This post is going to ramble.

If you’ve talked to me since the middle of May, there are strong odds that I’ve mentioned “The Feelings Box” where I’ve been shoving many emotional experiences to get them out of the way so that I could keep to important “get stuff done” schedules. I try to pause and feel my feelings when they show up, but this summer there are So. Many. Feelings. And they’re all entangled. And my schedule has had very little space in it.

So I have this box full of unprocessed experiences, and this ramble is me beginning the process of sorting them.

When I return home from Gen Con there is urgency in getting the van unloaded so that I can return it to the rental place. Everything gets dumped into the front room in a jumble. Over the next week or two I sort things bit-by-bit making decisions about where things get returned to, what items should be discarded, and I find homes for new acquisitions. The process is somewhat complicated by the fact that we will travel again in just two weeks, so some of the things need to be put into the “To Pack” pile instead of being put away. “Just put things away” seems so easy, but each item requires evaluation and decisions. And my brain is exhausted from a summer full of evaluation and decision.

The feelings box is every bit as jumbled and complicated as the physical mess in my front room. More so, because when I pull out a recent acquisition I discover that it has become entangled with something old and deep so that I can’t just pull out the new stuff. Rather like the electrical cord at the top of a bin that disappears into the depths and pulling it loose upturns all the contents.

So, then, a list in somewhat chronological order:

My uncle died and I attended his funeral where I saw relatives who were key parts of my childhood, but I haven’t spoken with in decades. (No big feuds, just unintended life drift)

I pulled together a crowdfunding project from idea to live because we needed to fill a financial gap.

My friend Piper died and I’m working with some people on a memorial project.

My parents had some health scares that have prompted them to start clearing out their house to sell so they can move closer to me and my siblings.

I traveled to Writing Excuses Recording camp where I got to hang out with friends in a beautiful location while trying to picture how the parental stuff reconfigured the rest of my summer. I also got to plan and record a module for Writing Excuses that will air next year. Wonderful opportunity, but also anxious and full of focused thought.

My house had a major electrical fault that required expensive emergency repair. This happened when I was not at home to handle any of it.

My son decided to get his driver’s license which meant me picking up a part time job as a driving instructor for three months. He passed his test right before I left for Gen Con, which was a joy. Having his license has been incredibly helpful since. Some of the feelings in the box are bright / beautiful ones. They’re jumbled in unprocessed with the hard ones.

I’ve been helping clients with crowdfunding.

I’ve been anxious about finances.

We received our shipment of books for Function of Firepower, which should flip the whole house into shipping season, but I was also prepping for Gen Con which is a huge road-trip massive effort. It also means a big financial expenditure for postage. Even when expenditures are budgeted for, they raise my anxiety levels.

My sister-in-law has cancer (chemotherapy and then surgery ongoing since April)

My daughter’s father-in-law has cancer. (surgery and then chemotherapy ongoing since May)

A member of my Gen Con family had surgery for possible cancer.

A dear friend had surprise gallbladder surgery.

My daughter called me while I was at Gen Con to tell me that she’d had her baby three weeks early, so I got to bounce between selling at booth, giving presentations, and receiving medical updates about NICU, blood tests, and photos of everyone.

A long time neighbor and friend died and his funeral happened while I was at Gen Con. I was so sad to miss it. His wife (my dear and wonderful friend) died just after I got back, so I was able to attend her viewing and service.

One of my kids’ computers keeps crashing and they need help figuring out why, and I haven’t had time.

My kids stepped up and kept business and house running while I was gone. All of the sketch editions got stamped. All of the packages got shipped.

Schlock readers have really shown up for the Not-a-fire sale we’ve been running since the middle of last month. This is the reason I’ve not been hyperventilating in financial panic.

I took 120 copies of Structuring Life to Support Creativity to Gen Con. I brought home twelve. This is an experience I want to unpack and process. There is joy and awe and hope in it. Also humility and gratitude. I love the moment when someone spots the book on the table, stops, then says “I need this.”

Ahead of me I have Worldcon where I don’t have any programming, but Howard does. We’re also partnering with a friend so books will be available in the vendor hall.

