Month: February 2006

Homework and teacher conferences and chaos

By / February 28, 2006 / 18 Comments

I’m about to commit parental heresy: Homework is not always the most important thing to do. I know that it is my job to make sure homework gets done, thus supporting the educational efforts of the teachers at school, but sometimes other things are more important to me. Like being able to eat dinner in peace. Or making the kids stop screaming. Or fielding a business call. Or closing my eyes in exhaustion for a few minutes while hiding in the bathroom with the door locked.

I feel guilty about this, but it doesn’t change the fact that when juggling all the facets of my life I sometimes choose the homework ball as the one to drop. I try to catch it on the bounce, but I still dropped it.

Parent teacher conferences are tomorrow and I can tell already that Link’s teacher is going to want to talk about issues for which I’ve yet to find answers. I can tell from the politely desperate tone to her notes. And I have guilt because I’m very aware of all the nights in the past few months where Link didn’t do reading or homework because life was hectic and in my head second grade homework isn’t as critical as 5th grade homework. Way to encourage good study habits mom.

As you may have guessed, this was a rough evening. It was significantly complicated by a series of visitors and phone calls which always seemed to occur just when I’d begun to get the children under control. Fortunately valuable things may come of all the visitors and phone calls so I’m accepting this evening’s chaos as advance karmic payment for those future good things.

Long busy day = long busy post

By / February 27, 2006 / 10 Comments

Today was a day that I had planned out in increments of 15 minutes. In order to stay ahead of everything that needed doing I had to keep moving down the list and checking things off. I actually had a list because I was afraid I might forget something. Gleek and Patches did not pick a good day to be extra cranky. They simply could not interact without one of them ending up in either a screaming tantrum or screaming tears. Frequently both of them did both.

I baked Howard’s birthday pie. Took care of NotMyBaby. Did book keeping and bill paying. Decorated Patches birthday cake. Got three loads of laundry washed. Handed NMB back to his mom. Made an emergency trip to bring an all important item to Kiki. Picked Link up from school. Physically separated Gleek and Patches several times. Picked Kiki up from school. Spent 90 minutes registering Gleek for Kindergarten next year, most of the time was spent in line. Then managed a birthday party for Howard and Patches. By 7 pm I was so exhausted I just wanted to sit down and cry.

Things got much better from there. Howard did the dishes so I could lay down and tune out the world for awhile. Then Chalain and Chaliren stopped by. While they were here Howard pulled out a habanero pepper that he bought at the grocery store. Chalain and Howard sat together and sampled the pepper. I took pictures. Some of the pictures are really really funny. Habenero peppers are really hot. I never even touched the thing and my nose is burning a little. That was really fun and made an exhausted evening into a good one.

Other highlights of the day:

Howard made dinner. He and Kiki worked together to create egg rolls from scratch. They were delicious and everyone wished we could have had more of them.

Gleek’s best friend brought over a little paper note for Gleek announcing “I wrote you a email!”

Kiki finally has a friend at her new school. She has a playdate and a birthday party with this new friend this week. I’m glad she’s finally making a connection with someone. I wish I knew better how to teach her about building friendships. It’s not something I’m historically very good at. I’ve lucked into some really good friends and inherited others, but I’m not so good at building a strong frienship from scratch. Anyway I’m glad she has this new friend I hope it continues to work.

Patches loved his birthday. I wish I could have held the celebration on a less hectic day so that I could have savored it more, but he had a wonderful time. He loved having a cake that was for him. He loved that it had hamtaro figurines all over it. He loved the four foil wrapped chocolate cars that raced around the bottom. Each of the kids got one of these cars. The three older kids tore off the wrappers and gobbled the car up. Patches removed the wrapper and proceeded to drive the car in circles around his plate. After several minutes of this I leaned over and said “It’s chocolate. You’re supposed to eat it.” Patches gave me an “are you crazy?!” look and hugged his chololate car close to his chest. I had visions of this chocolate car being loved for days as it slowly melted and smeared all over the house. Fortunately just as the car was beginning to look lumpish instead of carish, Patches ate it up.

Howard had a good birthday too. A couple of fans mailed him gifts which was a nice addition to what I managed to provide. The biggest gift was an orange vest on which I’d affixed a hand embroidered Tagon’s Toughs logo. I’ve been stealing time to work on that for over a month now. I’m really glad to have it done and for Howard to be able to wear it. Of course the irony is that he recieved it just as the weather has turned warm, so he may have to wait until next fall before he gets to wear it much. Oh well.

