs to follow during the week. I'm also planning to squeeze in a couple of new Christmas card designs if I can do them in time, which will mark the start of a major new (and VERY unique) art and greetings project over on Zazzle. Then I've got another big surprise to launch over at Café Press which will give you a whole new shopping experience.

I'm already lining up my new projects for 2012, some of which will be totally unlike anything you've seen from me so far. Getting the ideas is the easy bit. Getting the money to bring those ideas to life is a heck of a lot tougher.

Christmas is fast approaching and this is the perfect time to get involved. If you bought even one little gift from my Zazzle or Café Press stores instead of the big retailers you'll get something extra special and thoughtful for your loved one and you'll be doing me a massive service. Even if you can't afford to buy something yourself, please pass this link along to someone who you believe would be interested. I can only make my business work if YOU help me out. Yes, you. Not that other person. You. Yes. Thank you.

• To visit my Zazzle store for flags, Font Islands and animal T-shirts, click here.

• To visit my Café Press stores for hundreds of clothes, gifts, homeware and more, click on the design you like from the buttons on the left hand side of this page.

The Tide Turning?

It's been 2 months since I last wrote to you but rest assured I've not been idle. The rare quiet time I get has been spent on a very important task. One that could launch me to a whole new level of success. Or see me down the nearest bankruptcy court. One or t'other.

If you remember (or can be bothered scrolling back to previous posts) there are health issues within my family that make it unwise for me to leave the house for long periods of time every day. That's assuming I could find a damn job anyway, which is a lot easier said than done.

I've spent most of my adult life working for myself and it was always my aim to get back to being self employed. It's true what they say, once you've worked for yourself it's really hard to enjoy working for someone else. Since I left college over 3 years ago I've always put my efforts into starting projects that could lead me back to self employment. The only stumbling block has always been money. To be precise, the total lack of it in my bank account.

Considering that for about 4 years we've been in a recession/credit crunch/whatever other fancy name economists want to put on it, you'd think the government would have wanted to do whatever it could to encourage people to start their own businesses so they can use their skills and initiative to graft their way back to solvency. It's always been my attitude that if someone didn't want to take me on then I'd make some sort of opportunities for myself. Yet up until recently the help offered to get the jobless to try self employment has been pretty poor. You had to be signing on for between 6 and 12 months only, attend a start-up course at the local Business Link centre and then you'd be entitled to about £50 a week for a certain amount of time. So that's fine if you could guarantee to make up the £15 a week you'd be losing (or more depending on your benefits). For an art and design business, where my cash flow would consist of larger but irregular payments, that was too much of a gamble and I didn't have a cash reserve to fall back on.

That and the fact the 2 guys running the course were idiots.

Now though things have changed and this year saw the reintroduction of the Enterprise Allowance, which actually helped me start my first business back in the late '80s. This time you have to attend regular mentoring sessions at your local partner agency (in my case the Black Country Chamber of Commerce - the disappointing Business Link service thankfully no longer exists although their website's still up and actually very useful). Over the space of 8 weeks you're guided through filling in a template for a business plan and, once that's approved, you can decide whether or not you really want to start your business. If so, you're passed back to the Job Centre who'll switch you from receiving Job Seeker's Allowance to New Enterprise Allowance. This is the same amount (£65 a week) as JSA for the first 13 weeks, then drops down to £33 for another 13 weeks. There's an optional cut-price loan of up to £1,000 if you need it and you can continue to get help from your business mentor. So at least I won't be any worse off for 13 weeks plus obviously I can keep whatever I earn. Whilst unemployed, if I'd cashed in any of my royalties from my online shops, for example, that would have been deducted from my benefits so in effect I'd have been working for nothing.

Creative people tend to have a phobia of business plans. Too many facts and targets for our expressive brains to handle. Thankfully this mentoring process made it pretty painless. I could easily complete the sections where I explain the vision for my business - oh boy do I have LOADS of ideas I want to try out! My mentor Sarah then broke down the market research questions into bite sized chunks and told me exactly what type of competing businesses to look at and what sort of information I should be finding out about them. Having a check list to tick off made it a lot more focused and manageable. Then for the REALLY scary bit, the financial planning, it was just a case of filling in a form listing my incomings and outgoings and she ran that through an Excel spreadsheet to form a 12 month financial projection. Phew, I'm glad she tackled that one for me!

The process of writing the business plan turned out to be a useful way to mull over my ideas and put my priorities in order. Projects which I thought would form an important part of my business got put on the back burner when I realised others would be easier to expand and reformat to use in various different ways. So I now have a business plan template I feel comfortable using and I can rewrite it whenever I want to examine the feasibility of a new project idea.

