Distractions, distractions, distractions

Back in high school, I wanted to be an entrepreneur. (In addition to being a writer, of course.) I just didn't know what kind of business to operate.

I had terribly oily skin as a teenager, prone to breakouts, but I struggled to find a skincare system that worked. I read an article somewhere about using a mixture of cornmeal and oatmeal as a mask to help reduce the breakouts. I cut out the recipe and tried it. And boy howdy did it help.

One day, my dad mentioned that a young woman with whom he worked had acne breakouts just like me. Would you sell her the oatmeal mask? Um? Okay. I mixed up the dry ingredients of the recipe in a plastic container and included instructions of how much water to add to make a paste. Smear it on your face, wait till it dries then rinse off with warm water.

I don't remember how much I charged for this concoction. I'd like to say that I performed a cost analysis on the cornmeal, oatmeal and the little bit of cornstarch in the recipe, but I don't think I was that sophisticated. I think I just made up a dollar figure and here's the thing: she paid it! According to my dad, her skin improved. (So did mine. I don't know what it is about oatmeal, but it works on oily skin.)

This sparked an idea. I started researching containers and what kind of advertising and marketing I'd need to do to sell this corn & oatmeal concoction to the world. I had visions that this little business venture would fund my college studies.

Keep in mind, I'm a child of the '80s--hair bands and Trans-Am cars--there was no internet. Researching packaging ideas was looking at the ads in the back of magazines for suppliers. You had to write a business letter asking the company for their catalog, often paying a nominal fee of $2.50-$3.50 to get it. Advertising consisted of researching the fees for the ads in the back of the magazines.

The idea continued to percolate. I researched how to write a business plan.  Although I continued to sell the corn & oatmeal concoction to my lone customer, ultimately, I didn't move beyond that. The idea fizzled out once I started looking at the logistics. I really didn't know what to do and I was overwhelmed. I quickly lost my way.

I've often wondered how different things may have turned out if the internet existed when I was in high school. How easy it would have been to find packaging suppliers. Get how to articles on branding and marketing. Sell stuff on etsy, among other websites. Then along comes a magazine called Willow and Sage.  It's exclusively devoted to homemade bath & body products, including packaging ideas. What the fudge!? Where were you 20 years ago?!

As I peruse the premiere issue, I'm excited about all the recipes for making body scrubs and body butters out of natural products. I'm thinking of gift baskets for my friends and relatives. Logo creation. How cool would it be to make my own natural body products and sell them! This was the very idea I had in high school, although I wasn't able to translate the visions in my head to practical execution.

As the idea of world domination via natural body products swirl in my mind (as if!) I remember: I'm a writer. I have a book to publish. This is just another distraction from my writing.

What distracts you from your writing?