Month: May 2007

Last Day of School

By / May 31, 2007 / 1 Comment

Today I dropped Kiki at school, dropped Link at school, attended Gleek’s kindergarten graduation, picked up Kiki, and picked up Link, all in the space of 90 minutes. Then we were done with school. I am finally finished with the insane schedule of 5 drop offs/pick ups per weekday. For the next four days we’re all going to play. On Monday a new schedule begins. Link will be attending some summer school and Kiki will be starting Clarinet lessons. So I’ll still have running around to do, but not nearly so much. July and August are pretty empty.

This could have been a spring for serious nostalgia. Kiki is leaving grade school behind. Gleek leaving Kindergarten. I would probably feel more wistful about the whole thing if I hadn’t been run ragged this last month going to school programs and carnivals and graduation ceremonies. Oh, and parties. In the last two weeks I’ve been invited to 4 baby showers, 1 purse party, 1 game party, 2 block parties, and hosted Kiki’s birthday party as well as a BBQ for Howard’s gaming group. Insane. I didn’t go to all of them. I couldn’t. Here’s hoping for a quieter June.

I sold a story!

By / May 30, 2007 / 22 Comments

Julie Czerneda accepted my story “Immigrant” for her Ages of Wonder anthology that is due out this fall. I’m so happy that I want to dance around the room. I have in fact danced around the room. Twice. I also startled both Howard and Kiki by running up to them, flapping my hands wildly with joy, to announce the news. Yes folks, this is how we calm, professional, writer people act when we make our first sale.

I really didn’t know whether to expect it or not. The optimistic part of me was sure my story would be picked. The pessimistic part of me already had a half composed response which included “Please consider me for your next anthology.” The pessimistic part was, appropriately, disappointed. The half composed response will not get used. I’ll have to file it away for a probable future rejection.

It would be nice to say that I’ve been calmly waiting for news about this anthology. It would be a lie. I have been quietly lurking on the Czerneda news forum for the last week to catch any snips of information that might be dropped. This is why I knew when the notices had been sent out. The notifications had been sent out and I hadn’t received one. I was terrified that my story had been lost somehow and never been read. But I remembered that the same thing happened to the invitation to submit. It disappeared into some electronic black hole between Julie’s computer and mine. I used the same solution this time as last time. I emailed Julie. She kindly replied that she would resend the notification. The reply arrived, but the notification did not. I’m pretty sure there is an electronic gremlin lurking inside my cable modem eating the emails. But it only eats emails from Julie Czerneda. I guess they’re yummier or something. Fortunately Julie was kind enough to cut and paste the information into yet another reply. Have I mentioned how nice Julie is? She is very nice.

The inclusion of my story in Ages of Wonder means that I will have two works of mine published before the end of this year. Ages of Wonder is due in the fall and my children’s book, Hold On To Your Horses, will be out in July. I’m happy. I’m so happy that none of my icons were happy enough. I had to make a new one using some of the artwork from Hold On To Your Horses. Consider it a sneak preview.

Excuse me. I need to go dance a little more.

Hi. I’m Sandra and I’m a frugality slacker

By / May 30, 2007

Our family has been very busy lately. All the kids have activities, Howard is trying to put out his next book, and I’m trying to put out a book as well. We all spend a lot of time running here, there, and everywhere trying to get it all done. But recently I’ve had this feeling that I’ve been slacking. Specifically I’ve been slacking on doing the activities that help us live within our still slim budget. I’ve been buying time for my projects. I mean that literally. If I spend time formatting pages for my book instead of planning ahead for meals I inevitably end up choosing a pricier dinner option. So spending time on my projects costs our family money. I don’t intend to give up on my projects, but I should be making space for more frugal activities. With that in mind, I’m writing a list to remind myself what they are.

Frugal Activities I should be doing more often:

Gardening– specifically vegetable gardening. Right now we have no veggies planted. I need to get on this very soon or I need to accept that we’ll have no garden this year.

Garage Sales — This is where christmas came from two years in a row. Last Christmas we spent money, but I should probably still create a “looking for” list and hit some sales.

Menu planning — meals are more likely to be inexpensive if I plan them more than 10 minutes before I have to serve them.

Reading grocery store sales fliers — If I don’t read them I don’t know when the foods we eat are for sale at cheap prices. I should be buying in bulk when the prices are cheap.

Tracking food inventory — If I don’t keep track of what we have, then we run out of things. Then we run to the store and buy replacements despite the premium costs and the extra gas used. If I know I’m running low, then I can watch for sales and buy in bulk.

