Have we ever dropped something because it wasn’t working?
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[00:00:00] Have you two ever dropped something that wasn't, like, just got rid of something that wasn't a good thing? Something that we tried. Okay. You've binned a bit of your career. Yeah, yeah, I have. So much. Yeah. Maybe not forever, I don't know, but when we started Good Ship, and I was still making picture books at the same rate as I did before, and then I started writing on Substack, and, like, my life got busier and busier and busier, we, Gerry and I, had an online shop, so we decided to shut that.

Because that was the one job. Even though we liked running the shop, it did involve Lots of trips around to the post office and wrapping the parcels. And I thought of all the things I invest my time in, this is probably the thing I enjoy least, or I at least don't enjoy the bit queuing at the post office.

Oh yeah. So we dropped that and I used to do loads of school visits and lockdown stopped that.so then I thought, well, cause I do actually really love the school [00:01:00] visits, but it's the journeys to them. It takes so long to get there.I love the interaction with the children and there's nothing to beat reading a story with them and seeing what works and doesn't work.

It's brilliant, but there's a hell of a lot of traveling. Schools have hardly any budget, so they barely pay you. so when lockdown stopped that, I then tried to make a virtual school visit. And immediately realized it was a bad idea because schools have no budget and will only pay you with, do you remember old fashioned checks on paper?

They'll only pay you like that. Really? Yeah, so you couldn't even have a checkout on your website. I tried that. Nobody would go through checkout because they wanted me to invoice the council who would send me a cheque. So they refused to play a game on any automated purchase because bureaucracy doesn't allow.

Yeah, so in the end I just, and now the school visit is on my website for free because that's much easier and I just don't do them. And I do the stuff that's working. One of my favourites. Oh, whenever you say school visit on your website, my favourite drawing of yours, one of my favourite [00:02:00] drawings, are the ones of the little kids jumping around.

I mean, if anything, and you had to give it away for free, those drawings that came out. The little drawings I did for, like, the start of the films and the school visit. Oh yeah, I love doing that. That's when I first started drawing on Procreate, those drawings. Also your Spelly Peggy book basically came from School Visits.

School Visits have been so amazing, that's why I'm not saying that I just drop them and I'll never go back. Because if I get asked to a special school, or somewhere that's easy to get to, or I know something about this is going to be great, I still do them. I do the children's book show because they invite hundreds or even maybe thousands of children to one big theater, so you see them all in one go, and then you meet every single child on the way out because you give a book to each child, and those conversations are gorgeous, they're so gorgeous.

So, it's not that I don't do them all, but I just had to drop it because it's exhausting, you don't get paid enough. Do you just have to ask Helen to go to one of your schools? If you, if you've got a child who's going to ask her a really bonkers question, she'll turn [00:03:00] around, she'll do anything for a bonkers question.

I love the bonkers kids in the class. I just, oh, I just love conversations with little kids. Oh, I don't know, all sorts of things. Once somebody asked me if I was alive, because I said I was an author. Somebody asked me if I had any debt. A child asked you? Yes, a newborn. Oh, what's going on in those? Yeah, he put his question up and said, do you have any credit cards?

Do you have any debts?consolidate that into one monthly payment.

But mostly it's statements, like hand goes up, you say, has anybody got any questions about, for an author? And hand goes up, I've got a bunk bed. I like ham sandwiches. Do you know what I'm allergic to? No. What's it, some walnuts, ah. Couldn't that be in Nick's book? Oh my goodness, that'd be so good. Based completely on children's, the best questions kids have ever asked him.

Tanya, I love that idea. It [00:04:00] would be really funny. I, I would really like to do that. Cause kids ask you the craziest questions. It could be college, if you've got any questions. See, the first one's like, do you know what I'm allergic to? So good. So good. I remember being on one where, it was a book festival.

They still do book festivals sometimes, although it's a similar thing. They don't pay anything. It takes a long time to get there. You get there, they've missed you off the schedule and all that malarkey. But the actual meeting with the children is so gorgeous. And I remember once. Sitting, this little girl started talking to me so I got down to her level sat beside this chair and I put my arm like rested over the side of the chair and while she was talking to me about what she was going to have for her tea when she got home and she just got her fingers and started tapping the end of my fingers.

