One of the odd things about keeping a blog and running a business is that my head is always full of things about which I can not blog. It is not that business is always full of hot secrets or major changes (although sometimes this is the case), but there are lots of little business deals and decisions which need to be settled in private before the details can be made public. Last February my head was full of the fact that Tracy Hickman wanted to work with us on a book, but until the ink was signed on a contract it was not wise to be going “squeee!” on the internet. The privacy saves everyone trouble. It saves fans from being excited about a project that never happens. It saves us from explaining repeatedly why the project won’t happen. Even more important is not having to discuss all the details of internal business decisions and argue with folks who want to armchair business manage. Energy spent explaining business decisions could much better be spent creating comics or writing blog entries.
So the fact that my head is full of business things I can not talk about is normal. Unfortunately sometimes those business thoughts jostle about and are so noisy that I can hardly find any other thoughts. The good news Howard and I both have the same problem and so conversations about business thoughts are a large percentage of all our communications. We pull these yammering thoughts out of our heads and toss them around until we find solutions. I can’t imagine running a business without a partner whom I trust completely and who I can depend upon to still like me even when I quash his shiny idea. Even better are the times when his shiny idea runs right over my doubt and proves that the shininess is actually golden, which is what happened with the ACEO sketch cards. At this point the balance is honed over years of practice in communication and in making business decisions. We always come to a consensus before moving forward.
But even with frequent conversations with Howard, the business thoughts still linger. Sometimes they bounce around like hyper-active hamsters. Other times they loom like a storm cloud. There are even days when they just slump in untidy piles where I am likely to trip on them. Then there are the days where I’m watching looming, while dodging hamsters and trying not to trip. Those are stressful days, particularly if I have to handle parenting and household tasks simultaneous to all the watching and dodging. Those are the days when my life feels like too much to handle. The difficult days are balanced by the days when I am exhilarated by the cool things I get to do and the times when I am awed by the amount of support our business receives from fans. Sometimes my life feels overwhelming, but I chose all of these things and I wouldn’t want to give them up.