Month: June 2007

Self promtion 101

By / June 22, 2007 / 1 Comment

I had some thoughts while mowing the lawn. Some of them relate to my recent attendance at a writer’s workshop, others are things that bumped into each other and made connections.

When you’re trying to promote yourself or your work it is very important to be remembered. This is tricky because human brains are designed to sift information and dump all of the unimportant stuff. This is why you can arrive at work and not remember the drive at all. The drive was unimportant so it got dumped. However, if you have to slam on your breaks and swerve to miss a bicyclist, you will remember the entire drive because that swerve becomes the hook on which the entire memory hangs. If you want people to remember you, then you need to find hooks on which to hang the memory.

Sometimes you can use a hook that is already in place. I am frequently able to do this, particularly with people who have met Howard before. All I have to say is “I’m Howard’s wife” and they instantly have a place to hang the memory of me. You can do this even without a famous husband if you can tie into an interest the person already has. For example if you start a conversation about costuming with a costumed person at a con, then costuming can serve as a hook for the memory of you. All those conversations that start with “Oh you’re from Gettysburg? Do you know…” those are efforts to find pre-existing hooks and connections.

Often there isn’t a hook ready and waiting for you. Then you have to set your own hook. The best and surest way to do this is to have multiple contacts over a space of time. People meet you at a con once and forget you, but if you’re at the same con the next year then you can draw upon that previous meeting as a hook. The key is for you to remember enough about the first contact that you can draw it out of their deep stored memory. “I met you here last year” may not be sufficient to trigger a memory, but “I was the one who asked you the question about the frog” probably would be. Inviting people out to lunch is a great way to get remembered because the restaurant and the food can become a hook. This was why I was so frustrated with the workshop. I was not able to get near enough to any of the guests to set a hook and hang a memory. I couldn’t invite them to dinner or even just chat long enough to find a pre-existing hook. In the end I have to be content that our mutual attendance at the workshop will serve as a hook if I ever get a chance to meet any of them again.

It is important to realize that while being remembered is critical to self promoting, you can be remembered negatively. You don’t want to be remembered as “that annoying guy” unless your ability to be annoying is what you’re trying to promote. You will not be remembered by everyone at every meeting. It is possible to make a first impression so vivid that it will never be forgotten, but that is more likely to happen if the first impression is vividly negative. You want to be memorable, not desperate. Remember your multiple contacts can take place in the course of a con or a day or even an hour if you manage it right.

New furniture

By / June 21, 2007

This morning Howard went on a quest. Like any good quest it started with rounding up a companion for the road and many preparations to haul home the expected loot. We emptied out the back end of our van. Then Howard and his friend headed out into the wilds of Ikea in search of a new computer desk. This quest became necessary because Howard’s new wacom tablet arrived and he now needed a reasonable place to put it. We’ve been planning to replace his computer desk for a long time now, so this was not unexpected. They returned triumphant and are now joyfully using power tools to assemble the desk. I’m mostly staying out of the way. Hopefully this will help Howard get caught up on all the coloring he needs to do for the strip.

Staying Focused

By / June 20, 2007 / 6 Comments

Creative people collect projects the way that lonely old ladies collect cats. There are always projects laying around and begging for attention. Then we feel guilty because we have all these projects languishing and none of them are getting the attention they need.

I’ve known many creative people. I am one. I know that creative people get seized by an idea and bend everything else around the idea or project. Then they grow weary and are seized by a new idea. To succeed creatively you have to find ways to break the cycle of seizure and abandonment. The following are some of the ways that I’ve figured out how to stay focused and bring a project to completion.

Define goals: Pick a time when you are not enthralled by a project. Create a quiet space where you can look at your life and what you want to do with it. If you are happy with your day job, then your creative endeavors will just be a hobby for you. Hobby projects get different treatment than hope-for-the-future projects. It is perfectly acceptable to abandon a hobby if it gets difficult or boring. But if you are one of the many who want to make a living on creative endeavors, then you have to find a way not to abandon projects when they inevitably become boring or difficult. By defining your long term goals you provide a measuring stick for all your projects. I would love my house to be beautifully decorated, but for me that is a hobby project. It has to give way before book production projects which pay our bills. I know this because I know that I hope to be an author not an interior decorator. Knowing this helps me to rein myself in when I really want to tear down walls and repaint everything.

Define goals by asking yourself where you want to be in 5, 10, 20 years. Then each time you are seized by a fantastic idea, ask yourself if the idea is contributing to your goals or detracting from them. Periodically re-evaluate your long term goals. As your life changes, they may change too.

Make a project out of finishing projects: When the project is new, it grabs me and runs. That phase of the project is thrilling. Then my enthusiasm wanes and I decide whether the project is worth the time necessary to bring it to completion. If it is not, I abandon it completely without guilt. If I do want to have it done, then I dare myself to complete it. I start feeling compelled to finish just to show that I could get it all done.

