500 Writing Prompts: I you were to start a new business right this minute, what would it be? Describe it.

 500 Writing Prompts: I you were to start a new business right this minute, what would it be? Describe it.

See, what the hell? How does this help me write? Besides stoking my rage at how ridiculous these questions are and then I rant for twenty minutes and leave really annoyed but hey, I got my blog entry done right? Plowing through, because that's how good writing eventually gets done. Eventually, plowing through the boring, enraging, muck to get to the other side, where an agent awaits to see my genius and get me a contract. Right? RIGHT?! 

Because that's just stupid, start a business right this minute? Do you have any concept of how much planning needs to go into a business before it starts? Really starts, not just "I have a great idea" starts? And you can't just want to start a business, that's not how it works. Just because you have things you want to sell doesn't mean those things will sell. There has to be a market. And how much are you spending on materials? How much do you need to charge for each item to be able to pay your bills and buy new materials and be compensated for your labor? Will the market bear that price? If you want to make beautiful bookmarks, how many do you have to make and sell before you break even? If you make three gorgeous handcrafted bookmarks a day, with premium materials, what do you charge each? Fifteen dollars? Whose going to buy a fifteen dollar bookmark? Unless you're already famous and they're buying them because then it's a steal. But if you're already famous you could probably charge twenty-five dollars and they would sell.

Some bull shit.
Sis, you aint never gonna get that rock up that hill to stay,
the variables do not add up to success.
1847_Mythe_de_Sisyphe_Emile_Gregoire_

I think one of the problems of our society, in America at least, is the erroneous idea of "where there's a will, there's a way." is staunchly believed. If you just work hard enough you'll succeed and if you don't succeed well obviously you're just not working hard enough. Tell that to the thousands of  small business that got crushed by Walmart over the...what, fifty years I think...that it stomped it's way across the landscape of America. All those Mom and Pop places, are you telling me those family owned business didn't work hard enough? Those people put their own heart and soul and sweat and tears into those business for generations. They worked, many times they worked themselves into an early grave. So that grotesque prosperity gospel vein horseshit is just disgusting. I Instead of "give enough money and faith to god and he'll reward you," it's "give enough money and faith to an ideal and you'll be rewarded." It doesn't actually work like that.

And a business isn't fun and excitement and creativity 24/7, there's a ton of boring shit in there too, like sales and marketing and doing the books and figuring out how you're going to feed your kids when you don't sell enough hand made greeting cards. Oh, you have a regular job to cover the bills? So you're working two full time jobs, when do you sleep, cook, grocery shop, live? 

So my answer is, I wouldn't. I wouldn't start a business of any kind right this minute. I would never start a business on a whim. Ever. Because that's just stupid.

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How does an exception prove a rule? For anyone who thinks to chime in, "Oh yeah, well so-and-so started their widget business with a dream and two dollars, look where they are now! They did it through hard work." No, they didn't. They may have worked hard, but they didn't succeed just through hard work. A whole lot of other variables had to be in their favor. Hard work is the last on the list, not the first.

And this is not an "eat the rich," rant, this is a "stop lying to people to make them feel like shit when they need help and to excuse your robber baron activities," rant. 

The efforts of Sisyphus were not noble,
they were a punishment for being an asshole.
He didn't get a reward for all his pushing. 
The odds were not in his favor. 

And no, Albert, the struggle is NOT enough to fill one's heart. We do not have to imagine Sisyphus happy. What a load of crap. This is why people don't want to hang out with you, Albert.