Then Howard and I go on a three day road trip where the only agenda is “See redwood trees while traveling from LA to Seattle.” Because there was a moment in the long Covid aftermaths where Howard was big sad at all the things he couldn’t do anymore and somehow that got attached to the fact that Howard has never seen a redwood in person. So we’re fixing that. (This is definitely going to bring up big feelings from the depths of the box)

Then the Writing Excuses Cruise that will be the last cruise for some time. It is the end of an era, definitely a feelings box moment.

Then I’m home for a week.

Then I take a cargo van and go help my parents clean out my childhood home so that we can sell it. This is going to have a lot of feelings.

Oh, and I have ongoing food and health coping. Food coping for me. Health coping for Howard. We’re in better places than last year I think? Honestly hard to tell.

So.

There is all of that. And I’m trying to not just keep shoving feelings in the box “to deal with later” because that way leads to feelings explosions when I least expect them. This ramble of a post is an attempt to look inside the box and see what I’ve got in here.

My timer just went off. My work day has to begin now. So I’m putting the lid back on this mess.  This is actually good behavior with a jumbled feelings box. Walk away when things feel over whelming, come back and poke at it when I have capacity. Eventually it gets emptied out and things get sorted into their settled places. My front room is less jumbled than yesterday. Bit by bit the same will happen to the feelings box, as long as I keep coming back to it.

I’m feeling my way forward with a mind that wants to race ahead and solve all the problems of the next three months. As if that were the only way to feel calm, to already know all the answers. Impossible task given the variables and unknown factors. So I sit with anxiety this morning, trying to soothe it into settling. It settles like a cat who naps in my lap only to leap into action at the slightest provocation. Readiness to respond cloaked in the appearance of rest.

I breathe and remember that it is only today’s problems that I need to manage. All else can wait. I breathe and remember that none of these problems are mine alone, I live in collaboration. It is not my task to always fix while others rest. I breathe and remember the green space outside my back door where I should go and listen to trees. I breathe and remember to type thoughts, and to not scroll, and to let go.

Remembering is work, a task to track. One of many many many. Switch the laundry. Cancel that appointment. Make a grocery list. Drive an errand. And remember today is for breathing. Remember why tasks matter. Remember to share the contents of my worry basket. Remember I don’t have to carry the worry basket with me everywhere I go. I’m allowed to put it down. (If I can figure out how. It seems to be attached?)

So I pin the worries into words that are poetry adjacent. Perhaps when I close this file, the worries will stay put and I can move on without their company.

This week I have been in the mountains of Colorado with five other members of the Writing Excuses podcast team. We’re all staying in a house together and recording podcast episodes. It is lovely, but also exhausting because of all the focused performance and thinking. I am incredibly grateful to have this group of friends and business partners who are so kind and gracious with each other even when we’re all tired.

Night before last my stress level sky rocketed because I got messages from my young adults who are holding down the fort at home. They were having a partial power outage. When they looked at the breaker box nothing was flipped. They scrambled to run an extension cord to the fridge from one of the working outlets, then I got to try to manage scheduling electrical service from 500 miles away. The electrician identified our 35 year old main panel as the source of the issue.

Charred is never something you want to see as part of your electrical system.

The electrician made a temporary fix, the permanent fix would require cooperation and permits from both the power company and the city. I was hoping to be able to wait until after I came home in two more days to address things further. But the temporary fix only held for about three hours. This switched everything over into urgent mode and I had a shiny new power box installed by 8pm the same day. As a bonus, we upgraded the amperage for our whole house. This was clearly work that needed to be done, it was just the timing which I wouldn’t have picked.

Today I’m feeling much more relaxed than I was yesterday (when I was an anxious mess.) I’ll get to record some more episodes soon, because for the season we’re recording the hosts asked me to talk about some topics related to Structuring Life for Creativity. Tomorrow we travel home and I’ll get to sort out all the finances and household things that need to be adjusted because of this adventure. I also intend to have words with my house. This is the third time it has saved a major issue for when I am gone instead of when I am home. Obviously it doesn’t happen every trip, but there is a clear pattern. Also obviously I need to be paying better attention to the small signs of problems. We’d noticed flickering lights over the past few weeks which was almost certainly related.

For today I get to record and enjoy mountain views. Tomorrow I drive home.

It is two months since I last posted. In that time I made and planted garden beds.

I still have work to do. The pavers need to be evened up and I need to sweep sand into the cracks to set them. On the back side of the garden I want to build a path to the back door of my garage. Yet… here is the result of doing some work bit by bit. I now have a garden instead of a weedy mess.