Schedule time: Pick a time of the day that is devoted to your creative project. The positioning and length of this time will be dependent on other factors in your life. Some people may only have 30 minutes per week for creative endeavors. Others may have two hours per day. The point is that during that scheduled time you are only allowed to work on your project. Plan ahead for the scheduled time and put yourself in a place where you can get it done. This may mean getting a babysitter and going to a library. It may mean getting up at 5 am. It may mean cleaning the house so that you don’t feel cluttered and guilty. But create that sacrosanct project space in your life.

Make a chart: Track the progress of your project. If you’re quilting, count completed squares. If you’re writing a novel cross off chapters as you finish them. Having a visual representation of how much work you’ve done and how much is left to do can be extremely motivating.

Know there will be hard bits: At the beginning of your project take a few minutes to map out the steps needed to complete it. Look closely at these steps to identify which ones will be quagmires or roadblocks to the project. Spend some time thinking about how to overcome these challenges. Do all of this before you hit the difficult spots so that you are mentally prepared for things to be difficult. Writing my children’s book was fun. Getting the pictures from the artist was enthralling. Laying everything out was something that I wasn’t sure how to do and was daunting. So I lined up help for that piece long before I needed it.

Collaborate: Working with someone else provides an additional impetus for completing a project. Sometimes you’re both excited together and that is wonderful. Other times one partner is excited and the other is not. Then the excited partner can rekindle the excitement of the other partner. Alternately, a sense of responsibility can keep the unexcited partner working anyway in an effort not to let the other down. Collaboration is not all roses. There is the possibility that your partner will abandon or change the project. However collaboration has the potential to be very rewarding.

Enlist a cheering squad: Howard would not be doing Schlock Mercenary today if there had not been fans emailing to tell him how much they loved it. I know several people who finished their first novel simply because someone else bugged them for the next chapter. Find friends, neighbors, family who will cheer for you and encourage you to finish what you have begun. Then be brave enough to share your endeavors with these people.

I’m sure that there are other ways to stay focused. If you think of one, please post it in the comments so that others can benefit from the idea. As for me, I need to go work on a project now.

Two incidents and some thoughts

By / June 19, 2007 / 13 Comments

Incident 1: Last week I showed someone my picture book. They read it and expressed amazement at the main character who is always into trouble. They seemed to feel that I was exaggerating for literary effect. The conversation drifted before I had the chance to make clear that there isn’t any exaggeration in the book. It is a fairly accurate representation of living with Gleek.

Incident 2: At church on Sunday I watched a friend of mine with her 18 month old grand daughter. Throughout the one hour meeting the little girl sat politely on her grandma’s lap and played with little toys quietly. I was fascinated by that because it is completely outside my experience. I never had a toddler willing to sit politely.

I’m forced to the conclusion that what I consider normal behavior for children, is much wilder and higher energy than what other people consider normal. The next question to consider is whether this wildness is due to a lack of discipline from me or if it is something innate that would be much worse without the discipline that I provide. Unfortunately that isn’t something I can see standing here in the trenches.

Goats in the Grocery Store

By / June 18, 2007 / 2 Comments

Long ago, when Howard and I were expecting our first child, we were given a humorus list by a friend. The list offered suggestions about how to prepare yourself for parenthood. It had such gems as, preparing for feeding by hanging a gourd with a hole in it on a string. You then swing the gourd and try to spoon oatmeal into the hole. Or, to prepare for dressing a child, you try to shove an octopus into a string bag. The suggestion to prepare for shopping with a child was to take a live goat with you to the store. You were then expected to pay for anything the goat damaged or ate. If you wanted to have more than one child, take more than one goat.

This is on my mind because I took all four goats children to the store today. I did this on purpose as a family togetherness activity. I announced that we had $10 with which to buy ice cream and toppings. That part of it worked well. We had some lively debates over whether it was better to get two cartons of ice cream or additional toppings. Also whether to get a more expensive brand with a cooler flavor or a cheaper one. As far as a budgeting lesson goes I think the experience was a good one.

Unfortunately interspersed with the negotiations about toppings and prices and ice cream, were other exchanges. Local grocery stores have taken to providing shopping carts that have plastic cars on the front. Thus little kids can drive a car while mom shops. This actually makes sense and the kids like it. I am unable to explain why our local Albertsons went one step further and instead of a car, there is a bright pink butterfly for the kids to sit in. A bright pink butterfly with a pair of steering wheels. Weird. Anyway we snagged the butterfly cart. Gleek and Patches each claimed a steering wheel and Link climbed into the basket. Kiki volunteered to push the cart and all was well for about two minutes. Then Gleek decided that driving the butterfly was boring, so she wanted to sit on top of it. Sitting on top is not recommended even with an adult driving the cart. Kiki was blundering all over the place and hitting things while she tried to get a feel for how huge the butterfly actually is. I’d always associated butteflies with lightness and gracefulness. This one lumbered.

