Sandra Tayler's Blog, page 99

After LTUE is Done

Today is a jellyfishing day. I drift about, occasionally dealing with a task that I bump up against, but mostly just drifting.

I came home from LTUE last night to discover that my kids were mostly in bed, the house was relatively clean, and while there were dirty dishes aplenty, they bore testimony of the fact that my kids ate food healthier than candy corn. All of that and I never got a crisis phone call. The kids took care of each other and generally managed just fine while I was gone. I am extremely grateful for this. Not only because it made coming home far less stressful, but also because it is evidence that my months and years of effort to teach them are actually bearing fruit. They are quite glad to have me back at home. Today has been huggier than usual.

This afternoon we all went to church. The moment everyone was settled on the bench, calmness settled over me like a comfortable blanket. I looked around the chapel at all my friends and neighbors. I live in a good place, surrounded by good people. All the professional should-haves and what-ifs dropped away. I love attending conferences and events. I love coming home to where I can just settle in and be inconspicuous.

I have panel notes to write up. I also came away with a list of follow-up items. The biggest thing on this list is that I really must pull together a short book of essays pulled from this blog. It doesn't need to be cohesive or brilliant. All it needs to be is a sampler, something physical that I can point at when people ask what I write. Hopefully tomorrow I can begin focused work on all the convention follow-up items. Then of course there are the preparatory tasks for upcoming conventions. And the graphic design work for the next Schlock book.

For tonight, drifting and sleep

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

LTUE fills all my brain

When I'm at a convention away from home there are spaces where I can sit in my hotel room and begin to process all the thoughts from the previous hours. When I leave LTUE, I only have a space for as long as I drive home. The minute I enter my house I pick up all of my at-home responsibilities. In some ways this is restful. Being surrounded by my usual things is very grounding. I remember why my life is structured as it is. In other ways it is exhausting because some of my at home tasks draw from the same energy wells that are tapped out by the convention. Thus far LTUE has been marked by a lack of angry/upset phone calls from children. However the longest day is yet to go. Hopefully tomorrow will be good for the children as well.

Thursday drained me almost completely, being home restored me. Today was much more balanced. I realized that I began this particular convention already frazzled since illness compressed my usual three-day prep period into a single day when I was only working at about half capacity. Yet the things I feared would go wrong did not. All is well.

I enjoyed my panels. I took notes. I will write them up when I can string thoughts together in an eloquent fashion. Right now I need to reserve my coherent thoughts so I can prepare for the panel and workshop tomorrow. I hope that I can do a good job in providing useful information for the attendees.

Now I need to restock Howard's car with merchandise for the table and then go to bed.

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

LTUE The Morning Before

I woke up this morning convinced that all the work I did yesterday was done wrong and that our vendor tables at LTUE would be an absolute disaster as a result. Fortunately I've put together enough convention appearances to know that this is normal. I always feel this way at some point pre-convention and then everything works out fine. Howard rides his own pre-convention emotional roller coaster and sometimes our coasters collide a little bit. This is one of the challenges of being married to your business partner. I'll be talking about that kind of thing with a team of other experienced people at noon today.

Noon: Collaborating with a Family Member

2 PM: Feeling Fake: What to do about that pervasive feeling that everyone belongs in the publishing world except you

So, both of my panel topics today address things that I've dealt with just this morning. Hopefully it will all go well. The full LTUE schedule can be found here. Howard and I are most likely to be found in the dealer's room underneath the big Schlock Mercenary banner.

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

Preparing for a Local Convention

The other day Howard was talking to me and interrupted himself mid-sentence three times in a row to change the subject. It was amusing and fascinating to listen to him close off these nesting topics one by one. My day today is going to be a lot like that. I have lots of tasks ahead. Many of them are going to interrupt each other and I'll just have to hope that I've placed enough memory triggers either in my house or in my brain so that I can come back and complete the interrupted tasks. A day like today requires lists.

Most of today's work can be summed up in a single sentence: I am preparing for LTUE. That statement can be broken down into three basic categories: arranging for the kids, booth preparation, and preparation for a professional appearance. From there the tasks fracture into dozens of small details, which I am now going to list so that at 2 o'clock this afternoon when I'm standing in my front room with the feeling that there is something important I should be doing, I will be able to look at the list and think "Oh yeah, right, THAT."

Arranging for the Kids:

Most important here is arranging for adequate supervision. This used to mean negotiation with friends, relatives, or neighbors for babysitting. Now it means sitting my children down and reviewing exactly how we treat each other when mom is unavailable to mediate conflicts. House rules will also be reviewed.
Planning their travel to and from school when I can't help carpool — Done
Food. I need to buy microwavable food so that they don't go hungry in the mid afternoon. I'll actually be here for most of the dinner times. However I will also be brain dead, so I will be grateful to be able to shove frozen things in the microwave and push a button.
Bedtime. This only matters on Thursday. The other nights they can stay up late. I just need to plan incentives and review normal procedures with the kids so that they are prepared for things to be a little different than usual. It saves us from upsets when everyone knows the plan.