This evening I was half offered yet another book keeping job. I’m not going to jump at taking it because I need to get stabilized in managing books for Chalain before I even think about undertaking new projects. Also I need to refocus a little on active mommying. And with the incoming inventory management for Howard’s book I’m reluctant to commit to anything else. But it feels really good to be asked to consider it. I like having valuable skills.

And that’s all the babble I have in my head. I’m going to sleep now.

Money Matters

By / February 25, 2006 / 8 Comments

Today was much occupied with matters of money.

It began when Kiki decided that she needed more money to fund her new found knitting hobby. She decided that she wanted money for yarn far more than she wanted her collection of Polly Pockets. So she began spinning possibilities for selling the collection. We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of ebay, garage sales, and consignment stores. I was worried that she would regret the sale and miss her toys. I mean it was only a couple of months ago that she was avidly saving to buy Polly Pocket sets. I’m not sure who the inspiration struck, but Kiki decided to hold a store for her siblings. She would put prices on the items she wanted to sell and her siblings could bring their allowance and come shopping. I decided to allow this economic exchange provided I was able to supervise all the pricing and sales.

Link, Gleek, and Patches loved shopping in Kiki’s store. Gleek who had left over birthday money acquired all of the Polly Pocket collection for a price of $6. Link acquired some little magic tricks. Patches purchased a bouncy ball. Everyone came away happy. There may be regrets later, but that too will be a learning experience.

I’ve been trying to pay more attention to my children’s economic education. Primarily this means that I am paying out allowances regularly once a week instead of allowing a large pile to accrue before paying up. This means that if they want to fritter thier money away on little stuff they can. If they want to save up for something big it is them saving the money not me. I’ve also instituted a rule that they can only buy something if they have their money with them. I will not loan them money. I’ve tried to be dilligent about making sure the kids bring their money to stores so they can decide whether or not to spend. Then I make them do the paying so that they learn how to make change and handle reciepts. Patches in particular feels very empowered by this. He brings his jar of money to the grocery store and very seriously buys himself a treat in the check out line. I no longer have to say “No we’re not buying that” I just say “spend your own money.”

After the Kiki’s store ran out of merchandise I had to run over to Chalain’s house to help him sort out his business accounts. He’s decided to hire me as a book keeper, so today I got started. It is so satisfying to take a huge pile of paper stress and turn it into neatly organized accounts and thin files of necessary papers. It also feels really good to set up a system that will keep the pile o’ stress from reaccumulating. Just like with Kiki’s store, everyone came away happy.

It’s been a good day.

Too Much Input

By / February 24, 2006 / 3 Comments

I like fairly steady streams of new input so that I have new things to think about, write about, and talk about. Because of this I read books, listen to talk radio, surf news, read blogs, and check forums all on a daily basis. I am much more likely to run out of things to process than I am to have too much. In fact I didn’t even really recognize what “too much input” felt like until I identified it last night.

I still haven’t processed all the things that happened at LTUE. There were business contacts made that I need to think through and communicate with. I’ve got assignments I need to do in order to make the production of the book a smoother process. I’ve got regular accounting and book keeping. I’m going to begin helping a friend with business accounting regularly starting tomorrow. On my kitchen counter are some stories written by a potential collaborative partner (collaborative with Howard, not me) that I need to read. I also have “research” reading to do for the story I’m working on, novels can be research right? I also had a breakthrough about where the story needs to go next and I want to write it. Yesterday books from Ryk Spoor arrrived in the mail. And my friend J brought over a parenting book that she thinks might give me some insights into concerns I’ve been having with Gleek. In fact, I have been feeling a need to refocus on my kids emotional needs more because several small behavioral issues have cropped up. And I have birthdays to plan for, since the celebration is only 3 days away. Oh and I need to eat and sleep.

I want to give each and every one of those things my full attention RIGHT NOW. They all interest me or at least facets of me. I’m excited for all of them. Last night all of this left me almost paralized and incapable of prioritizing. I didn’t want to pick what was most important, I wanted it all. I decided to take a hot bath and read in the tub. (Yup, I even multitask my relaxation.) But once I got into the tub I realized that the last thing I needed was more input. So I didn’t read, I just let my mind wander where it would and then I went to bed.

This morning I curtailed my usual input streams. I didn’t listen to talk radio in the car. I skipped surfing the news. I did read some comics because they’re unlikely to spark deep threads of thought. I didn’t read during breakfast. I don’t need to feed myself any more information until I’ve processed what is already floating around in there. After a day or so when my brain is quiet again I’ll give it new input.