After the “you may not sit on top” argument, Gleek decided to join Link in the basket. There was just enough room if they were both polite. They weren’t. Not only that, but Patches decided that the basket was the place to be and climbed into it while my back was turned. I was trying to get them to think about whether they should choose butterscotch or caramel and they were squabbling over squatters rights.

Then came the checking out. I was tired of the butterfly/jungle gym, so I ordered all the kids out of it and sent Kiki to go return it to the front of the store. Then I had three loose children all ready to touch the candy and magazines. Or, in the case of Gleek, to do spinning tricks on the ailse bars between check out lanes. I kept raising my voice trying to get their attention. They kept scattering, each with his or her own agenda. I attempted to bring it back under control by ordering them all to hold hands, only Kiki didn’t want to hold hands with Gleek, but Gleek desperately wanted to hold Kiki’s hand.

We made it back to the car. Then we made it home and ate the hard won ice cream. I hope they remember the happiness of the group experience. I hope they remember the lessons about fitting inside a budget. I hope that they remember being together as a family. I hope they don’t remember Mom being frustrated at them all.

It is always a difficult walk being out in public with my kids. I have to try to make sure that they don’t impinge upon others. But which draws more negative attention, them running amok or me hollering to try to keep them all in line? It is better than it used to be, but it is still hard to manage 5 agendas for one shopping trip.

Paper Necktie

By / June 17, 2007 / 1 Comment

I was in the church hallway trying to locate all my children so that we could begin our walk home, when Link walked up to me smirking. This was his “I have been very clever and gotten away with something” smirk. I took a second look at him and he said,

“Are you looking at my paper tie?”

I looked down and he was indeed wearing a tie made out of a sheet of notebook paper. I’d been so focused on the smirk, that I hadn’t even noticed the tie.

“Why are you wearing a paper tie?” I asked, knowing full well that his silk tie was balled up in the pocket of his white shirt. I’d seen the tie there during sacrament meeting earlier and mentioned that he might want to put it on.

“I couldn’t put my tie on by myself, so a made a paper one.” Link answered smugly.

I smiled in return at his ingenuity in solving the problem of wearing a tie at church. Next week I’ll try to make sure that the leaving-for-church departure is a little less harried. Then I’ll have time to fish the crumpled tie from his shirt pocket and help him put it on.

Of course if I do forget, I’m sure Link will be quite pleased to have a reason to make another paper one.

Howard as a father.

By / June 17, 2007 / 4 Comments

In the year 2004 Howard left a job that paid over $100,000 per year to become a full time cartoonist. When a company pays you that much money, they expect a large portion of your life in return. Howard finally reached the point where he was no longer willing to trade life for money. I fully supported his choice to quit. It was totally the right decision. I got to watch with joy as our family restructured around having a Daddy who works from home. I got to watch Howard really be a Daddy.

What can I say about Howard as a father? He’s the kind of dad who cooks for his kids and then loves to watch them eat. He brings home treats from the grocery store just because a certain child will like it. He takes time out of his schedule to take each of the kids on an individual outing. The kids love these “dates” even if they’re only going to Sam’s Club. He frequently calls me from conventions because he found something there that one of the kids will like and wants to buy it. He plays tickle games with the kids. He lets the kids sit at his elbows while he colors comic strips. He keeps toys in his office so they can play there quietly. He also knows how to use his daddy voice to good effect to keep the kids in line. The kids don’t like that so much, but they need it. When Howard is gone at a convention I’m always fielding questions about where he is and when he’ll come home.

Howard frequently bemoans the fact that he isn’t a better father. I think this bemoaning is actually a measure of how excellent he is at being a father. Complacency and excellence to not often coexist.

I’m so very glad to have Howard as husband and father to my kids.

There was cleaning

By / June 16, 2007

The bedroom which Link and Patches share had move beyond “messy.” It was well into the realm of being condemned. It has hovered in that state for more than a week because it had gone beyond the point where the boys were able to clean it up by themselves and I didn’t have time to deal with it. Today I made time. I entered the room with trash bag in hand. I followed my habitual “clean the corners first method.” My reward for being thorough was finding a box full of Patches’ summer clothes hidden under his bed. I was wondering why he had only 4 pairs of shorts. Now he has many many pairs and this is happy. Wearing sweat pants in triple digit weather is contraindicated. I still need to tackle the boys’ closet, but at least now we can walk through the room withoutfear of bodily injury. And I filled that trash bag full of stuff that I can throw away. Why does it make me so happy to get rid of stuff? I must be weird. I guess I’m the opposite of a “keeper.” I have to have reasons to keep things rather than reasons to get rid of things.