All I need now is for the Job Centre to get their backsides into gear and sort the paperwork for me. It'll have been 2 weeks between the end of mentoring and my next Job Centre appraisal. It should have been today but I got a phone call postponing it, literally 10 minutes before I was due to leave the house. At this time of year, when I was hoping to start the business off with a big Christmas giftware push, that's a lot of valuable time being wasted!

Of course, a business plan can't prepare you for everything. In my next post I'll explain the bit I'm REALLY not confident about, which is why I started this post by saying my gamble could land me in the bankruptcy court!

•If you live in England, Wales or Scotland and have been unemployed for over 6 months, you may be eligible to apply for the New Enterprise Allowance.

A Friend In Need

UPDATE 23rd June 2011

I've taken the decision to remove this post.  Unfortunately I have not received a very good response to it and I'm not prepared to bare my soul and tell you lots of deeply humiliating personal secrets if it's just going to be met with a wave of apathy.

My circumstances are still pretty dire.  I'm currently appealing the decision that led me into trouble and I've managed to arrange a payment holiday on my loan, so hopefully that will help me along a bit.

I'll keep the payment button on my blogs and I would still ask you that if you enjoy anything you see on here or the Scrapbook then please try and find it in your heart to leave me a little donation.  Anything you could afford would be gratefully received and will be a massive boost towards getting my life back on track.

I would like to sincerely thank the few people who did come to my aid and offer help in various forms.  Your generosity will not go unrewarded and forgotten.  It's times like this you really get to learn who your friends are.

Thank you.

The Big Rethink

Wow, has it really been 2 months? Long time no see. How you doing? Did you miss me? Probably not. Oh well.

So what have I been up to all this time that's meant I've been neglecting the blog? Well a couple of things sprung up to confront me around the end of March. One good, one bad, both connected and both requiring me to have a big rethink about my life and career. A few weeks down the line, now's a good time to reflect, regroup and take things in a new direction.

First the bad thing. I passed that milestone of being unemployed for 12 months. I am now officially dole scum. In the UK, at 12 months the Jobcentre washes their hands of you and passes you on to a private initiative called A4E. Going freelance seems the best option for me to get any work but, annoyingly, I am now no longer eligible for the government's business start up benefit. You can only get this if you've been unemployed between 6 and 12 months, providing it's a full moon on a leap day and your mother's mother has a living conjoined twin named Grizandella.

Okay, I made some of that up but it really is very restrictive. You'd think that the government would do all they can to encourage people to set up their own businesses, no matter whether they've been unemployed 2 days or 2 years. Yes, new Prime Minister David Cameron, I'm looking at you to sort this out.

Instead I'm shunted off once or twice a week to a rundown office block 2 doors away from a commercial gallery whose window taunts me with £400 prints from my favourite artist. Yeah, world, why don't you just kick me in the face while I'm down?

What amazingly useful stuff do they have me doing there? Er... nothing I can't do better at home, frankly. Sure, there's a need for somewhere like this to help people who lack skills in applying for jobs, writing CVs and letters, learning how to conduct themselves in an interview and so on. But for the vast majority of people, it's just "there's the computers, sit there and look at the job sites for an hour". It's not help, it's having an eye kept on you.

If you're still unemployed after 13 weeks with them (which for me would fall at the end of June or early July, not exactly sure offhand) there's the compulsory 4 weeks' work experience to do, which even my personal advisor has told me would be a total waste of my time. So basically there's big pressure on me to get some work and get it soon.

The good thing that happened recently could actually be a way out of this mess and a big step up the ladder to achieving my potential. Thanks to good old Twitter I heard about something that was due to start in early April called the Zero 2 Illo Twelve Week Challenge, set up by Jonathan Woodward, himself an aspiring illustrator, and his wife Lea who is offering her business expertise. This is a way for those of us with the same dream to gang together and support each other as we work through a set of weekly tasks to prepare us to go into business as published illustrators.

This scheme sounded perfect for me because what I'm lacking here at home is structure, support and understanding. The family want to see cash on the table, not pie in the sky dreams about selling artwork.

So far I've completed the 3 weeks it took to analyse our business idea. I've narrowed down the sector I want to target as being the greetings card industry, with a passive income on the side from selling my own designs, such as the Café Press shops I already have.

Unfortunately, though, I've managed to fall behind everyone else. Just as they're finishing off their portfolio pieces (the next section of the challenge), I'm just starting mine. So there lies the next part of the Big Rethink. For me, this isn't going to be the 12 Week Challenge, it's going to be the However Many Weeks It Takes Challenge. I won't feel comfortable being rushed into making something I'm not totally happy with. I've got 3 ideas to keep me going but, right now, the Inspiration Fairy's not whacking me over the head very hard with her magic wand.

