Sandra Tayler's Blog, page 29

Saturday Calm

I had just returned from the grocery store and made all the kids help me unload the car. They were happy to discover that I’d bought some treat cereal, so they sat down to eat it while I stowed all the groceries into the fridge and cupboards.

Then Link turned to me and said, “Where are you going, Mom?”

“Nowhere.”

“Then why did you buy all this food stuff?”

Apparently the pattern lately is that we only stock up on food when Mom and Dad have some sort of big event which means we won’t be around to fix food for kids. Looking back, yup, that’s pretty much how things have gone for awhile. Stock up on easy food. Eat easy food. Stare at bare cupboards and fridge while wondering where all the food went. But we’re entering a period when I’m not going anywhere and the deadlines are no longer imminent. I actually have space in my brain to do things like fold laundry, plan ahead for food, and pick up the house.

I’ve also made some time this week to write fiction. I could get used to that.

Howard still has deadlines and urgencies. He’s got events coming up that will impact his schedule. I know things will come up for me to do as well. (Calendar design springs to mind) But on the whole I get to have six to eight weeks where I can’t see a scheduled business disruption. I mean pre-orders will open for the next book on October 13th for Patreon supporters and October 15th for the public. Pre-order days always throw me off, but only for a day or two. The next major disruption will occur when the books and slipcases arrive. Then my life will be taken over by shipping and holiday stuff until the end of the year.

While I’m having my usual holiday shipping chaos, Howard will be entering a six-to-eight week stretch of few disruptions. It is nice when we can arrange for at least one of us to not be scrambling against deadlines. Makes a huge difference to the state of things here at home.

The family disruptions I don’t get to schedule or control. They happen when they happen. Often they happen at exactly the same time as the business disruptions because ambient stress brings everything to the surface. In the next two weeks we’ve got an Eagle Project to make happen, also we need to stop being sick. Sniffles and fevers abound right now.

Yet despite the illness, life feels poised for a period of calm. Massively Parallel is off to the printer. So are the two slipcases. There isn’t anything more I can do to hurry them up, so I’ll turn my attention to other things. And that feels like a nice change.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Salt Lake Comic Con 2014

Salt Lake Comic Con is so big that it is impossible to write a single summary which encompasses all of what happens during the three days. (Four if you count the set-up day.) I have friends who were miserable throughout the event and other friends who had a fantastic time. Some of the miserable people were made that way by decisions that were beyond their control. Some of the happy people experienced serendipity that was likewise out of their control. In many ways planning to exhibit at an event this size is like planning an outdoor event. You prepare all you can, but you have to deal with the on-site weather once you arrive.

This is how I plan ahead to figure out what to bring.



I make little papers to represent tables and furniture. Then I slide them around until I’m happy with the configuration. Once I’m at the booth it is just a matter of putting the tables where I pictured them.

Every show we have something that sells better than expected and something that doesn’t move at all. This year the run away seller was the Shadows Beneath anthology. Halfway through the show we had to go and get more from the Dragonsteel folks. The other delightful surprise was how well our booth-mate’s books sold. Brian McClellan shared our space and he sold out of books on Saturday morning.

Here I am with Brian. Howard had stepped out for a minute.

On Thursday Howard was able to get some work done in the quiet hours before the crowds arrived.

For the vast majority of the event traffic near our booth moved smoothly. Things did get pretty crowded mid-day on Saturday.

This was taken from our booth space.

This was taken from the green room looking over the wing where our booth was located. (Ours is far out there in the distance.)

Also taken from the green room, looking across the other wing where the celebrity signings were located.

As is usual for Howard and I, our favorite parts were when we get to participate in interesting conversations. Sometimes those happened in small groups at our booth, other times they were when we participated in panels. I was particularly happy that there was a Writing Excuses panel where they didn’t have to record, they just got to talk. Mary was much missed in the conversation.

