It's now been almost three weeks since I struck out to explore the waters of Entrepreneurial Life.

So far--well, nothing to report. I'm still working on the same clients, all of whom are still being stupid in the same ways.

The two new agencies who appeared with clients in hand have not so far produced any billable work but with the holidays approaching it's normal to see a bit of a slowdown. I guess. I think. I hope that's what it is, anyhow.

Vela is still around--I think I mentioned that she also decided to go freelance after she was laid off and that she and Gidget have been working on a number of projects together? She comes up with the weirdest stuff--it's mostly her clients that Gidget winds up working 60 hours a week on for 5 hours worth of pay.

Vela sent me one recently--a holiday account that should have been planned and launched a month or more ago. It was a desperate, urgent, urgent project for--wait for it--no pay. Because she's a friend, I didn't mention this, I just sent her a list of what I need. That was six days ago and the client's already short 3 week window of opportunity is shrinking fast while I twiddle my thumbs and wait.

I don't mind helping them out, they really are very dear friends, but I do object to what I do being treated as something not worth paying for. When I ask them to help me, I always pay them. The projects I do for them--they never seem to think that offering me money is necessary. (Not a big issue at the moment--the stuff they come up with is pretty small-scale, but still.)

I have a 10:00 chat session (education) today, a 10:00 client conference call tomorrow, and a 2:00 educational seminar tomorrow. It was my hope, when I struck out into Entrepreneurial Waters, that time to keep up with the industry, educate myself a bit, and generally learn more about what I need to know, would be easy to find. This is not, thus far, tending to be the case. This week's two educational events are the first ones I've had time to schedule.

In an industry prone to changing rapidly, almost daily, and dramatically, education is not a luxury. I need to get my days better organized.

Sorry--when I sat down to write this, I didn't realize my head was in such a plodding, blah place at the moment. I'll try for a more upbeat tone in the next post.