As someone whose mental health isn't 100% either, it's not a good idea for me to take on unnecessary stress. That DOESN'T mean I can't hit important deadlines though! Below you can see my contribution to Amelia's Magazine, a topical blog which often puts out a call for illustrations (it's worth following her on Twitter if you're interested in taking on her challenges). For this election night illustration I wasn't even able to start it until 10.00 pm when the exit polls revealed a likely hung parliament. Then I worked late into the night, grabbed a couple of hours' sleep and finished it the next morning, in good time to be published in her blog.

How to Solve a Hung Parliament

So, as far as the 12 Week Challenge is concerned, I'm still dedicated to it and working my way through it as best I can. I can benefit from it if I complete it, but I won't get penalised if I don't, unlike my jobsearch legal obligations. When A4E call me in for my fortnightly reviews, they can understand "proper" business concepts like writing a business plan. They wouldn't be so understanding about something less tangible, like designing new artwork. So here I have to divert off the Challenge and move onto one of its future tasks, setting up a new portfolio.

I've already posted links to my profiles on DeviantArt and Artylizer (okay, re-adding the links there so there's no excuse for you to miss them!) These are good to get an overview of what I do but I really need something more businesslike. Unfortunately setting up my own website is out of the question right now (unless someone knows an awesome service that's totally free and doesn't just look like a blog). I've found a couple of sites that offer a professional looking portfolio so I'll make my final choice from those in the next few days to host about 10-20 of my very best pieces.

The plan then (which is where I can keep the A4E jobsearch people happy) is to Email local printers and small design agencies with the link. I'll be marketing myself as offering a specialist service that can take on more complicated illustration-based jobs than they could handle themselves. I've known designers in the past who've made that sort of relationship work and I think this is the most realistic way for me to get my feet back into the design world. If I can sweet-talk the printers with promises of slipping them some work, I think I could build up a decent sized address list quite easily.

In between all that, I've been designing more products and working on a new online store. It's almost ready to launch so watch this space! I'm also planning a spin-off for this blog so I can keep this one mostly for my work and have somewhere else I can use to have some fun.

Thanks to the new subscribers I've picked up recently, mostly from the 12 Week Challenge by the looks of it. I've kept you all waiting long enough for new stuff, now it's onwards and upwards to world domination.

Or at least not being dole scum any more.

The Sunday Head****

Some innocent-looking photos of buildings for you today - a house, a café and a shop. Of course, there's more to them than meets the eye and if you click each photo you'll find out what the twist is.

The story behind the delicatessen strikes a chord with me because I make no secret of the fact I'm out of work and struggling. I live just outside Wolverhampton, which was recently named as one of the worst cities in Britain for boarded-up shops.

In some places round the country, however, councils, arts organisations, entrepreneurs and the unemployed have been joining forces to bring empty shops back to life, if only on a temporary basis.

Empty retail units have been turned into community galleries, youth art centres, shops and workspaces. This has allowed people to put their creative skills to good use, start up businesses and generally make their High Street a more attractive place.

This has the knock-on effect of deterring crime and vandalism, giving hope to local people who are jobless and promoting the town centre as somewhere vibrant, willing to tackle its problems and worth investing in.

I've never been interested in retail before but I would love to get involved in a project that could give me the chance to get myself back on my feet and also work like a support network where a group of us could create something together, make a living and get that all-important confidence boost.

If you would like to find out more about the Empty Shops Network, this is a good place to start.

Val's On The Blog (OK that's the lame joke out of my system)

Hello and welcome to my shiny new blog.  A place of creativity, positive thinking, ambition and hope for the future.

Which is why I'm going to start off with a bloomin' good rant.

I'm good, dammit.

Talented, creative, hardworking, likeable, reliable, witty, intelligent, articulate, sympathetic, a quick learner, an all round good egg and the most gobsmackingly beautiful female never to have won Miss World.

Okay, one of the above is a lie.  But all the rest hold true.

So why is it that I haven't had any work for over 12 months?  (I'm not going to count that crummy typing job that expected me to be on call 24 hours a day and have the speed of some sort of Typomatic 3000 robot.)

Cue wibbly-wobbly effect as I take you back to the start of the story...

"Val, you're a good typist, fancy helping me out with a job?"

Back in 1991, those were the fateful words from my friend that started me out on my love affair with desk top publishing on the Apple Mac.  The job happened to be a monthly circular for the local council that my friend had ended up doing as part of his community arts work,  but he wasn't very fond of it and was keen to pass it on.  I liked the smell of his money, managed to perfect the job within a couple of tries and very soon found myself handling the whole account.

I got on brilliantly with my client.  He got me more work from his own team and also passed me on to another department who gave me a welcome couple of months' work every year.

So that's how the 90's passed.  A small but loyal band of clients, keeping me busy enough for my liking and really appreciating what I did.  It wasn't a spectacular career, but I made a reasonable living.  The wolf always kept well away from the door.