Motherhood and Creativity

By / February 24, 2006 / 16 Comments

My sister wrote a post thinking through the affects of her writing aspirations on her young family. Her conclusion was that while it was important to prioritize her family above her writing, it was also important that she maintain a creative outlet. I couldn’t help but chime in supporting her conclusions. Then I liked my response so much that I’m pasting it here for my own reference.

The worst thing you could possibly do is to give up who you are to devote yourself to your family. You will not be happy and in the long run it will not be good for them. Mommy with an identity crisis is not good for anyone.

Our mother ALWAYS had something creative when we were growing up. Remember those fabric paint parties, painting plaster figurings, painting rocks, crochet, belonging to craft boutiques, 12 days of christmas, rooms filled with newspaper and balloons just for fun, the list goes on. Lots of times it was a project we could participate in, but there was always something.

My advice also comes from recent personal experience. I’ve spent most of the last 10 years head down in mothering. Most of my creative energies were funnelled into parenting, child management, and actively encouraging developmental growth in the kids. After all those years I managed to lose myself. I honestly didn’t know what to do with myself when I wasn’t being a mommy or a wife. I felt that there probably should be something more, but I wasn’t sure where to find it.

About two years ago my personal rennaissance began. Some of it can be attributed to the lower levels of stress post-Novell. Some I attribute to my involvement in livejournal which cracked the floodgates behind which I’d hidden my inner storyteller. Some is simply because I no longer have a baby in the house and I have larger blocks of time. For whatever reason, over these past two years I’ve developed a strong personal identity. I know who I am. I know what I am good at. I know what I aspire to be in the future.

If you can shortcut the losing self/finding self process that so many mommies have to go through, you’ll be ahead of the game.

Squee!

By / February 23, 2006 / 12 Comments

“Squee!” is the sound that Skull the troll from the webcomic PVP makes when he is delighted with something. (Edit: I am informed that Skull actually says “Glee!” and that “Squee!” is a noise that Howard brought home from a convention. This error in no way affects the correctness of the rest of this post.)

Howard and I have adopted the term. It is primarily used for the times when we have contact with someone we admire. It is the fanboy/girl sound of delight upon meeting the object of admiration. For example Howard had a squee moment when he first met Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games. Another squee moment was when we realized that Baen author John Ringo was a regular reader of Schlock Mercenary.

Today a package full of squee arrived in the mail. Okay, it didn’t actually contain squee. What it contained was books, but the books made me go squee! Baen author Ryk Spoor is also a fan of Schlock Mercenary. Not only is he a fan, but in his forthcoming book Boundary, Ryk directly references “The Tayler Corporation” as makers of “carbonan.” He sent us an autographed copy of this book. He also sent us an anthology which contains a short story by him. Two free books. Yay!

But I have to confess, the part that made me happiest was the fact that he didn’t just send them to Howard, my name was on the package, letter, and inscription as well. This makes me extra happy because his prior book Digital Knight is one of the few books that has inspired me to write the author to say how much I enjoyed it. It makes sense for people to send free books to Howard who will read and review them, but it was pure niceness that caused him to put my name there.

Squee!

Publication thoughts

By / February 22, 2006 / 8 Comments

It is much more efficient for me to gather all my thoughts on publication into a new journal entry rather than to scatter them through the comments of my previous entry.

A vanity publisher takes lots of money, provides little or no editing help, sometimes promises promotion without actually providing it, and hands piles and piles of inventory to someone who then has to unload it.

The traditional self published route is to contract with a printer. The printer provides no editing or design help. The author merely pays to have books printed and then has to store and sell the inventory. The larger the run of books the smaller the price per book, thus self publishers often end up with thousands of books gathering dust. The author has to do her own marketing and distribution.

On demand publishing is new. The technology to support it has only been around for about 5 years. With an on demand publisher like Lulu.com the author uploads files and then can order as many or as few books as desired for the same price per book. Price per book is usually higher than you can get with traditional self publishing, but you only pay for what you sell. Also people can order directly from the on demand publisher, so the author doesn’t have to do mailing. However, the author does have to do the promotion and advertising to try to create demand for the book.

Traditional publishing is much harder to break into. The author has to convince someone else of the value of her work. Once accepted, the work will get edited. Art will be provided for the cover which may or may not fit the book. Then the book will be mass produced and sent to stores. Unfortunately that is only the beginning. The publisher may or may not provide publicity for the book. Having books on the shelf at Barnes & Noble is no guarantee that people will buy the book. Having a previously published book that performed poorly can be an impediment to having future books published. With a traditional publisher the potential rewards are high, but the author can do very little to affect the outcome.

