Announcements

Preparing for the Tub of Happiness Reprint

By / May 20, 2013

Last week I did a series of tweets talking about going through Body Politic and finding a hundred errors, fixing them, then finding thirty more, fixing those, and finding another dozen. It was an excellent example of iterative publishing. I ended the series by saying that even with all our attention beforehand, we always find mistakes in the finished books. How many? Well take a look at Tub of Happiness to the left. I’ve identified over a dozen things that I want to fix before it heads out for its second printing. That printing is imminent, so if there is a typo or other error in Tub of Happiness that has been driving you crazy, please email schlockmercenary@gmail.com with the error and page number. I may already know about it, but you just might be saving me from holding yet another printed book and finding a mistake in it.

Bits and Pieces of Posts

By / May 20, 2013

This week and next week I have so many irons in the fire that there is hardly any room for a fire. I’m not likely to have brain enough to write full and thoughtful blog posts. Yet my brain is thoroughly trained to notice things, think about them, and then hold them until time to write. My brain fills up with fragments, each of which would be a lovely post, but time and I have to march onward. By the time I have space to write there will be some other thought more pressing. So I shall record some of the fragments in the hope that if I pin them down with words, they’ll stop fluttering around in my brain begging for attention I can not spare.

No one told me that the sales people would begin circling the minute my child completed her ACT and declared her intention to both graduate from high school and attend college. Circle they did, first with suggestions of the importance of commemorating high school. Surely my child needed a ring, a jacket, a hoodie, photographs, a tassel, graduation announcements, all with her school logo. I was assured that these things would be forever treasured, just like her years in high school. The brochures were pitched to appeal to nervous/nostalgic teens and parents alike. We got her a tassel. While the pitches to commemorate high school were still in full force we started hearing from colleges. All of them wanted us to know that they were very impressed and giving Kiki a very special opportunity for a fast-track application. They very carefully did not say how much they want our education dollars. Kiki applied to a single school, got in, and began bouncing the rest straight into the trash. I thought that would be the end of it, but today we got the first of a new onslaught. Our child is going to the dorms, surely we want to buy her a super value kit of bedding, laundry hamper, toilet kit, all at extremely reasonable prices. Every where I turn someone is hoping that during this transitional period in our lives we’ll be ready to throw around some money in an effort to appease our emotions. It makes me think of the stories Howard tells about the shark-like tactics of coffin salesmen. They’re worse than used car salesmen because they prey on the bereaved.

This morning I gave the final go ahead for the printing of Body Politic. I will next interact with that book when it shows up at my door. As usual, I do not have time to luxuriate in something completed. Instead I am immediately setting to work on the reprinting of Tub of Happiness and even more critically on the shipping of 30,000 coins. Latest word says that those coins will arrive at my door by Wednesday. Tomorrow I’ll begin triaging to figure out how the shipping processes need to work.

We’re in the last rush to complete school work before the year is over. It makes me resentful of the one last complex project that Patch has to complete. The other three kids mostly have at-school things left to do, not homework.

I spent this morning re-creating financial data after my hard drive crash. It was tedious, but finally validated my tendency to keep paper statements. I’m still maintaining a list of data lost. So far it is only four items long. This is good.

I wish I had more time to luxuriate in the process of helping Kiki prepare for her CONduit show. I would love to do right by her there. Particularly since her latest birthday was not everything she hoped it would be. Yes the circling sales people are right, we are a bit emotional during this transitional phase. I just don’t think that buying her the perfect dorm room trash can will make up for whatever lacks there have been in the past eighteen years. Instead I’ve been trying to soak up normal before normal changes. She graduated from Seminary on Sunday. Next Thursday she’ll don the classic cap and gown and march with her classmates. I don’t know where that will put us all emotionally. We’re in uncharted territory here. The kids afterward will have a road map that they can follow or avoid. For now I’m doing small nice things for Kiki daily between now and the beginning of June. It won’t be enough, or rather, if there hasn’t been enough to date, no last minute effort will fix that. But it feels like the impending launch is a good one. We’re nervous, but ready. Also, we’ve still got months. Graduation closes off high school, but it does not begin college.

Howard is feeling better, for which I am daily grateful.

I read a novel draft for a friend. It was how I spent my Saturday instead of the ways I’d assigned to myself. I love when a book pulls me in and earns my tears. Note, there is a difference between pulling strings and really earning sadness. Also, I love it when I can love the books of my friends.

My poor correspondence box is gathering dust. I hope to write letters again in June.

It is late and there are more irons in the fire for tomorrow.