I also have more words written, a crowdfunded project that is funded, another project that I’m getting ready to make live in July, and a short story finished. Lots of little progress toward the activities I was wanting to do more. It is a start.

This summer is going to be full of travel and projects. My garden beds are now in a state where I can just tend the plants in them. Larger garden projects can wait until fall. Instead I’ll sneak in time to work on writing the stories I’m not sure how to sell.

This is a small update, less thorough that I would have liked, but it is written in the spirit of stealing small bits of time to do things I want and that make me whole. I would like to be blogging more, so here is a small shovel in the ground, the beginning of blogging more often as I can claim time.

If all your bills were paid for the next year, how would you spend your time differently today?

I was feeling unsettled and dissatisfied with my days even though they were full of tasks accomplished, So I assigned myself to answer the question above. It is a thought experiment that I included as an optional activity in Structuring Life to Support Creativity. What resulted was a rambling lament about the gardening projects that have been left undone for years, followed by a detailed accounting of my current financial picture explaining why my income generating work got, and should continue to get, precedence. When my words wound down to an end, I put them away, not feeling much better.

As I continued in my day, I remembered similar thought experiments I’ve run over the last several months. These thought explorations functioned as a lifeline while I was over-scheduled and over-stressed. I was running fast and the only pause I could give myself was to imagine that, when things calmed down, I would have time to garden. Here I am. Things have calmed down. And I’d just written paragraphs telling myself that I couldn’t garden yet. No wonder I didn’t feel any better.

This unsatisfactory conclusion rolled around in my mind and in its rattling it knocked loose several prior realizations which now turn out to be exactly what I need.

Realization 1:

The sadness and discouragement I feel isn’t just about digging in the dirt and nurturing plants. Yes I want to do those things, but “garden” is an action word about tending and growing. I want to grow me as much as I want to grow plants. I want more things in my life that are designed to help me grow, and experience, and enjoy. Most of these things are not directly connected to income or long-term stability. I want to visit museums. I want to write a short story collection I’m not sure how to market. I want to read and study. I want to sew and craft. And, yes, I want to dig in the dirt to plant vegetables which I haven’t done in almost ten years. I’ve been too busy for growing vegetables.

Realization 2:

Several months ago I had a small epiphany and recognized that the life I want is not one that is paired with financial security. I can be a wise steward of all my resources, but that doesn’t change the variable nature of a creative income, nor the fact that I live in a country that ties healthcare to employment by a company large enough to help pay for healthcare. Instead of a slow and steady building of long-term security via regular paychecks, my life runs project-to-project through seasons of abundance and scarcity. BUT in exchange for this uncertainty, I get to make books. I feel profound joy when I hold a book in my hands that would not exist without my work. I get to have moments where I can see that my words and thoughts make a difference in the lives of others. I get to share ideas, and jokes, and projects with other people. I could choose differently, but I keep dodging  “need to get a day job” because this is the life I want. Even if it carries with it a measure of financial uncertainty.

Realization 3:

“Make your days match your dreams” are words I have said both in my book and in many presentations. Our futures are created by our choices today. If my long-term dreams are not at all reflected in actions today, they always remain far away and long term. The day-to-day is frequently filled with obligations like bill paying work or health concerns which prevent me from living my dream life, but if I know what the dream is, then I can put tiny slivers of it into today. Over time those slivers can accumulate and bring me closer to the dream.

Combining all of the realizations:

If I want to have a garden (whether of vegetables or personal growth), I need to make time for building that garden. Yes, even when there is paying work I could be doing instead. I am never going to reach a place where I can stop worrying about all the other work of my life and just relax into my dream projects. So I stole small pieces of day for digging the garden I want, out of the weed pile that I have.

As I dig I’m learning—again because I’ve learned this before and forgotten it—that when I spend time outdoors with the physical work of plants, my internal landscape settles and quiets. My thoughts slow down and I breathe differently. The sound of wind shushing through the leaves of trees calms some deep animal part of my brain. I smash clumps of dirt to sift out the roots of grasses and bindweed that I don’t want growing in my new raised vegetable bed. I have the beds already, two of them, purchased last Christmas in the hope that I would garden again someday.