Anyway, the boys room is now clean. The family room is clean (I did that yesterday.) The kitchen is clean (also yesterday.) Once again I’m showing that getting out of my house and away from the regular round of chores results in a surge of energy later. Or perhaps it might be more related to getting enough sleep. That is possible too. There was happy sleeping late this morning.

Workshop, last day

By / June 15, 2007 / 4 Comments

I did not want to go to the workshop yesterday. There were good things I was looking forward to, but they were completely overshadowed by the likely emotional aftermath. But I had goals I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to meet the other attendees and talk to them. I wanted to feel a sense of creative community. So with determination rather than desire I departed for the workshop. I then did a very girly thing. I stopped at Payless shoe source and bought myself a new pair of shoes. I was wearing ratty old shoes and I wanted to feel pretty and confident. I haven’t bought new shoes for myself since Howard quit Novell three years ago. So I walked into the conference feeling better about the whole thing because of my pretty new shoes. I was later rewarded by new shoe blisters because wearing brand new shoes to a convention does not rank high on the list of smart convention behaviors. My feet will recover and I’ll be breaking the shoes in more gradually.

I survived the third day of the workshop with a complete lack of “emotional heap.” Since this was my last day I am now suffering from a few mild regrets. I wish I had gone to lectures by Carmen Deedy and Dandi Mckandall. I got to speak to both of them briefly and they both were delightful and fascinating. Dandi did a reading from her book Larger Than Life Lara and I loved the segment so much, that I had to buy the book. Carmen Deedy did a reading too. That was when I realized where I’d heard her name before. My mother met her at a storytelling conference. Carmen signed a book for my mom, but signed it incorrectly. It was the last copy available, so she mailed out a correctly signed copy after the conference was over. The book was for me, so now I have both copies. I mentioned this to Carmen and she remembered the incident and my mom. That was fun. Carmen even smiled and waved to me later. She is a person I’d love to sit down with and just listen to. She’s funny and full of stories.

In all it was a worthwhile expenditure of time, effort, and money. I’ve made first contacts with several people whom I’d love to meet again. Hopefully I’ll get to meet them again someday.

The conference did have a few quirks. It was very Mormon, which is to be expected I suppose. At the “follies” the conference director called each of the teachers/guests down and told an embarrassing/amusing anecdote about them. They then called upon those same guests/teachers to take part in karaoke. Some of the guests loved this, some did not. For me it was like watching an embarrassing aunt make a public scene yet again.

At one point I got to listen to the conference directors talk about the time they went to Life The Universe and Everything which is the Science Fiction and Fantasy symposium at BYU. They thought that the people at LTUE were frightening because they wore costumes and were attending classes on weaponry. It made me realize that what feels normal and comfortable to me is possibly very uncomfortable to someone else. I need to write a whole essay on comfort zones sometime.

Anyway the conference was good. Now it is time for me to get back to normal life. I’ve got piles of housework to catch up on. And I need to get back to the actual writing part of being a writer.

Helping my son

By / June 14, 2007 / 7 Comments

I want to write a fiction book for my son Link. I plan to do it. I’ve got the idea and part of the outline prepared. I want the book to be helpful and empowering to him while delighting him.

The trouble is that he doesn’t need a book. He particularly doesn’t need a book if in order to write it I let him spend hours on end playing video games. He doesn’t need me to grouch at him because the writing is being frustrating. What he needs is for me to put down my computer and draw him out of the electronic worlds where he so frequently dwells. He needs me to talk with him and play with him. He needs to interact with people. He needs to face his anxieties and overcome them. He needs to learn how to build friendships when they don’t spontaneously happen. He needs to run around outside and jump on trampolines. He needs to learn to ride his bike. He needs to play with friends. He needs to relate to friends without the comfort of a video game to allow him to avoid talking. Video games can be great for bonding, but he needs to learn other means as well. He will not do these things on his own, not before he has a painful social interaction with his peers. It is my job to make him do these things. It is my job to manage getting him to do these things so that he never realizes that I have an agenda. He should just think he is playing while I know he is being prepared for the rest of his life.

I need to look up anxiety. Link is very anxious about many things. He seriously over-reacts to negative stimuli. He nicked his hand with a knife and spent the next week wishing out loud that knives had never been invented and being afraid any time anyone touched a knife. I can not eliminate anxiety if it is one of his natural inclinations, but I can make sure that I teach him appropriate strategies for dealing with his anxieties. I don’t yet know what those strategies are because this has not been a thing with which I’ve had much personal experience.

My son needs me to plan and help and structure for him because he can not do it for himself yet.

I can still write the book if I want. But the book has to be in addition to rather than instead of.