It's just like oh my god you're so gorgeous, you're so gorgeous. You've got a tame one. Katie's little girl can be your advisor and she threw me out of the house though. She did. She decided it was time for me to leave. Said bye, [00:05:00] bye, bye, pulled me out the door, shut the door on me. So yeah, I don't know if that's a girl.

Peeking around the door to check you've gone. She does ask to look at photos of you quite often. Oh careful. She just doesn't like the real you. I wish I was that honest. She'll just be like, come on, go home now. It's time to go home now. Yeah. We'll go to grandparent's house and she'll be like, put the kettle on.

Did she say that? Yeah, I love it. She's had her cake. She's like, okay, can we go home now? Oh, that's so good. Doc ideas that kind of come thick and fast.

So good. Do you know, I like this idea that we've all brainstormed just now. The question book. We've got to make that happen. And use those pictures of the kids from the school visit part of your website. Oh yeah. They're so beautiful. So you binned the school visits? Yeah, they're not entirely binned because I just love the actual event, but in terms of it being part of my business and part of my income, I No, I can't.

That's a whole day off, isn't it? You can't make it work like that. And they can't pay you for a day's travel to go all the way to a school. Sometimes they will. I mean, it's good if you get a, [00:06:00] I never know whether to say private or public school, a fee paying school, they'll pay you more and they'll pay for your travel.

And sometimes I've said, you need to pay me for two days if I'm going to visit for one, because it's a lot of work and they will. And some people ask that school to invite a local Non fee and pay school in as well, so that it's fair for all, everybody gets that experience. so yeah, there are situations where I do say yes, but has it been part of the business?

how I earn my living and no, and yeah, the shop we've, we, we closed that temporarily. What have you been doing? Well, last year I've just freshly been in person events. So in lockdown and everything, it was all online and I loved it. And then after lockdown, people were really like, please be in person. And I was still like, no, no, it's still virtual.

But eventually I got to the point where I was like, oh, fine, fine. I'll do it in person. So this last year, I think I spent like 4, 000 pounds on travel. Like it's [00:07:00] insane. And then the amount of delays, the amount of times I got stuck in London. It was, I was just like, it's not worth it. And then I get to the event.

and they'll put me in the audio visual, like with the AV guys, the lads. So no one sees you. So they can't even see that I'm there. I was about to ask, why do they want you to be there in person? I think it's just like old fashioned mindset, and also the reassurance of seeing my human body in the room. And that you're not sending them some AI generated words.

Yeah, whereas I'm like, we can have a WhatsApp chat, and they'll just be like, I'm here, I'm just waiting in the waiting room, I'm letting, this is all good, and then like, yeah, so. If as long as it's good internet, it's fine. But I think, yeah, this year I've been really strict. I'm not doing travel to events.

I'm doing travel for fun, travel that I want to do. If any. and it feels really good so far. But yeah, I was looking at cost and also energy levels because traveling's really tiring and then the next day you're tired. It takes like about a week to recover and all that. And as a mother as well, it's really difficult.

You just feel so ill at ease. Yeah, exactly. When you're that little and you're not there for a couple of nights. So she's fine, [00:08:00] but then you feel bad. Like that time I got stuck in London. That was one of the, that was a phrase for like the week. Mommy's stuck in London, train not going, mommy's stuck in London.

And I've damaged her emotionally. Like, so that's, it's really good to be strict about that. And part of me did in person events because I wanted to do as many as possible cause I was trying to scale and everything. And so I felt like if I, if I say yes to in person, I'll get more yeses from clients, which was true, but now I don't care anymore.

I'm just like, I'm back to being fussy and doing less. Yeah, that's a quality of life. Life's too short. Yeah. What about you, Tanya? What have you, what have you binned? Well, my memory's not very good, so I might have binned a lot of things that I just can't remember. But a recent one was someone asked me, if I would design a wine label for them.

And it was a good friend as well. And she'd asked me 10 years ago to do this. And I was like, Oh, brilliant. So we are going to do it. I'm going to do your dad's vineyard. And I would love to do a wine label. And I was. But then after about a day's thinking, I was like, Oh, I remember branding back and forwards, [00:09:00] back and forwards.

And I'm not a professional brand designer, but I love making the imagery and working. I'd love to work with a designer who would manage all the other aspects. And I would just deal with the imagery, but Can I ask you a really dumb question? Yeah. What would be the difference between designing a map for someone and then branding?