Booth Preparation:

In theory LTUE is the convention when we test out new booth set ups and displays. Every fall we say "we should do A, B, C next year. We'll test that at LTUE." Then every February I realize that it is time to prep for LTUE and I don't have A, B, C ready to go. sigh.
Making bundles — We sell our books in discounted bundles. These must be assembled and shrink wrapped. Fortunately Kiki was in need of funds and happily took the job for me. — Done
Packing merchandise — The first and hardest step of this is deciding how much to bring. Fortunately we're coming home every night so I can re-stock as necessary, but we still don't want to run out of anything when a customer is standing right there. Everything we decide to bring must be packed into boxes for easy hauling by dolly. Loose merchandise gets lost or damaged.
Display stands and booth dressing — These are the A, B, C which I never get around to until almost show time. Today it means buying a foam core board so that I can make a vertical display for our t-shirt, grocery bags, and magnets. We also need to get our book stands and table cloths out of the storage unit. Also our table leg extenders so that we can raise the tables.
Planning where to park for easiest hauling of stuff into and out of the dealer's room. It never works exactly as we expect.
Cash for change — means a trip to the bank.
Post-convention accounting, inventory counting, and unpacking — none of this happens today, but for everything I prepare today, part of my brain is sadly looking ahead to when I'll have to clean up after it.

Preparing for a professional appearance:

I write notes out for all the panels in which I participate. Often I don't even use the notes, but the process jiggles loose thoughts and stories which could be relevant to the topic. It means that my brain is primed to say useful things when I'm up in front of a room full of people. I list things I feel strongly need to be said about the topic. I list things which might be relevant or reminders of amusing anecdotes which fit the topic. I bring the notes to the panel and then I take notes as the panel progresses. My panel notes form the basis of a blog post later. Taking notes mid-panel means that when someone says a thing that triggers a thought, I am less likely to lose track of that thought before it is my turn to speak again. I'm pretty sure that I over-think this. Most professionals I know just show up with the knowledge in their heads and do fine. I just enjoy the advance planning. It is part of the fun for me.
I plan clothes and hairstyles. I don't do this in detail, but I think generally about what I want to wear. Then I make sure that I do laundry so that those things are actually clean and ready for me.

There's my list. Ready. Set. Go.

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

Thinking About French Parenting and My Parenting

The other day I followed a link to an article entitled "Why French Parents Are Superior." The article was written by an American who lived in France. I had noticed the same thing that she did, American kids are generally demanding and undisciplined. My own kids are often demanding and undisciplined. On the whole the article was mildly interesting, but one segment gave me words for feelings I had about the structure of parenting. To quote from the article:

When I asked French parents how they disciplined their children, it took them a few beats just to understand what I meant. "Ah, you mean how do we educate them?" they asked.

I love this distinction. In my language talking to and about my kids I try not to use the word "punishment" instead focusing on consequences for decisions. This concept of education takes that idea one step further.

the French ideal of the cadre, or frame, that French parents often talk about. Cadre means that kids have very firm limits about certain things—that's the frame—and that the parents strictly enforce these. But inside the cadre, French parents entrust their kids with quite a lot of freedom and autonomy.

It is not my job as a parent to make sure my children are always happy. My job is to help them grow. Sometimes this means nurturing and smoothing the way for them. Other times it means that I must make their lives harder. No matter which I am doing, the objective is growth.

The bulk of the article discusses how French parents consciously teach patience and delayed gratification to their children. A young French child is bought a treat at a store, but instead of gobbling it down on the way through the parking lot, the treat is saved until snack time that afternoon. The same is true when French children want to make requests, they are required to wait until their parents have time to attend to them. Thus the French mothers are able to finish sentences, or even entire conversations, uninterrupted.

I was fascinated to see that some of the behaviors I'd been feeling guilty about are actually part of conscious education for a French parent. I tell my kids "Just a minute" all the time, but then later feel bad for neglecting them. Then I am too lenient in another area because I feel guilty for this perceived neglect. Thus my parental frame is crooked and sagging in places instead of being a sturdy structure on which the kids depend.