Repairing things when they first show signs of wear– If I repair frayed clothing then I never have ripped clothing and it lasts longer. Minor repairs can sometimes prevent major replacement costs.

Walking instead of driving — I can’t do this for all the places I go, but there are many places that I can. When I can, I should.

The return of cottage industry

By / May 29, 2007 / 5 Comments

Industrialization and mega corporations have been the death of cottage industry. It used to be that every town had a local grocer, bookstore, cobbler, jeweler, etc. The advent of mass production meant that the majority of people were no longer willing to pay the price for handcrafted items. The few left who did, were not enough to keep the small businesses running. This has changed. The internet provides a way for cottage industries to thrive again. It is possible for someone to make a living handcrafting jewelry because the whole world is available as a marketplace.

Obviously my family has benefited directly from this trend. Schlock Mercenary succeeds because people all over the world are able to read it and buy books. We were able to print the books ourselves and send them directly to the people rather than being forced to go begging for an alliance with a corporate publisher. We may eventually hand some of the work over to a corporate partner to reduce the burden on our family, but we will enter into that partnership from a position of strength.

I like the thought that there is space in the world for craftsmen again. I like that someone with skill and the love of the work can succeed. I want to be able to support such endeavors. I want to buy from artisans and craftspersons.

Yo Ho! Yo Ho!

By / May 28, 2007

Saw Pirates of the Carribean 3 today and I have three things to say about it.

1. I liked it. There were things that were mildly annoying. There were things that made me laugh out loud. I was satisfied with the ending. I’m glad I went.

2. I like the second movie better now that I’ve seen the third because the plot threads and character arcs are now finished.

3. Sit through the credits. There’s a clip at the end that you don’t want to miss.

Impressions of Conduit in no particular order

By / May 27, 2007

From a business standpoint, having me attend Conduit made no sense. I added additional expenses without adding any additional revenue. From a personal standpoint, Conduit was a wonderful success. I got all the things I was hoping for. I talked to many people about my picture book project and they were all excited and interested. Several of them asked to be emailed when the book is available. I learned some more about the publishing industry. And I got to have delightful conversations with many wonderful people.

Julie Wright and I had a marvelous conversation about her projects and my projects. She has some very cool projects in the making and I’m excited to see them do well. I can’t say much more though because I don’t want to steal her thunder. Julie has published three books in the LDS fiction market and is now trying to break into the national market. I know it is just a matter of time before she makes it because her writing is delightful. She’s also a delightful person to talk to. We claimed a bench and chattered like pre-teen girls for more than an hour until Howard came to find where I was.

Julie and I then rounded up a dinner crew which included Howard, Lee Modesit, James Dashner, Eric Stone, and Jim Van Pelt. We all walked over to a nearby food court to eat and discussed the business side of writing. James is contemplating quitting his day job next year and had many questions about health insurance and money management. We also got to hear a lot about the LDS Storymaker’s conference in which both Julie and James were very involved.

Earlier in the day the convention was made delightful by the fact that Janci made it there. It was fun to stand and talk to her and share observations about the convention and some of the costumes. I wish she could have stayed longer, but her ride wanted to leave. Another fun thing is that I got to make a useful comment in a panel about getting manuscripts published. It was a tip that I got from Janci. If you use the “See Inside” feature on the Amazon.com website there is often a link for “Text Stats” which tells you the word count and all sorts of other useful data about the book you’re looking at. This is an incredibly useful tool for figuring out how long your novel should be for the market you intend to pitch it to.

Almost the first thing we did at the convention was talk for a few minutes with David Weber and his wife. He is a very nice man and his wife is delightful to talk to. I got to see pictures of their beautiful children. I would have liked more time to sit down and talk business things with them, but the only other time I saw him was at his official signing when he had a line of people 30 deep waiting for him to sign books. It was a very impressive line. I hope that some day Howard can have lines like that.

Howard is back at Conduit today. I’m here at home with the kids. I don’t mind. I had my day of fun. Now I need to cuddle all the little people who missed me yesterday. It is nice to be missed.

How the kids fared

By / May 27, 2007 / 4 Comments

When I dumped my four kids on relatives yesterday, I made a couple of miscalculations. I didn’t think about the fact that they only have two kids and that their oldest is the same age as Patches. My children were a significant invasion for which they were only partially prepared. They’ve watched all four of my kids before, but those times my kids must have been better behaved. This time my kids weren’t bad or disobedient, they were just oblivious. When my sister-in-law would say something to them, none of them would answer her or even respond. This drove her crazy. My kids do this to me all the time and it sometimes drives me crazy. I’ve developed handfuls of tactics to deal with the problem, but my sister-in-law doesn’t have those because her sweet four-year-old never behaves that way.