Cobble Stones Available and Switching into High Gear

By / May 2, 2013 / 1 Comment

See the lovely book cover lingering over there to the right? This morning I finally put the newly re-sized Cobble Stones books into the store. I’m supposed to take delivery of Cobble Stones 2012 on Friday and can begin shipping as soon as I do. This means you can place your order now, I’ll start shipping on Friday, and the books can be in your hands–or the hands of a mother you know–before Mother’s Day (if you live in the continental US.) At $5 per copy these books are a great giftable size and price. If you’re local, I will have both of these books along with Hold on to Your Horses available for sale at LDS Storymakers conference. The conference itself is sold out, but the bookstore they run is open to walk-in traffic. At 5 pm on Friday May 10 there will be a mass signing that is open to the public. Just come to the Marriott hotel in Provo to meet a room full of authors who will be happy to talk with you and sign books. I’ll be there and I’ll have my books with me.

In other news, I’m behind on all of my work. I was already behind on all of it when I spent yesterday on a 4th grade field trip shivering in the cold wind out by Utah Lake to learn about biomes, invasive species, adaptations, and to have a giant walleye fish leap out of the ranger’s hands right at me. I may have made an alarmed noise because it was a big fish (easily three feet long) and they’d just finished showing us how it has teeth. Fish attacks aside, I’m glad I went along on the trip because Patch was obviously thrilled to have me there. He’s why I went, even though I was ready to fall asleep on my feet and even though I got so chilled that it took the rest of the day for me to feel warm again. The trip and the cold shut down my work brain.

It did not help that when I finally warmed up enough to think, I had to spend all of my thinking to help Gleek put together her history fair project of doom. I’m only sort of kidding about the “of doom” part. Anxiety has been an issue with her these past few months. Her science fair project in February was a series of emotional battles and stress. The theme of the history fair is “turning points” and while Gleek quickly became fascinated with her chosen period of time, getting her to narrow down to a specific turning point was difficult. “We need to show how all these escapes from East Germany made the world change.” I would say when she was dictating a barrage of facts about how the Strelzyk and Wetzel families made a hot air balloon and floated themselves over the border. I began feeling like that one character in the Star Wars moving, chanting “stay on target, stay on target.” I’m still not sure if the project hits the target in the way the teacher would like, but we’re in the vicinity and whatever we’ve managed to hit, we’ve done it very thoroughly. Gleek has not under achieved on this one.

Of course the most urgent work of the week is finishing up The Body Politic, which is mostly waiting on me. I’ve got copy edits to enter, footnotes to place, footnote boxes to build, and test prints to run. These things all need to be done last week, because this week I was supposed to be turning my eyes ahead toward Phoenix Comic Con and making sure that everything is lined up for Howard’s trip there. I’ve also got to help Kiki put together artwork for her two panels at Conduit, which is taking place the same weekend as Phoenix. Also, I should probably create and print up Kiki’s graduation announcements because the relatives would probably like to hear about that event before it actually takes place. With all of this rolling around in my brain the Monday night insomnia which made me so tired on Tuesday and Wednesday begins to make sense.

Time to get moving and do all of the things.

My Cobble Stones Books

By / April 24, 2013 / 4 Comments

I just dropped the files off at the printer. Cobble Stones 2012 is temporarily out of my hands. In a few weeks I’ll need to put it in the store, open ordering, and begin the promotional push. I’ll also be re-introducing Cobble Stones 2011, which really didn’t get a proper launch of its own. Instead I just declared it done and moved onward because so many other things were demanding my attention. Several months ago I picked up the trade paperback size of Cobble Stones 2011 and realized that I’d made a mistake. These are sampler books, they should be small and light. People should be able to pick them up on a whim and read few a few essays. If I wanted the book to have those qualities, I needed to make the books smaller and less expensive. I sat down and re-designed them. Going forward all of the Cobble Stones books will be 4×7, which is the same size as a mass market paperback. The paper and binding will be the same quality as the larger book, but the smaller size lets me lower the price to $5 per book. I’m very pleased about this. I also love that the books are now an excellent size for tucking into a purse or bag and carrying along. This is the way these books ought to be. They’ll make their big debut in the store sometime next week. For now I have the last 30 copies of the 6×9 size. I suppose those 30 copies qualify as collectible since they’re at a discontinued size and they were printed before I redesigned the cover to include the year 2011 in the typography.

Putting together the second book was a fascinating project. I was able apply new things that I’ve learned about graphic design into the page layouts. It was also interesting to compare the content of the two books. There are some obvious thematic similarities, but you can tell that 2012 was a year when I was really wrestling with my tendency to struggle with anxiety, where the 2011 book just has hints of that and is far more focused on self discovery. It was why the snowy cover felt appropriate for the 2012 book. I’m hoping and picturing the 2013 book with a summery cover, perhaps on grass. Or maybe there won’t be an individual book for 2013, right now I have a hard time believing I’ll have enough solid essays to make a third book. I have to not focus on that. I write when I can and life is calming down so I’m able to write more often. Instead of fretting over the fate of future projects, I need to look at these two books I already have. I made two books. They’re pretty! And in only a week or so I’ll be able to show them to others. This is cause enough for rejoicing.

Some Days I Get to be Professional

By / March 19, 2013

This morning I put on my professional person hat for the first time in about two weeks. I’ve been swimming in parenting during that time, but things have finally stabilized. (I hope.) The next round of focused parenting begins with a doctor’s appointment on Friday, so I have a window of opportunity to get some work done. I began with layout for The Body Politic. The cover is mostly done and I’m beginning to tweak the pages.