I've long been enamored of having three meals a day plus a snack at regular times. In between the kitchen would be closed (and spotlessly clean, naturally.) In theory this would teach all of us a healthy relationship toward food. Instead of responding to immediate hunger and grabbing what ever is most convenient, our food choices would be carefully planned. I love the idea, yet I doubt this will ever happen in my home. Life is about choices and I choose to be a mother, business manager, writer, and a dozen other things before I choose Cook and Meal Planner. On the other hand, my parenting frame for homework is rock solid this year. I'm also pleased that in the past couple of weeks we've been fitting daily chores back into the lives of the kids. It feels like a miracle that chores are fitting with homework. So when I notice that once again they've foraged themselves a meal of tortilla chips and cream cheese, perhaps I can be pleased with their self sufficiency and trust that we'll find time to focus on healthy eating again soon.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to pay attention to how often I teach my kids that waiting a little bit will not kill them. I'm also going to notice the times when my kids wear me down with negotiation. I think the negotiating skills are valuable, but sometimes I need to be better about sticking to my "no." Most importantly I'll remember that while American kids are nuisances in restaurants and French kids are not, both French adults and American adults handle restaurants just fine. There may not be a "right" path and a "wrong" path through conscientious parenting. Many paths can lead to well adjusted adulthood.

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

Sick Day

Sometimes illness doesn't seem like what it is. I was half a day into my head cold before I figured out I was legitimately sick instead of being lazy. The lethargy was strong, but I feel much better about it now that I can see it was convalescence. I only figured it out when I realized how often I was reaching for tissues. Judgement and decision making skills appear to be the first things taken offline when I don't feel well. Today is better. The tissues-per-hour rate has dropped to a tolerable level and I got a few necessary tasks done. Hopefully my head will clear up tomorrow. I've got lots of convention prep work to do.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Note for LJ Readers

The quantity of spam comments on LJ has increased dramatically. However I've noticed that some entries draw more spam than others. I've decided to lock comments on those entries. Comments are still open on onecobble.com where I have a spam catcher to do most of the work for me. Hopefully this will reduce the amount of time I spend killing spam.

Beauty Where I Stand

Sometimes I forget that I'm surrounded by beauty everywhere. It seems like I have to go someplace special, and away, to find lovely things. It is not true. Here is a shot I took from my car while my daughter was driving us along the freeway. There are some unlovely things in the photo, but look at that mountain.

Everywhere in Utah, there are mountains. Sometimes they are distant on the horizon, but where I live they are right there. You have to look up to see the tops of them. I can get to a mountain by driving for a mere 10 minutes. My world is full of small beautiful things too. This next week I'm going to try to notice more of them.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Updates from the Tayler House

Three fourths of my kids are sick today. This is going to significantly change the tenor of my day. I've grown accustomed to having longish stretches to focus on work. There are still random phone calls, script aprrovals, and business meetings to interrupt my focus, but on the whole I can work. I was thinking about this the other day after reading a post from my sister who is potty training a toddler and thus having to orbit said toddler pretty closely. After reading the post I swiveled in my office chair and realized that I'd been sitting in that exact chair for over two hours. Such a thing never happened when my kids were little. I was up and around, feeding kids, cleaning messes, negotiating deals. So in some ways today will be a return to that. I expect to be paged for deliveries several times per hour.

LTUE begins one week from today. If you're local in Utah it is definitely an event to consider. I've already begun compiling notes and thoughts for my four panels. The nice thing about pulling together notes for a panel is that the same notes can be used to write a blog post later.

In writing news: My short story "The Road Not Taken" was selected to be featured as a finalist during the Mormon Lit Blitz over on the Mormon Artist blog. This was a cheerful addition to yesterday. Subscribing to the RSS of that blog from Feb 15-29 is probably worthwhile. They'll be posting one finalist per day. I'm looking forward to reading them. I hope you'll join me and perhaps cast your vote for any writing you especially like.

To balance out the happy writing news, I got another form rejection on Stepping Stones. My only reaction to this one was the thought "of course" followed by a thin thread of "this is wasted effort. No one will ever want it." Sometime in the near future I'll pull up my boot straps and figure out where else to submit. Right now I need to focus on the primary February goals.

Good heavens, it is February. This is the month when I need to finish layout work on Sharp End of the Stick and I need to dismantle and reassemble our shipping system. In theory I'll get some further work done on my office remodel, but truthfully that project is paused until I can allocate the necessary funds to pay someone for framing, electrical, and drywall. I have ongoing support for kids, homework, and household maintenance. The weather remains cold, but not really wintery. LTUE is a bright spot, but only lasts three days. Hopefully my participation in Letter Month will help me find small bits of happiness in a month that is looking sloggish from this end of it.

And now it is time for me to begin the work of today.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.

Comparative Winters

Last year we were in the midst of one of the wettest winters I've ever experienced in Utah. This year we are in the middle of one of the driest. The contrast is striking. I keep considering stealing one of the 50 degree days to sneak outside and do some spring garden preparatory work. Then I don't because half a dozen projects are more pressing. Gardening can wait until we're actually in springtime. To remind myself of what winter really ought to look like, I have this photo from last year.

I admire the lovely ice, while being simultaneously glad for the lack of windshield scraping and driveway shoveling. Yet even this dry winter is more wintry than those during my growing-up years in California. Here is a picture I took while visiting California in January of 2010.

And I think I'll stop there. This picture is far lovelier than the brown lawn outside my window.

Mirrored from onecobble.com.