I was very fortunate in my co-panelists. They were all interested in sharing good information and making sure everyone got a chance to talk. This is not always the case. The only challenges with my panels were things outside the panelists’ control. They were the “weather” we had to manage. In one a loud speaker next door was booming through our wall. In another we were next to a zombie apocalypse live action roleplay, so we were treated to periodic screaming.

But the super mega challenge was the one where the fire alarm went off. I was moderating and it took me a moment to realize what was happening. Lights along the wall started flashing and a polite voice said “An emergency has been identified in this building. Please cease operations and exit the building.” Within a minute we determined that, no there was not really an emergency, we could stay. (Some child pulled the fire alarm.) Yet the emergency message repeated over and over for the next five minutes as we tried to talk intelligently in spite of it. I think we succeeded and the panel managed to be beneficial anyway.

Really that is the miracle of an event like this. Hundreds of thousands of people gather. They get in each other’s way. They cause problems that others have to solve. But then there are the people who move through the event making it easier on others. People band together to rescue each other; whether it is loaning tape, finding a child, or making a joke to cover fire alarm confusion. The building was full of heroes and many of them were not wearing costumes.

Naturally the costumes were fun.



So much attention and effort goes in to creating them. I’m happy that the creators have a place to come where their work can be appreciated.

This one made my kids very happy.

The final hours of the convention were very busy for me. At 4:30 I had to move my car to where I could easily load it once the show was done. Then I had back-to-back panels (including the fire alarm one). Then it was time to dash back to the dealer’s hall and tear down the booth. Many people stopped by to see if we needed help. There was kindness everywhere at this event. For the most part Brian and I had it handled. The hardest part was me remembering what came next through my fog of tired brain. It was less than an hour before the booth was packed and loaded into my car.

As we walked back to the convention hall for a final check to make sure nothing was forgotten. I saw a crew loading the Tardis onto a truck.



The workmen have the police box…

And the show is done. All that creative energy has scattered into hiding until there is another event to bring it together again.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Salt Lake Comic Con: Where to Find Me

For the next three days I’ll be at Salt Lake Comic Con. The majority of my time will be spent at our booth. It is #1600, right across from the Wordfire booth and near a concessions stand. I hope you’ll stop by. The event is much more fun when people do.

This year I’m also on some panels. If you want to hear me talk, come to one of them. Hope to see you there.

Thursday 3pm Room 255C Geek Parenting: Raising the Next Generation of Geeks

Friday 1pm Room 255E From Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind Also Rises: Why We Love Hayao Miyazaki

Friday 6pm Room 255E Writing and Illustrating Books and Comics for Kids

Saturday 5pm Room 150D Structuring Life to Support Creativity

Saturday 6pm Room 255B The Business Side of Your Dreams

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Book Design Success and Feelings of Competence

Three weeks ago I looked at Howard across the kitchen counter and told him that we either had to have Massively Parallel done by August 30 or we needed to push it off past Christmas. We decided to make a run for completing the book even though it looked nearly impossible. Howard had GenCon. I had the kids starting school. The bonus story was not complete, none of the marginalia was done, and the cover was only drafted. On my end was all the copy editing, layout editing, and frequent book iterations. We shouldn’t have been able to do it, yet this morning I uploaded the files on the completed book.

It seems like by book eleven we would have figured out how not to have a last minute rush, yet we always do. I think some of it is just the nature of nearing the finish line. Suddenly we can see it and everything moves faster. The rest is just that we always have so many projects running that it takes an impending deadline to bring one into focus.

Some things have gotten easier. As I worked, I kept noting the places where I used to panic or fear that I was failing at my job. This time I knew it would be fine. I used to bite my nails any time I tried to use ftp. I don’t anymore. I no longer have a gnawing fear that I’ve made some horrible mistake that will render the whole project useless. I’m still very aware of the limits of my expertise, but for the familiar format of the Schlock books, I know how to do this.

To add to the challenged of this particular book printing, we’re reprinting the first slipcase and printing a second one to house books 6-11. Designing a slipcase is not something I’ve ever done before. Howard made the first one. Yet I sat down Saturday morning with the template for the first slipcase, a ruler, a calculator and my design tools. Within a few hours I had a draft of the slipcase. We refined it over the weekend and that too is ready to go once the printer confirms that my calculations are correct.