I can hold my hands up now and admit I got complacent.  I should have spent more time advertising for new customers, but I didn't.  So when all my word-of-mouth work dried up around the same time I struggled to get anything else because I'd learned all my skills on the job and hadn't got the bit of paper to say I was qualified to do it.

Bills needed to be paid so, when my last client did the dirty on me in quite spectacular fashion, I couldn't afford to carry on and I turned to the good old world of office temping.

Again, I didn't have qualifications for the job, just loads of typing practice, the ability to pick up new skills quickly and a massive dollop of common sense.  Soon I was one of the most in-demand temps in town.  Someone who could turn up, get the hang of what was being asked and get on with it.  For one job, I got hired for a day and ended up staying 15 months.  For another, I was the only temp who didn't quit after a couple of days.

Temping was a nice compromise.  When I wasn't earning the corporate buck, I could stay at home, do arty things and plan to get back into the world I really loved.  Eventually, though, family difficulties meant I had to get something more reliable and I found myself in a permanent part time job with The Government Department That Shall Remain Nameless.

The job itself was fine... when I was allowed to do it.  In the 13 long months I was there, it changed completely, to the point where we were expected to sign new job descriptions.  Life was one long diktat passed down from On High, the staff turnover rate was astronomical and any sign of initiative from an underling like me was stamped on like a bug.

When it got to the point where Those On High told over 20 of us they couldn't guarantee where we were going to be working or what job we'd be doing in a couple of months' time, more than half of us put in our resignations.

I'd always planned to leave at that point, anyway.  I wasn't enjoying the job, I desperately wanted to go back to college and I'd saved up enough money to cushion me a bit through the course.  It was August and I wouldn't get another chance for 12 months so I took the plunge and enrolled at my local college for a HND Graphic Design course.

Going back to full time education was a daunting prospect.  How would I get on with all those youngsters?  I'd come from a workplace where I was considered something of an outsider, the arty one who didn't have a lot in common with anyone else so they didn't exactly bust a gut to find ways to relate to me.

I'm glad to say that, very quickly, I realised going on this course was the best thing I could have ever done.  It was a brilliant group to work with, everyone was really accepting and I wasn't even the only mature student.  I loved all the projects and considered myself to be a pretty good all-rounder.  It was so liberating to get my creative juices flowing properly again!

I'll skim over what I learnt for now as I think that deserves a chapter in itself.  Let's just say that, 2 years later I emerged, armed with a HND in Graphic Design, sharper, more confident, totally clued up, inspired and ready to take on the world.

Meanwhile, over in America...

A bunch of greedy bankers (in both the literal and rhyming slang senses of the word) were busy lending money they couldn't afford to people they knew wouldn't be able to pay it back.

The credit crunch (and which smart alec thought of THAT name?  It doesn't soften the blow if you make it sound like a biscuit) had well and truly taken hold.  Jobs like Graphic Design were now seen as a luxury and it was totally an employer's market.  They could pick and choose who they wanted and the one thing they could insist on was experience.  So how, pray, are you supposed to get that precious 2 years' studio experience if you can't find anyone willing to take on someone straight out of college?

I always had the feeling I was going to find it an ageist industry so I never really set my heart on getting into some swanky top-end design agency.  I now get the feeling I fall between two stools, having done both design and admin.  If I apply for a design job, they could be thinking, "if she was THAT good she wouldn't have had to spend time office temping and going back to college in her 40s."  If I apply for an admin job, they could be thinking, "her heart won't be in it, she'd rather be designing."

The truth is, the one thing I've NEVER lost faith in is my ability as an artist.  I go back to my opening statement.  I'm good, dammit.  I'm not arrogant when I say that, I'm confident.  I know I could walk into any of those jobs and do them brilliantly.  I can say with 100% certainty if only someone would show a little bit of faith in me, they would never regret it.

So whenever I send off an application and never hear back about an interview (because companies are so rude these days - if I've taken time to craft you my best letter, it's the least you could do to mail-merge a standard "thanks but no thanks" rejection to allow me to move on), all I can do is chant out the mantra...

...it's...

...their...

...loss.

I don't want to be sitting here waiting for someone to embrace me to their corporate bosom.  I want to be DOING something.  I've been self employed before, I'd love to do it again.  The thing is, I've a debt the size of a small African country so it's impossible for me to get a loan or take too many gambles.

So that's why I'm here.  This is me doing something.  This is where I'll be telling you what I'm doing and you, hopefully, will respond with encouragement and suggestions and cold hard cash.

Next time I'll tell you a bit more about what I can do, and in the top left hand corner of this page you'll find details of where you can see and buy some stuff already.  For now, I've taken up enough of your precious time.

Rant over.  Thank you for reading.  Have a nice day.