RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

Another Turkey Day bites the dust. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Mine was good. Whenever I manage to celebrate the holidays with my family without any drama, it's a good thing. Not that my family is prone to drama mind you. Well, not much anyway. But the holidays can be so stressful and tempers can easily flare. I ate to excess as I do at every holiday gathering. I even managed to get a chunk of Christmas shopping out of the way and snagged this great throwback gift for one of my loved ones. I didn't brave the stores at 5 am the day after Thanksgiving. They'd have to be offering iPods for a dime or diamond rings for a dollar for me to EVER consider rising that early on a day when I don't have to go to work. More power to you if you were brave enough to tackle the malls in all that madness. I hate shopping in general and QVC is my best friend.

I was watching Recipe For Success on the Food Network yesterday. For those of you who've never watched it, Recipe For Success is a show that features people who have given up their careers to start a business in the food industry. It shows their struggles to get their new business ventures off the ground and all the work, and money it takes to really get a new business going. Not to mention all the heartache and hassles. Yesterday's episode featured a woman named Laura who started a cookie business called A Dozen Eggs. As I watched Laura struggling mightily to get her business off the ground, I realized how much I had in common with her.

Even though I'm a writer and she's a baker, we both have a products we're trying to sell. One of her main problems was trying to spread the word about her cookies just as I'm trying to spread the word about my book. It ain't easy. Another one of her major problems was money, which I can truly relate to. Unlike Laura, I haven't quit my day job. But even though I have a steady source of income, the costs of promoting a book with the expense of travel, printing, postage, membership dues, writing supplies, etc etc etc can really add up quick. By the end of the show Laura had been in the cookie business for six months and had barely turned a profit. My book has been out for six months also. I'm eagerly awaiting my first royalty statement. I know it will be several more months before I get a check. Laura and her husband had mortgaged their home and were in a lot of credit card debt but the show did end on a hopeful note when Laura's cookies were chosen to appear in a prestigious catalog. Why in the world would anyone put themselves through all of this trauma? That's an easy one: Love & Passion. Love of what their doing and a passion to succeed. If you don't have those two things than why bother?