There is a place for all three forms of publication. (but not for vanity press which is just slimey sharks trying to suck the blood out of someone else’s dream.) Most people say that traditional publishing is “the best bet” because it doesn’t require the author to learn marketing or advertising. No matter which road you choose to walk, getting published is lots of work and all roads have pitfalls and frustrations.

As far as publishing my work goes, I’m not in any hurry. Right now it is far more important to me for Schlock Mercenary to suceed than it is for me to have a writing career. At the moment my writing is a hobby that fits into the space around the larger things in my life. Because of that I won’t be submitting to very many contests or for publication very much. Mostly I just want to get the stories sufficiently critiqued that I can be fairly confident that I’m not deluding myself about their strength/quality. They feel strong to me, but all mothers think their babies are beautiful.

When I do choose to publish I will probably choose on demand publishing through Lulu.com to start. My situation is somewhat unique because I already have a big advertising venue. The minute a book by me exists, Howard will mention it on his front page and 20,000 other people will also know it exists. Only a tiny fraction of that number will look at it, even fewer will buy it, but it’s still a jump start. Before I get around to publishing, that 20,000 number may be even larger. We’re certainly aggresively working to grow that number. As part of marketing Schlock Mercenary Howard attends conventions regularly. My book could piggy-back there too.

Using this method I can only expect to sell small numbers of copies. If I decide I’m not happy with that, I can then pitch a book with a small track record to publishing companies. Large publishers are starting to be more open to picking up previously self published material. Eragon by Christopher Paolini is a perfect example, he hawked his book at conventions for a couple of years before a large publisher snapped it up.

Anyway, those are my current thoughts on publishing. All thoughts are subject to change, without notice, upon acquisition of further information.

Another Headfull of thoughts

By / February 21, 2006 / 4 Comments

Today my sister wrote about how she spent all day paying full attention to her kids. I read it and realized that I haven’t really paid my kids much attention for about a week. My head has been full of projects. I thought this situation would be somewhat remedied once I got through my week hosting preschool and LTUE. Unfortunately my mind has just moved on to other enticing projects.

Also I have this wierd sore throat and stiff neck thing. It isn’t a classic head cold, neither is it classic strep. Maybe it is classic laryngitis because it hurts to talk. This makes managing the kids less than fun. Advil has become my new friend.

And it is cold. I am tired of cold. In past years the weather has been cold, but mostly 40 degree cold with a few dips down into sub freezing. This year we’ve had a month’s worth of sub freezing days and pretty much all the nights are below freezing. No danger of my apricot tree blooming too early this year. cold cold cold cold. grr.

I’m also contemplating entering some of my completed stories into writing contests. I already have a long term plan involving on demand publication. I’m pretty sure that my stories are worth it. But then the voice of doubt tells me that I’ve never shown the stories to anyone who doesn’t have a vested interest in being nice to me. This means that the stories may not be as good as I’ve been thinking they are. So I’m going to put a few to the test. Now if only the Conduit people would get thier act together and post the writing contest rules that would really help.

Next monday I get to register Gleek for kindergarten next fall. Of all my kids, she is the one I’ve been most anticipatory about sending off to kindergarten. This is because unless she has a friend she hovers near me. Gleek is also the child I am going to miss the most when she is gone every day, for exactly the same reason. She’s growing up fast. She’s already doing beginning reading.

More thoughts keep bumping into each other in my head, but I can’t seem to catch any of them long enough to stick them into this entry. Must be time for bed.

LTUE panel: Making money as an artist

By / February 21, 2006 / 4 Comments

I’m not going to try to replicate the ebb and flow of the conversation in this panel. I’m just going to lift the major points and expound upon them.

If you want to make money as an artist, you also need to be a business person. All of the professional artists on the panel agreed with that. There is nothing wrong with art as a creative outlet or as an avocation. More people should have an art of some kind as a hobby. But you will never be a financially sucessful artist until you learn to manage money. Most of the panel discussed ways for artists to get contracts, or find other ways to bring money in. Just as important as getting paid for your art, is managing the money after it arrives. These days starving artists usally give up their art and go get a day job.

Art requires diligence and discipline. You need to love it and thrive off of the creation of art, but don’t expect to love every minute of creation. All of the professional artists admited that there are times when they just don’t want to draw, but they draw anyway because it is their job. Usually once they got working they enjoyed it again. (I’ve seen Howard do exactly that time and again.) There is lots of hard work involved as well as inspiration. Put in the time to become really excellent at what you do. Writers write, dreamers dream, Artists draw. If you want to be an artist draw every day whether you feel like it or not. You have about 10,000 really bad pictures that need to come out before you get to the good ones. Don’t jump the gun and start looking for paying work before you’re done with those bad pictures.

