The personal disquiet of
Thursday, August 20th, 2009
I last redesigned my blog in 2006. Three years ago! I’ve looked at redesigning it for about two years now, so what got in the way?
Well, we’ve been buzzing around working on all sorts of other projects at Mark Boulton Design, and that’s kept me busy. It’s been quite a journey and, rather than just writing a plain ‘ol blog post about this, I thought it would be fun if I shared it all with you in this interview with my friend Carolyn Wood.
CW: Let’s talk about the status of 5 Simple Steps. I had an early, advisory role in the birth of your book, before the writing really got going. The next thing I knew, you’d become a publishing house. Share the juicy details with us! It’s all very easy, right? ;)
MB: Yes. Piece of cake. Actually, I remember from those very early conversations we had, you mentioned the difficulties I could face when writing the book. I think I went through each one of them in turn: blind panic, sleepless nights, writer’s block, more panic, too much to do… the list goes on. It was back in 2006, and I really, really needed some help just getting off the ground with it. I had five popular blog posts but wanted to make them into something more substantial. I had left the BBC, started my own business, Emma and I had our daughter, and we were in the midst of having builders add an extension on our house.
All of that conspired against me a little. The dream of writing a book became somewhat of a foggy, festering cloud in the back of my mind. That’s exactly why I needed someone to help me take those first steps. It was like someone learning to ride a bike. They’re never perfect at first. They fall over, graze their knees. Do it again. Before you know it, they’re off leaving you standing and waving. But without those first encouraging words and helping hand from you, they’d still be walking about instead of riding. And that’s just what happened.