Sandra Tayler

As of this morning we have pre-sold over 1000 copies of Schlock Book #1. This is an incredible relief to us. It doesn’t mean that I can loosen our tight budget, but it does mean that Howard doesn’t have to start looking for a day job. Our financial state is still like that of a video game character using ice arrows to cross lava, but we just smashed a pot and replenished our supply of ice arrows. Not only that, but up ahead I can see another pot labelled “Schlock book #2.” We get to keep going and that makes us happy.

It would have been nice if we could have gotten the book out sooner, but we simply didn’t have all the pieces we needed to make it happen until this year. Because some of you may be interested in what I mean by “all the pieces” I’ll post them below.

The first obstacle to book publication was Howard’s early artwork. The stories in Schlock Mercenary have always been good, but distributors and readers would have had a hard time accepting that the stories were good when the art looked so unprofesssional. Howard gradually improved his artwork to a point where he felt like it was good enough. He even hired a colorist (Jean Elmore) to give Schlock Mercenary a polished look. When Jean had to quit because of a repetitive strain injury, Howard had to learn how to do the pretty colors himself.

The next obstacle was time. Howard was working 50-60 hours per week for Novell, 10-20 hours per week on the comic strip, and trying to squeeze in family and relaxation time. There was no time left for Howard to be working on putting a book together. When Howard quit Novell, he suddenly had the time, but our family had a serious lack of money. That first year was spent on commercial projects and learning how to live lean so that we could keep our bills paid.

Finding the right partnership was critical as well. At first we hoped that Keenspot would be the right partnership, but we found that we disagreed with the way that the Keenspot business was run. Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games offered to help us publish the schlock book. This offer was a godsend. The SJ team helped us see how the book needed to be formatted and had all kinds of useful marketing ideas. When we discovered that we couldn’t afford to let a distributor take any of the book profit and decided that we had to self publish, Steve Jackson and his team didn’t hold any hard feelings. More than that, they sent us all the files they had put together and gave us excellent advice about order fulfillment.

Joining Blank Label Comics was critical as well. I have to admit that I had reservations about Howard joining another webcomic collective so soon after we left Keenspot. I quickly realized that Blank Label Comics was a very different endeavor. The support from the fellow cartoonists there has been amazing. I watched several of them as they went through publishing books and I began to see how it could work. Steve Troop even volunteered to help us with the layout. Communicating with these other cartoon professionals helped us realize that we’d come to a place where we were really ready to publish and mail the book ourselves.

There were so many pieces that had to fall into place. I’m amazed that it has finally all come together. Schlock Mercenary is poised to fly and carry our family along with it.

Link is sick with a fever today. When kids are sick they seek comforting activities. Link chose to pull out the Nintendo 64 games. They are comforting to him because he is good at them, they have happy memories attached, and they tend to be less complex than the gamecube games. I walked past as Link was playing Super Mario 64 and was ambushed by the following memory:

Link was just under 4 years old. He’d just begun to be able to play video games, but the Nintendo was new and we didn’t have very many. We solved this problem by renting games from Blockbuster. Super Mario 64 was one of the games we rented and returned. Several months later we rented Mario Kart. Link loved driving the little karts around, but on one particular course he kept driving off the road and up to a castle. We finally figured out why when we heard Link talking to the Mario on the screen. He was begging and trying to convince the MarioKart Mario to get out of the kart and go into the castle. He knew there was a game where Mario went into a castle and he wanted to be able to play that game. Nothing we could say would convince Link that this wasn’t the game where Mario went into the castle. He could see Mario and he could see the castle. He was sure that if he could just convince Mario to go into the castle he could play that other game. His frustration only ended when we returned Mariokart to the store. Fortunately his birthday came shortly thereafter and we gave him Super Mario 64 and he was finally able to make Mario go into the castle.

This past week has been stormy both inside my head and outside my house. Today the sun is shining in both places. This is good.

This morning I spent some time doing self-imposed homework on ADHD. I know lots of people with this diagnosis and it is fascinating to comprehend how their thought processes work. Despite it’s name ADHD isn’t a disorder, it is simply a different way of processing information. That knowledge opens up worlds of possibilities for harnassing the inate capabilities of an ADHD mind to contribute constructively to the world. It is a new and fascinating course of study. Having my mind engaged in a new project always helps lift my mood and calm my spirits. (That is actually an ADHD trait, one of several that I exhibit despite the fact that I’m not ADHD. This seems like additional evidence that ADHD is only part of a spectrum of human thinking patterns.)

While I was reading the mailman came to the door with a package. The package contained books. Someone cared enough to send books to both Howard and me. The books were really good choices too. I don’t know if the person who sent them reads this journal, but thank you very much. You turned a fairly ordinary day into a really good one.