While I had my design tools out, I also made a flyer for Salt Lake Comic Con, and a pamphlet that contains Howard’s story “No I’m Fine” along with my essay “Married to Depression.” We’ll be giving these out at SLCC. I dropped these things off at the warehouse, where I walked around and tried to picture how we would fit the shipment of Massively Parallel along with both slipcases. Fortunately the slipcases are light and can be stacked high. We’ll have to because we don’t have enough floor space for the probable 15-20 pallets that will arrive. Much of that will go right back out the door again, but we need to be able to fit it all inside and shut the doors against the weather. There are times when I’ve laid in bed at 2am being panicked about not having enough warehouse space. Today I looked around and knew we could make it work. We’re going to have to do some shifting around. I may have to purchase some industrial shelving, but there is space enough.

It feels good to have the book under weigh. The rest of this week will be devoted to SLCC. Then it will be time to dive in on the 2015 Schlock calendar and the necessary preparations for book pre-orders. After SLCC my life should slow down for a while. I’d like that.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Reasons Why Blogging is Sparse Right Now

I’ve got Massively Parallel to complete by Monday so that I can upload files to the printer. This must happen so we can have books before Christmas.

I’ve also got a new slipcase to design. This involves nudging things around on my computer, then printing it out on multiple sheets so I can tape it together into a sort-of box shape to see if it works. Then I’m back to the computer to nudge again. This also has to be done by Monday.

I’ve got Salt Lake Comic Con next week, for which I am a panelist. Also we’re running a booth there. And I’ve not even begun all the packing up of merchandise and gear that is necessary.

I’ve got kids with homework who are still in the process of adapting to the demands of school. Also I have to plan ahead so that they have food to eat while I’m away at the convention. And one of them has a birthday that is directly impacted by the convention. We got it wrong last year, so doing better this year is very important.

I’ve put some final touches on the CC PDF. Now I need to find time to put it in front of Howard so that he can put pictures in it.

I’ve got a kid at college, who kept watching for me on Skype so she could talk to me about her first week of school. But I have Skype on my laptop and all my hours have been spent on my desktop design machine. We caught up this evening and she told me all the things, which were lovely to hear about. Only it was already late so the conversation was short.

All of these things fill up my brain. Hopefully there will be more writing in the wake of the convention.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Twitchy

So, no secret that 2013 was a rough year for me and the hard lasted until March 2014. Most of it had to do with mental health and physical health issues. (depression, anxiety, panic attacks, C Diff infection, whooping cough, with accompanying doctors, psychiatrists, and therapy) Things have been better since March. Worlds better. Let the heavens rejoice, better. Yet I’ve discovered that all the challenging things set up some emotional landmines for later. Now that school has started, I keep stepping on them.

It goes like this:

Child expresses a resistance to a homework assignment. I am suddenly mired in the memory of hours-long homework confrontations. For a moment I’m convinced that we are doomed and the next months will be uniformly miserable.

Child has a fight with a friend which reaches the physical altercation stage. I know it is driven by stress and anxiety in both kids. They fight because they both have similar issues and neither one wants to back down. I come away from the discussion/apology very afraid that the stresses which drove this confrontation will then poison the entire school year and we’ll be back to panic attacks at school again.

Child calls home because he’s not feeling well. I am suddenly angry and ready to cry. It is only the second week of school and we’ve barely had time to catch our stride yet we’re already going to have to play catch up.

The reality is that the child did the homework after only a little grousing, the arguement was resolved and then forgotten, and a single day of missed classes is fairly easy to catch up.