Bit by bit I prepare the ground for the garden to come. Clump by clump and shush by shush, I calm and feel peace. When I return to my other work, that calm comes with me. Everything about the world, and my tasks, and my finances feels less dire. I’m learning, again, that when I spend time with the work that fills my soul, there is more of me available to do the work that pays my bills. An hour spent gardening, learning, growing, means an hour less “productive” work, but when there is more of me, more work fits into the time available. It is a beautiful exchange.  

Here is the place where my garden will be. I just have to dig.

My February defies summary. Best I can do is to say that it was seriously overbooked with worthwhile things. Each of these events and tasks is worthy of a leisurely unpacking via descriptive blogging. I would love to tell all the stories of LTUE, and of Storycon, and of how prepping for the Locus fundraiser jumped in levels of difficulty because of software updates. I didn’t have time in February, and I’m still playing catch up now that I’m already a week into March. This weekend is the first time I’ve had time to do any thinking that wasn’t directly in service to getting things done. I finally have time to begin addressing tasks and memories that aren’t immediately urgent.

In unpacking my February, I could treat it like a storage chest where I pull out the most recent thoughts first, unpacking as I go. I could also reach back to the beginning of the February calendar and recall everything in chronological order. I’ve decided to do neither of those things (for now). I don’t want to describe the details and shape of how I was busy all through the month, largely in service to other people’s priorities. (I spent ninety hours on Storycon, fifty hours on Locus, and forty hours on LTUE, those hours combine to be more hours than a full time job). Instead I want to reach into the middle and pull the quiet threads that are connected to mine.

I held Story Time each Tuesday at 10am. I kept that space for myself and others even on the weeks when I could feel how my ability to think was thick with fatigue. In the hour before Story Time I would go to my shelves and contemplate stories and poetry so I could choose what to share. Then I would launch the meeting and remember that my whole existence was not all about logistics and administration. For two hours a week I preserved a space where I could be a writer and work in service of my own projects. This is a triumph. Through what was probably the most tightly scheduled month of my year (and hopefully the most tightly scheduled month I’ll experience for a long time to come) I remembered to pause. Pause is one of the priorities I set for myself this year and I’m pleased I managed to thread it through my life. I’m looking forward to this thread being thicker in the months to come.

Another thread that saved my emotional stability during the month was Connecting. Each Story Time gave me a chance to listen to other creatives talk about their challenges and to be listened to about mine. I got to teach at both LTUE and Storycon. Dozens of quiet conversations with dozens of people where we mourned or rejoiced with each other. Many of these conversations came to me as a result of people buying or reading my book. That too was a joy. Structuring Life to Support Creativity is helping people and drawing to me the sorts of conversations I love having. I look forward to building on what this book has to offer. I’m going to get to write more material for my Patreon. I have plans for my next project. Because of how many people chose to pick up my book, I feel hope that I can continue to create. In the months to come I get to build on some of the things I did this month.

I am so glad for all the work I did in February. I’ve learned skills in communication and organization. I’m looking forward to refocusing my efforts closer to home in the months to come.

I am in a month of outflow. Time, attention, decisions, energy all pour from me in service of contracts I chose. I have to remember that it was a choice when I wash up empty in the evenings, when I wake up wondering what resources I have to offer the day. I am so fortunate to be drained by things I chose rather than by burdens that landed on me.

This does not stop the outflow from being terrifying. I feel the strain of it and know that this pace will drain me dry if continued for too long. Already I am reaching for emergency resources to keep things going. But I can see the end from here.

In one week I teach at a conference. (LTUE) This will be exhausting and replenishing. To be present at the event I will have to ignore all other urgencies. Sometimes it is nice to narrow my focus to Here and Now. I will get to teach, to breathe out and contribute. I rarely get to know exactly how teaching impacts the world, but on occasion I’ve been told how something I said was taken in by a person who transformed themselves as a result. The transformation is theirs, but I got to participate in a small way, and that is a wonder. It is work worthy of an expenditure of energy.

In two weeks I will focus on my computer, preparing for another in-person conference and preparing for an online fundraiser. I will organize, and write, and build spreadsheets. I will carry an administrative load of small decisions. I will try to find moments to remember why all of the admin is worthwhile, what it connects to, the purpose it serves. When I cling tight to the purpose, it reminds me that I am glad to spend the effort.