One of the books I recieved was Ish by Peter Reynolds. It is a marvelous childrens book dealing with creativity. It fits so perfectly into my day because my current study book is about the interactions of ADHD and creativity. Now thoughts from both books are floating around in my brain making little connections. For the first time in several weeks I want to do something actively creative. I want to write or draw or garden. Or perhaps like the boy in Ish, I will just feel creative and happy while doing ordinary things. Ordinary things can be creative too.

I am so glad to have reached the calm after the storm. I’m going to take a little while to coast and then I’ll pick a direction and set sail again.

Book sales are meeting our expectations, but not up to our wildest hopes. That’s okay because some of those hopes were pretty wild. Besides we’re only 3 days into a month-long pre-order period. We still have time to use marketing strategies to get more people to pre-order. Being past the break even point removes a lot of the tension. Now we just need to bring in enough orders so that we can afford for Howard to start working on the layout for Book 2 as soon as we’ve mailed out Book 1.

Gleek continues to improve. She’s still sleeping more than usual, but much of the cranky has disapeared and her appetite is back to normal. I’m being very good about making sure she gets her antibiotic twice a day. And I’ll continue to observe her closely for probably a week after the antibiotic is gone. I really don’t want this particular affliction back anytime soon.

Patches has definitely acquired some abandonment issues. On Tuesday I left him with Howard for 10 minutes while I picked up Gleek from preschool. I told Patches I was leaving, he indicated that he wanted to stay. Apparently he changed his mind only moments after I walked out the door because I came back to a little boy who had been sobbing and screaming for his mother for almost 10 minutes. I snuggled him in my lap, read him a story, and rocked him to sleep. For the next week or two I probably won’t be leaving him behind at all. Hopefully that will help him establish enough emotional security that we can ease him back into staying at home while mommy runs quick errands.

Link’s bottom teeth have grown in crooked. I completely failed to notice this until yesterday even though they’ve obviously been doing this for months. Fortunately he has an occlusiguide which is supposed to help teeth grow into the correct places. I just haven’t been making him wear it. We found the thing and are working on having him wear it much more often. Yet another life detail for me to keep track of. Whee.

Kiki has begun her journey through the emotionally wracking world of preteen female peer relations. Kiki has a friend A who is also friends with B, but neither A nor B want to be friends with C even though C and B were previously good friends. (For a whole month!) Kiki doesn’t want C to be left all alone and is trying to use her influence to fix the situation. It gets more complicated from there as we add players D, E, and F. I’ll spare you all the details. I am very impressed with Kiki’s maturity in handling this situation. We talked it all over for almost an hour last night and there was not a single moment of melodramatic emotion. Kiki has placed herself in a hard spot because she believes it is the right thing to do. Not everyone can do that, especially during the difficult preteen and early teen years. As Kiki talked, I could see the patterns of needs and wants that are driving this conflict. None of these girls is bad, they’re just immature and struggling with inclusion and exclusion and power. They’re trying to learn how to be friends when being friends means more than just playing the same games.

Me? I’m feeling back to normal. I was completely incapacitated by stress Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning. I couldn’t think, couldn’t work, it was all I could do to maintain adequate levels of child care. Yesterday was something of a recovery day from that. Today I’m hoping/planning to dive in and get some real work done. I have accounting and laundry to do. Also I need to get to the library. Kiki has decided to face her new found fear of snakes (she was bitten by one on Tuesday) by reading lots of books about them. There are some parenting books I want to check out. And a book about Faberge eggs. I’m hoping that last one has lots of pictures. Beautiful pictures with lots of up close detail. Now if only slush will stop falling from the sky long enough for me to run errands.

I’ve figured out why I’ve been so stressed yesterday and today. For months I have been telling myself that as soon as we open preorders for the book we’ll be able to plan our future financially. That was a mistake. It is going to take at least another week before we have enough information to begin forming plans. The opening sales for the book have been wonderful, but I’ve been unable to be happy about it because of continued limbo when I expected to be limboless. I need to stop expecting all of the money to arrive today.

Also, I didn’t have time to recover from the emotional roller coaster of the weekend before I climbed onto the emotional rollercoaster of preorders. No wonder I’m feeling a bit queasy.

Gleek is recovering well. She is crankier and sleepier than usual, but her appetite is picking up and she is playing.

Patches seems to have reverted to his usual secure and happy self.

Book pre-orders opened yesterday. We’ve already broken even on the books. Now we just need to see how long the flow of orders will last. Will it bring in enough money to fill our financial reservoirs so that Howard doesn’t have to go get a day job? I can’t help feeling like the first 48 hours of preorders will determine the outcome. I can’t stop being stressed.