In each case my emotional reaction to the event is far out of proportion to the event itself. There are a dozen more examples that have happened in the last week. It feels like I’m jumping to duck and cover at any noise. I’m twitchy and it is annoying. Yet I can feel that a few months of stability will even it out. I really want those months of stability and I don’t know if I get them. The mix we’ve got of mental health issues, business stresses, and school, may just mean a bumpy ride for quite a while to come. Until then, I try to flinch less often and recover quickly when I do.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Back To School Scenes

“So is Patch your youngest?” his new teacher asked. She’d pulled me aside at back to school night for a moment of quiet conversation.

“Yes. He’s the last of my kids you have to deal with.” I said with a tone of voice and a smile that turned it into a joke. Sort of. I thought about it afterward, wondering where the words had come from. I mean them in the moment I spoke them. I was apologizing for inflicting my children and their individualized bags of challenges upon her. The other thing I said to her, which I’ve thought hard about later was “Don’t worry. Patch isn’t like Gleek.” I wanted to reassure her, because she is the teacher who helped me with Gleek’s lowest and darkest moments during her sixth grade year. It is hard for me to picture her facing another child of mine with anything but trepidation. Because that year was hard on all of us and this teacher was on the daily front lines.

I have to stop apologizing for my children. Their existence needs no apology, even if they create troubles for others. I also have to stop trying to reassure the school staff that Patch is not Gleek. The comparison only reminds everyone about the difficulty and it is unfair to Patch. That difficult year is done and I am the only one who has brought it up. I have to let it go. This is Patch’s year. I need to let it be as easy or as difficult as it is without comparison to anything else. It looms so large in my mind that I am still reacting to it and I need to stop.

*

“Are there any states that don’t have g in them?” Gleek asked before realizing it was a silly question.

“How do I tell if a function is odd or even?” asked Link.

Patch did not ask any questions. He just scratched his pencil across pages, getting the work done. All three kids sat in the kitchen during the same hour and did homework. It was an event stunning because of the lack of conflict. Yes, they distracted each other with random out-loud exclamations, but the work got done. I don’t know if this will become the pattern for the school year. Usually I have to separate them because distractions lead to stress and arguments. But it was lovely for today.

*

The email was titled “The List.” It was things that Kiki needs for school which failed to make the trip with her. Heading the list is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Apparently this is a college must-have for her group of geek-girl roommates and friends. Most of the other things are small items, things which can go into the package along with the DVD sets. I don’t mind. I like hearing that she’s happy and has fun plans with her friends.

*

I tore through my list of things to do, eliminating items quickly. Having five uninterrupted hours makes a huge difference in my work day. I didn’t feel it last week, there was too much going on emotionally for me to work calmly. This week feels calm in comparison. I’ll take it.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Kiki Gone to College Again

I began to feel it on the first day of school, but it wasn’t complete and so I was unsettled all week. Saturday, late, after I dropped Kiki at college, after I came home, after I spent several hours working on the nearly complete Massively Parallel, after everyone went to bed and I stood in the kitchen alone, that was when it all clicked and settled. Life mode shift is complete. We’re back to school mornings, three kids at home, one who communicates by computer, and working while the kids are out of the house.

This summer felt like a gift. Kiki came home and made family life and work life easier in a dozen ways. We had three adults in the house and that simplified many things. The kids were happy to relax and take things easy for the summer. More than once I found all four kids playing a game or watching a show together. It made me glad. I stored up that gladness, because in the next year life will change again. I suspect many of the changes will be good ones, but they may take Kiki elsewhere next summer. Or perhaps she’ll come live with us again. We might have another summer that feels like a gift. But it will be a different gift than the one we just completed.

Our cat brought a live mouse into the house Friday night. We were sitting and visiting with a friend in our front room when we heard a noise at the door. I opened it and the cat darted in before my brain had the chance to process that she had something in her mouth. She took it under Kiki’s chair and let it go. We all jumped up. There was chaos because the room was full of Kiki’s stuff, all packed to go to college the next day. The mouse ran under the piano and escaped. Our cat has brought us live gifts on three or four occasions. The most memorable of those occasions was the day that Kiki left for college last year. She brought Kiki a mouse as we were packing the car. I’m not sure what it is about packing up Kiki’s stuff that makes the cat think gifts are in order. I expect that in the weeks to come the cat will follow me around more. She misses Kiki when Kiki is away.