Taking classes and trying to meet the exact specifications of your “picky” teacher is very much like trying to meet the specifications of your “picky” client. Getting good at figuring out what someone else wants is an invaluable skill. The client always knows when something is wrong, but the client is never able to identify what it is. He just knows he doesn’t like it. Your job as an artist is to figure it out and fix it.

Be reliable. Always meet your deadlines. Art that is finished too late might as well not exist.

On submitting a portfolio for review: Never never never submit a drawing on notebook paper as part of a portfolio. If you can’t replicate that cool drawing on notebook paper onto good paper, then you’re not ready to be a professional artist. If you are not sure about the quality of a piece, leave it out. It is better to have a small portfolio full of excellent pieces than a large one with mediocre pieces. Tailor your portfolio to the reviewer. Do some research before you submit the portfolio.

Building an income as an artist is a slow growth business. Expect to work hard with little return for several years. You have to identify and research your market. Networking is the key to building an income. Every connection you make strengthens your net. Remember to give as much as you get or you won’t have a solid network. Beware, there are some sharks out there who will take advantage of you. These sharks will claim they are trying to help you while actually using you. Always check advice with several unconnected people before you apply it.

Well, that ended up being more a transcription of my notes than a true exposition, but at least most of the thoughts are there. I should note that pretty much everything said up there about art and artist could be applied to writing and writer. In fact it could all be applied to any creative business.

LTUE: The Howard & Sandra Panel

By / February 19, 2006 / 3 Comments

I always come home from a convention with so many thoughts that I have to write several entries to cover it all. This year’s LTUE was no different even though I was only there for half a day.

The most important realization I had because of LTUE was how lucky Howard and I are to have each other. I talked to several people whose spouses don’t share their interests in Science Fiction, Fantasy, or gaming. With a few small exceptions Howard and I enjoy the same things. We make a great team. I loved working the convention with him. I want to be able to do that more often and for longer periods of time. Being on two panels with him was a delight I want to do that again too. Everyone always says marriage is hard. There are definitely hard bits. Most of the hard stuff is building a firm foundation and a good relationship structure. Once that is done marriage makes so many things easier and more fun. Maintinence work on the structure is sometimes necessary or even a restructuring as life shifts, that is to be expected. Couples who expect to have to do maintenance and plan for it, are free to pursue so many other things. I love being married to Howard and sharing life together.

The Howard and Sandra panel went really well. We didn’t do much planning for what to say beyond planning to introduce ourselves at the beginning. It’s a little hard for me to remember all that we did say, because the stories are all familiar to me and not much stands out. I know that we talked about the shift from working at Novell for $100,000 per year to cartooning. We did it at a time when cartooning had made $-600 the prior year. We had enough money in the bank to pay bills for three months and at first we were considering it a 3 month hiatus before Howard had to go back to a corporate job. But then a couple of large comission jobs came in from former Novell contacts. We lived that way for a year, never having more than 3 months of bill money, but as we’d get close to the edge something would happen to help us keep going.

That discussion led naturally to talking about Schlock Mercenary Book 1 because it is our next big thing. We have finally got all the ducks lined up and we’re ready to start shooting. Howard will be announcing stuff about that soon.

We encouraged questions from the audience and one person asked how we managed kids. We answered honestly that I do most of the active child management. Howard tends to just provide air support. But if there is a problem I can’t handle Howard is right there with me. That is one of the key reasons that I can be so supportive of Howard’s creative work, because I know that if I really needed him to, he would give it up. He has proved time and again that if I need him, he’ll drop everything he is doing and help me. I try not to ask unless it is really important. Howard’s office is here at home, but I know that “at home” is not the same as “available.” I respect his work time.

One of the reasons that our partnership works out so well is that every morning we stand in the kitchen together, usually while Howard is preparing his breakfast. Howard lists his priorities for the day. I list mine. If he has assignments for me he mentions them. If I have assignments for him I mention them. Then we both have a clear idea about how the day needs to go. Sometime in the evening we do the same thing to review the day. These aren’t official meetings, they just happen as a natural part of the way we work together. We are constantly communicating about priorities for today, the week, the month, the year, and onward. This communication prevents us from working at cross purposes.

Hmm. What I’ve written here sounds really dry. Honest, the live presentation was much better. Howard and I laughed, the audience laughed. Hopefully someone walked away with something useful, but I’ll probably never know about that. If any of you online audience members have any questions or want elaborations out of my dry synopsis, feel free to ask in the comments. Discussions are much more interesting than lectures.