We’ve recieved the press match copy of Schlock Book 1. It is beautiful! You should all go buy one now.

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/preorder/

The following realization came in response to my sister’s comment on a previous post. The realization is important enough that I want it to have it’s own entry rather than being lost in the comments:

Your comment helped me realize why I’m so upset over my management of Gleek’s illness. I have parented for almost 11 years. I know my kids and I know childhood illnesses. I’ve been Doctor Mom for chickenpox, ear infections, strep throat, colds, stomach flu, roseola, hand foot & mouth disease, fifth disease, and assorted viruses. These days when I take my kids to the doctor, it is because I know exactly what is wrong. I just need the doctor to confirm my diagnosis and give me a prescription for antibiotics.

Gleek’s illness was new. I’ve never had a child with a bladder infection or kidney infection before. I failed to diagnose it in advance. I feel like I should have been able to do so because I’ve had multiple bladder infections and a kidney infection myself. But she wasn’t exhibiting the classic symptoms. This illness fooled me and several doctors as well. I need to stop punishing myself for not being smarter than the doctors.

This past weekend was pretty stressful. I didn’t realize exactly how stressful until last night after I put the kids into bed. With no kids needing me to be strong I wandered into Howard’s office where, two minutes into an unrelated conversation, I burst into tears. Once the storm was over I was able to realize that all during the medical crisis I’d bottled up my emotions. I put them away so that I could manage things. It should not surprise me that when I pulled the cork out emotions went fizzing all over the room. Howard held me and told me it was all okay and that I’d done a fantastic job. In times of crisis it is important that I be able to shove emotion out of the way. It is equally important that I deal with the emotions later.

I’m still sorting through my feelings and thoughts this morning. This medical adventure will probably cost us 2 months worth of living expenses because we carry a pretty high deductible on our insurance. This would have thrown me into a financial panic two months ago. But Howards press match book arrived this morning, we’ll be opening pre-orders sometime today or first thing tomorrow. The sale of the book will change our financial future. The loss of two months expenses doesn’t much affect the fact that the future of Howard’s cartooning depends on the sale of the book. However the sudden medical expenses do force me to take a close look at the tightrope we’re walking. Our savings net is nowhere near big enough. Right now I really want to book to sell well so that I can stash money and build a bigger net. Today life feels a bit more precarious in more ways than one.

I’m not the only one who feels like life is more precarious than it was two days ago. Patches also had a delayed reaction last night. From his perspective mommy just disappeared for 36 hours. I don’t even think I told him goodbye when I departed to take Gleek to the doctor. Then daddy left too and he was left with Chalain and Chaliren. This was followed by an overnight stay at his cousin’s house. At the time these things were happening he was happy to have the adventure. He told me he had fun and wasn’t sad at all. However, when we came to pick him up from his cousin’s house he did not run away and beg to stay. He came right to me and hugged me tight.

At home things reverted to normal. Patches played happily with his siblings all afternoon. He even went to bed without arguement. But alone in his bed in the dark the new found insecurities preyed upon him and he began to cry. Like me, his cork came loose. Fortunately I was just done venting when he began. I scooped him out of bed and asked him what was wrong. He couldn’t tell me. He didn’t have words for what he was feeling, but he clung tight to me. At Howard’s sugguestion I tucked Patches into bed with me. This made him happy. He lay next to me in the bed and chattered about his day while he played with a glow in the dark star. I have to confess that I kept drifting off to sleep. I was so exhausted.

After awhile it wasn’t enough for Patches to just be in bed with mommy, he needed me to hold him too. So I tucked him into the snuggle spot and he lay there snuggly-safe and continued to play and talk. Patches only snuggles when he needs comforting. When he is playing he wants his own space. I talked to him a little to see if I could help him work through what he was feeling. Unfortunately he’s not really old enough to analyse his thoughts and feelings. I could only watch his reactions to my conversational sallies to find out where the sad spots were. As I suspected, he loved having Chalain and Chaliren over, he loved having a slumber party with his cousin, most of what happened was new and interesting for him. But when I said “was mommy gone?” his face crumpled a little and a pout began to emerge, then he grabbed his blanket hugged it and changed the subject. I didn’t persue the topic. I wanted this to be a snuggly-reassurance time not a delving difficult emotions time. Patches continued to talk and play for awhile and I began drifting off to sleep again. Finally he began to feel sleepy and he scooted out of the snuggle and over onto his daddy’s pillow to fall asleep.

I don’t know if I’ll continue to see delayed reactions from Patches. Probably, because he now lives in a world where it is possible for mommy to disapear without warning. I’ll have to be extra careful and nice to both Patches and Gleek today. Hopefully if there are other repressed emotions or delayed reactions I’ll recognize them for what they are.