In Three weeks I will hold a space that I have organized and planned. A convention hall will be set up according to a map that I made. People will flow into the building to set up small shops in the spaces I assigned to them. I will walk among them providing information and solutions. Inside the space I organize and hold, hundreds of people will feel joy and frustration, will buy and sell, will share the love of stories. And then it will all be dismantled to vanish away. In the emptiness after, I will know that this was an exhaustion I chose for a good purpose.

In four weeks I will launch an online fundraiser and tend it for four weeks more. Bringing in support and resources that will sustain a small group of dedicated staffers who reach and read and support and publish. Every month they create a magazine. Their effort flow and expense flow is constant. My effort on their fundraiser creates a much needed inflow for them. It is work worth doing.

After four weeks, I only have one ongoing contract instead of three. I will be able to return to my own words and projects.

I need to remember that the work of after is different, but also an outflow, which is why I’m spending words today reconnecting each effort to its purpose, remembering why I chose this. When I do that there is an inflow attached to the expenditure. In a month like this one it is clear to me that I cannot wait until “after” to rest. I have to claim rest daily. I have to remember the Why of the work regularly. I need to spend effort now to make sure I have rest later.

Onward into the breach.

If you are going to be at LTUE, please make sure to find me and say hello!

Wednesday February 11

8-11am. Structuring Life Around Your Writing, an LTUE Masterclass.

Thursday February 12

9am PANEL in Cedar We do it this way: Ritual, Habit, and the Logic of Culture

12pm PANEL in Canyon Health: Physical, Mental and Relational

2pm Kaffeklatch in Boardroom. Come chat with Sandra in a small group setting.

Friday February 13

9am PANEL in Bryce Merchandizing

7pm Mass signing in the Zion Ballroom. Open to the public!

Saturday February 14

10am PRESENTATION in Amphitheater The Motivation Problem: how to get started and redirect when you’re off track

I wanted to follow my New Year’s Bird tradition (2024 & 2025), so I watched for birds this morning. But it was raining and all the birds were in hiding. I heard some chirping and the Merlin app told me it was House Finches, but I wasn’t certain whether to count them. My back garden was birdless. When I got to noon and still had not seen a bird, I took myself for a neighborhood walk.

I need to remember how lovely it is to walk in a calm rain with an umbrella overhead. The sounds of the world are shushed by the falling water and my thoughts quiet as well. I was halfway through my planned path when I saw a collared dove hunkered down in a tree.

(Not my picture. This one is by Tisha Mukherjee and used via a creative commons share alike license. My dove was puffed up like a ball and huddled next to a tree branch against the wet.)

Doves represent Hope, Peace, Love, and Renewal. That is a lot of meaning for a small, common bird to carry. But once I saw them I knew that’s my bird for the year. I would like peace and renewal, and I too have a lot to carry. So quietly, and in community (because doves are always in pairs or groups) I will travel forward through 2026.

Each year on Christmas eve we gather as a family around a candlelit nativity scene. We have envelopes, one per person, that contain pages where we each write and reflect on the year past and the year to come. This tradition has remained treasured despite a divergence of religious belief. When I opened and looked at my writing from last year, I found that I’d only written one and a half sentences. My partial sentence was “I hope I get to…”  I think I intended to come back and finish the thought, but I must have been swept up in hosting my kids and grandchild.

This year I didn’t even try to write during the event. I was too distracted with getting extra papers and helping distract the toddler and with taking pictures. I was present in the moment, hosting rather than contemplating. It was the correct and joyful choice.

I took time on Christmas morning to open my envelope and have my moment of reflection. This coming year will be more of what last night was. I’m going to do a lot of joyful hosting, prepping, managing, and logistical planning. It is good work. Work I want to do, but if I don’t plan in advance to give myself time to pause,  I won’t have any pauses. I will burn myself out on joyful work. I’ve had Christmases like that in the past, where I run myself ragged and to tears creating an experience for others while completely neglecting my own.

In some ways that is the story of my December as I haven’t done many of the year-end contemplative activities that help me ground myself for the coming year. I still need to create my collected book of blog and journal entries. I need to examine the priorities I set for myself last January and think through what priorities I want to use as guides in the year to come. I know that one of them needs to be “remember to pause.”

So I’m going to try to use this next week, the space between Christmas and New Year’s Day, as a pause. I will prepare for the New Year Launch event I’m hosting on January 2. I will stop and feel and think so that I can know what priorities are needed for my 2026.