On Saturday afternoon I trailed through the grocery store after Kiki and two of her roommates. Having a full kitchen is new and Kiki is excited to be cooking for herself. My head was full of advice: buy this, that’s a waste, stock up on this. I bit my tongue and said very little of it. Kiki has a lot to learn about shopping and cooking, but she’ll learn it best if I get out of her way. What she needed was to go through the store with her roommates and have conversations with them about food. They’re all learning together. I watched Kiki with her friends both at the store and then back at her apartment. I realized that I was superfluous. Last year I helped her unpack her room, we went together on half a dozen errands, and then I finally departed. This year I could have dropped her on the curb, but having my car to transport groceries was appreciated.

I sat by myself in the women’s meeting at church. All summer Kiki has occupied the chair next to me, and today it was empty. I felt that emptiness and I hoped that she was having a pleasant time with her new ward full of college students. I remember that when Kiki first graduated and joined me in the adult meeting it felt a little bit like an intrusion. I was glad to have her there, but I also felt one of my children impinging on time that was usually child-free. When she came home for the summer I didn’t feel that at all. I was just glad to sit with her, another grown-up who I like joining me in a grown up space. She’ll sit with me again when she comes home for the holidays. I look forward to that.

I am profoundly grateful for the feeling that all is as it should be. Last year when I dropped off Kiki I had nearly a week of high anxiety while my brain recalibrated to her being gone. The three younger kids all went through grief at her absence in various ways. This year we miss her, but we are not grieving and that is much nicer.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Sorting My Brain Late at Night

It is the dark side of 4am and I’m awake. I used to be asleep, but around 2am something woke me. I should have been able to roll over and go back to sleep, but instead my task brain woke up and tried to sort out all the things I have to do. The list is long and so anxiety started to kick in because I knew that every minute I spent awake without getting things done meant that I would be even more sleep deprived and my list would not get any shorter. So I got up and began clearing things out of my email boxes. I can’t do all of the email related tasks, because some of them require printing or rummaging in the file cabinet, both of which are activities which might wake Kiki. But the clutter is cleared up and I feel like I have a better grasp on what is actually urgent.

On Saturday I drive Kiki to college, which is an all-day project. I’ve been looking forward to it, but it means that Saturday is unavailable as a catch up day. Or a catch-my-breath day. I feel like I’ve been running flat out since school started on Tuesday morning. Every hour had some urgent task, school supplies to acquire, gym clothes needed, disclosure documents, friend conflict to negotiate. And then there are the urgent post-convention tasks. And the urgent pre-convention tasks (SLCC is only two weeks away.) And the urgent tasks related to finishing Massively Parallel and sending it off to print. I had to bow out of writer’s group on Wednesday because I had nothing left to give. All of that, and I’ve forgotten how to make sure that dinner gets made on school nights. My kids have been fixing for themselves, which is great, but their options become increasingly limited when I haven’t had time to go grocery shop.

So far so good on the school front. Kids are coming home happy. They’re either doing their homework without argument or gleefully reporting that they have none. I’m quelling the part of my brain that wants to double check all of this to make sure their portrayals of homework are accurate. Homework is their job, not mine. I need to let them run the show until mid September (When my task crunch should be over. I hope.) Then I can check in and make sure we’re on track. Though part of my brain really wants to contact teachers and make sure that the understanding my child has of what is expected of him matches the teacher’s actual expectations. I don’t have time for half a dozen teacher meetings this week. I just don’t. So I’m rummaging in my head to find enough trust that it will all be fine.