In the end everyone survived. The evening was not pleasant for my sister-in-law. It wasn’t pleasant for Kiki either. The other kids were oblivious to the fact that there was a problem. In fact they had a great time and are ready to go back again as soon as possible. As for me, I’m very sorry that it wasn’t nice for everyone involved, but I’m incredibly grateful that they were willing to do it. Now I need to spend the next week observing my children. I need to decide whether the not-answering-when-spoken-to is a symptom of ADD behaviors which I need to continue to work around or whether it is merely a bad habit which I need to correct. My suspicion is that it is a little of both. I’ve just been so accustomed to it that I hardly notice it anymore.

Some Days I am Delighted by my Children

By / May 26, 2007 / 5 Comments

Yesterday they all sat at the kitchen table making things out of Crayola Model Magic clay. They were there together for over 90 minutes. Link started by making a Luigi cap. Then he made a Mario Cap, a Waluigi cap, a Wario cap, and a yoshi egg. Kiki had been happily making decorative wall hangings to send to her pen-pal, but the lure of Yoshi eggs was too strong. She happily crafted a set for herself. Gleek and Patches did not want to be left out. They too made Yoshi eggs. I’m going to be finding these things all over the house, but if they play as happily with the hardened eggs as they did while making them, I’m okay with that. Kiki even tolerated Gleek copying her designs which is something of a miracle.

Earlier Patches informed me that when he grows up he is going to build a house and decorate it. I asked him what he would use to decorate his house, he responded flowers and swords. Then he’ll take some of the swords down so he can practice. And he’ll need some wooden men. Then he can hit the wooden men. And hit and hit and hit. And pumpkins for heads on the wooden men. Then he can smash the pumpkins with the swords.

At Kiki’s 6th grade graduation I had to combat both Kiki and Patches. She was begging me to let him sit with her during her graduation ceremony. I could just picture him getting bored and jumping up and down for everyone to see, so I said no. But it was really hard with two sets of puppy dog eyes begging me to say yes. Then I had to physically detach Patches from Kiki’s leg because he hugged it tight in an effort to not let her leave. It really was best that Patches stayed with me. He got bored and had to be taken out for awhile. But I love that they didn’t want to be separated.

Gleek and Patches have been experimenting with humor. This usually takes the form of Knock Knock jokes exchanged on the drive to school. They frequently run like this:

Knock Knock
Who’s there?
Pizza!
Pizza who?
Because it’s yummy!

Then they both laugh uncontrollably. They’ve also tried out crossing-the-road jokes.

Why did the skeleton cross the road?
Because he didn’t have a body!

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the slide!

Yeah. I didn’t get them either, but my kids did. They laughed and laughed.

Awards

By / May 25, 2007

I spent all of this morning at an awards/graduation ceremony at Kiki’s school. I applaud the principal and the teachers for wanting to recognize all of the children in the school for their achievements. However I do not believe that handing out certificates that say things like “most likely to win at jeopardy,” “friendliest,” or “sweetest” is the best way to celebrate the accomplishments of the kids. Particularly when each of these labels was repeated several times in different classes. It was painfully obvious to me that the teachers were given a list to choose from when they were filling out the certificates. The child has spent 6 hours per day, five days per week, 9 months of the year with a particular teacher and all the teacher can think of to say is “Sweetest.” These aren’t certificates of achievement. They are empty pieces of paper. Children want to be seen and understood. Instead they are handed a label from a list. There has to be a better way to celebrate the growing that the children have done during the year.

Kiki’s certificate mentions creativity. She seems satisfied with it because it matches her picture of herself. But she would have been much happier with a personal letter in which the teacher actually talks specifically about the things she has accomplished in the past year.

Along with the pointless certificates, there were some legitimate awards handed out. Presidential awards for scholarship and Hope of America awards. You could see the difference in the kids who earned these awards. They could tell they had something special something that not everyone got. And they got the awards because they’d done things that not everyone did. Kiki did not win any of these awards. I wonder how she felt about that. I hope that she realizes that she can have such awards if only she is willing to apply herself. I also hope that she finds reasons within herself to do well in school; reasons that are based in her goals rather than in hope of receiving an award. “Awards won” is not the best measure of a good person. I wonder if some of my over-achieving high school classmates ever figured that out.

Honestly I think that Kiki was far more interested in the graduation refreshments than in any of the awards or ceremonies. She was thrilled that there were chocolate fountains for dipping things into. As for me, I came home and slept for awhile.