Is that because you've got to match branding they've already got? What makes a branding project different? You're designing the logo, basically, and the identity for them from scratch, and it's like trying to dress someone up in clothes. It's so fraught with, it's really subjective and I think you need to learn to, not control the client, but you need to have a process, a very clear process of like, are you traditional?

Are you modern? You know, take them through all those sort of doorways so you get a feel for this intangible idea that's in their head. So effectively doing a, A wine label is really branding for the vineyard, unless they've already got a pre existing main brand. And, they're in Portugal, so I just thought, this is going to be really difficult, because the only way it works is to sit with people, [00:10:00] and lots of images, and talk, and get a feel for them, because it is really like dressing them up.

and I thought, you can't do this. You don't need to do everything. I've always said yes to everything. I'd be like, yeah, I can be a bit of a designer. I can be an illustrator. I can be all sorts of things. What do you want me to do? Design a rug? Anything. So I think, yeah, now it's like, no, no, no, don't do all those things.

They are fun to do, but you'll do them at twice the pace of anyone else because You're exploring it and enjoying the difference, but you're not a specialist and I keep thinking this year just focus Don't don't be doing everything do the things you're good at and then that saves time to do personal projects Instead of trying to do everything.

So it was like, oh goodbye wine label. I would love to do it, but Yeah, it would take too long. Don't you feel like as well, when you say no to something like that, something magical happens, and then the space where you said no, something else good fills it. Because you're never not doing anything, are you?

Yeah, you can be left with that worry of, well, what will happen [00:11:00] when I drop this thing? But there's always something else comes along. But like when I was, when I was lecturing, at uni, unless I wasn't really that into it, but the live illustration was getting busier and busier. So I quit my lecturer job, but then lockdown happened and all my jobs of the live illustration were canceled. And I was like, Oh no, but then we started Good Ship at the same sort of time.

So it filled that, it fills that gap. Cause I was like, Oh, I've just quit a really good job. What an idiot. I really shouldn't have done that, but it turned out to actually be brilliant because it meant that we had all that time to think of a new thing. You just kind of need nerves of steel to believe. It will be okay.

Something will come along that's better to do instead of just saying yes to everything. I remember that time you gave me the lift back from Edinburgh and I said, what have you been doing? He said, I've been painting a moon. Oh, I did do that. Yeah. Somebody wanted to buy this moon cot on, on, it was on Pinterest and it was going to be 4, 000.

So instead of that, [00:12:00] they hired a joiner to make it and then. It was somebody who had been to uni with a friend who was doing it, like their boss or something, this rich man, but not rich enough to buy a 4, 000 moon. So then he, so he got the drone out to build it and then I had to drive it back from Edinburgh and paint it yellow and draw a moon face on it.

But then I realized I'm actually terrible at painting, like practical painting, so there was drips down it in camera and I had to like sand it down and re paint it, it was an absolute nightmare. But yeah, I would just say yes to anything. I did, I've done everything and anything. And then you didn't, which is like the same thing as binning that approach to I'll say yes to anything, which I did as well.

Just trying to keep time for things that you know you're good at and you can calculate how long it will take you. Things won't go wrong. this is your specialism. Whereas taking all comers on thinking, well, that'd be fun. I'd like to try a bit of that and then crying through most of the project because you really didn't know what it entailed.

And those general levels of stress like, Oh God, what have I done? It's annoying because you kind of have to, well, maybe you don't have [00:13:00] to do everything, but I feel like everybody has a time where they do too much and they learn from it hopefully. Yeah. I feel like it's the only way to get started really.

Just doing a bit of everything that seems like you might enjoy it. And then you quickly realise which bits you are and which bits you're not and drop those bits. Start shaving it off till you've got two or three things. I think, yeah, illustrators and creatives need at least two or three different prongs to keep them, all the plates going.

I would do, I'd still do, the card sales, but I'd rather sell in bulk the cards and, paper gifts to one supplier than to send to lots of people because that mail room thing is just, that's impossible, isn't it? And going to the post office as well.

Yeah, post office trips are not the one. I love the ladies out post office though. It's almost worth it just for a chat with them. Yeah, so if you're doing something that's exhausting and not working for you and you keep thinking this is, I'm getting six pounds an hour for this when I look at the, the timesheet, [00:14:00] yeah, maybe shave off the bits that aren't good for you.

and stay with the things that are making you money and making you happy. Hmm. Yeah. That's us. Okay. Okay. Bye.