I really need to complete some tasks and projects so that I can clearly see the ones I have left.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Last Year, This Year, and the School Year to Come

Yesterday I experienced some cognitive dissonance. I was going through my August 2013 blog posts to put them into my One Cobble at a Time book. I hit a set of posts which could easily have been written this week. They were all about GenCon and the impending beginning of school. Only I’d forgotten exactly how much more stressful all of it was last year, because GenCon was followed by WorldCon which was followed by Salt Lake Comic Con, all pretty much without a break. Also we took Kiki to college for the first time and all my kids were switching schools, I was carrying a giant load of unprocessed emotional baggage related to parenting and mental illness. And then there was the point of sale system, which I pulled together at the very last minute, not in time for GenCon, but in time to send that completely untested system off to WorldCon where I then had to perform long-distance tech support.

If I’d had any time to think about it, I would have hated last August.

This year I packed up that same point of sale system and sent it to GenCon. It has been tested across multiple conventions since. It is stream-lined and functional. It gives us lots more flexibility and reports. This year the system is reducing stress rather than adding to it.

I feel like I’m playing year to year comparison a lot in the last few months, and an extra lot this week. It reveals so much to me about myself. It makes me realize that I was not over-reacting or parenting badly, I was really carrying quite a lot. The thing is, I couldn’t tell. It felt normal to me, which is the sneaky-awful thing about stress. Unless it hits with a clear cause and onset, it starts to feel normal.

Today I went out and finished out the last bits of school shopping. I’ve never been one to completely re-outfit my kids if they have good clothes, but when I paused to consider the contents of my kids’ drawers, I began to see things. Like the fact that Patch doesn’t own any socks without holes in them. Or that Gleek has changed shape and thus needed new underclothes. Additionally, both my teenagers need a new shirt or two so that they can face the new year with confidence. Clothes help teens define themselves and both Gleek and Link are slightly different than they were eight months ago.

Last year the majority of my back-to-school shopping dollars went into college supplies for Kiki. Not surprising I guess. I’m not the first mother to splurge spend on towels for the college kid because I was afraid that I hadn’t adequately prepared her so at least I could make sure she had linens. I thought about that as I walked through the store today and saw all the displays aimed at parents and new college students. They had little effect on me this year. I wonder how susceptible I’ll be when the other kids leave, but that is a question for years from now. Thankfully.

Reading through last August’s posts was hard, not just because it caused me to relive some of the hardest bits. The thing is that I do have some of the same emotions that I had last year. I’m trying not to think about it too much, but a new school year means new stresses. I hope, hope, hope that three out of my four kids can simply have calm/good years where they learn things at a fairly even pace. Patch is destined for a rougher year, because of puberty, but I’m planning for that. Yet there is this little trickle of fear that lives in the back of my head, behind a door that I’ve tried to keep shut. Reading those posts cracked it open just a little. Because parenting can get really hard, so hard that my heart hurts every day and I can’t even tell that I’m exhausted because that feels normal. It feels like we won’t go there again. Logic says that most of the difficulty was because of a massive confluence of transitions and developmental stages. I’ll never have that again. But my imagination is very good, and I can picture new and exciting configurations of disaster. So I’ve been trying not to think too much about the coming school year and instead focus on the tasks each day brings.

There is one glaring exception: Link’s eagle scout project. I got very angry at Link about it a few days ago. It took a massive effort on my part not to just yell at him and require him to do it my way. I could have. He would have. What happened instead was that I acknowledged, out loud, how very difficult it is for me to not be in charge of this project. I left it in Link’s hands and I’ve done quite a bit of thinking since. I was pushing and trying to rush the project, because I’m afraid of the coming school year for Link. I keep saying that he’s lined up for a good year, but I’m afraid it will be more complicated and difficult than that. The last few months of last school year Link was really managing all his work. I want very much to trust that version of Link. I want that to be the school year we have. I’m afraid of how difficult it might be instead. So I pushed at the eagle project, trying to make it happen fast so that it would be out of the way before any of the school stresses hit. I don’t get to pick that. Instead I need to start doing what I’ll probably spend the entire school year doing: back off and let Link handle his own things even though the way he approaches tasks is so very different from my methods that it sometimes drives me crazy.

So, yeah, I’m scared about the coming school year. Even though I don’t want to be.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.