I also looked at my calendar and realized that Writing for Charity is coming up in just over a month. This is a great event where you can pay to attend classes and get manuscript critiques. All of the proceeds from the event go to charity. I will be helping teach two classes in the morning, but my attendance in the afternoon will be spotty due to some family obligations. (Of course there are conflicts. This is the year when every single event has a conflict and forces me to choose.)

Just two weeks past that is The LDS Storymakers conference. Word has it that the conference is almost sold out. I will be present all day both days of the conference.

My professional brain has re-emerged. I have hopes that my writer brain will soon come out of hiding as well. At some point I need to get back to writing fiction.

Life the Universe and Everything Symposium

By / February 7, 2013 / 2 Comments

One week from today the Life the Universe and Everything Symposium begins. If you love to read science fiction and fantasy, then this is an excellent event for you to attend and learn more about the things you love. If you are a teacher who wants to include these things in your classroom, then you may be interested in the Saturday educational track which tries to help with exactly that. If you want to write science fiction or fantasy, then LTUE is an event you can’t afford to miss. If you register in advance you can attend all three days for $30. That is $10 per day for a full day of presentations, panel discussions, and a chance to meet working writers and artists. Prices are more expensive at the door. If you are a student, you can attend for free. Did you catch that? Any student from any school who has a student ID can attend the entire symposium for free. This is because the whole point of LTUE is for people to share their knowledge and love of science fiction and fantasy.

Both Howard and I will be there all three days. You’re most likely to find us in the dealer’s room sitting under the big Schlock Mercenary banner. I do have one scheduled panel each day and I’m really excited about all of them.

Thurs 4pm
Structuring Life to Make Room for Creativity
This is a solo presentation where I get to teach how to organize your life so that you have time and energy to write, draw, paint, sew, or what ever else calls to you.

Fri 9am
Overcoming Adversity
Or How to Keep Writing when Life Gets in the Way
Sandra Tayler, Loralee Leavitt, Al Carlisle, Danyelle Leafty, Julie Wright
I love panels like this. Stories are told and I always learn something that helps me later.

Sat 9am
Social Media Q&A
Heather Ostler, Robison Wells, Mette Ivie Harrison, Sandra Tayler (M), Peter Orullian
I’m particularly excited about this in light of the social media experiments I’ve been doing lately.

So don’t miss LTUE February 14-16 at the Marriott in downtown Provo.

The Schedule of Upcoming Events

By / January 29, 2013

This is a week full of events and appointments that disrupt my schedule. They are good things, but I’m having to pay attention to the time rather than relying on my habits. This means the hour before I have to be somewhere often ends up as wasted time. I don’t want to start into anything new because if I get deep into a project I’ll lose track and miss the appointment. I should probably spend that hour on simple tasks, like laundry, but somehow that doesn’t feel exciting. All the appointments are also chewing into my compositional brain space, which is where writing percolates.
Today Howard and I had a podcast interview which will air sometime in February.
Tomorrow is the Orem Writes event where I’ll be talking about blogging with C. Jane Kendrick. (7 pm, Orem Public Library.)
Friday I have a concert in the evening.
Saturday family comes to town.

Next week has a similar array of appointments including parent teacher conferences and an orthodontic consultation.

The week after that is Life The Universe and Everything symposium. If you’re a writer or reader of Science Fiction or Fantasy, then LTUE is worth your time. It is packed full of panel discussions about writing and about books, shows, and art in the genre. There is even an educator’s conference on Saturday with panels to help teachers use genre fiction in their classrooms. This year it is taking place at the Provo Marriott hotel. I’ve seen a preliminary schedule. I have three panels and Howard has many panels. You could spend all three days listening to Taylers if you wish. However I recommend you listen to lots of the other amazing authors and artists they have lined up to teach.

After that my calendar is much more empty. The emptiness is probably a mirage, but I’ll believe in it for now.

Orem Writes

By / January 9, 2013

The Orem Public Library is running a series for writers during the month of January. They’ve even made a handy flier for you to peruse.

See my name there on January 30 for the blogging panel? I do and it makes me really happy. You don’t want to miss any of the other evenings either. It is a great line up and it starts tomorrow.

Adventures in Social Media

By / January 22, 2013 / 6 Comments

I want to fund a picture book, The Strength of Wild Horses, and the obvious choice for that is to run a Kickstarter drive. However those who are wise in the ways of Kickstarter have advised me that the project has a better chance to fund if I do some community building first. This makes sense to me.

Completely separate from my Kickstarter project I have been thinking about ways to build community and about some ways I’d like to do that which are difficult to do from this blog. Or rather, I could do them from the blog, but I am interested in seeing how it would feel to run a different sort of place on the internet. I want to run a series of posts talking about different picture books, how they show character traits which are common in high energy ADHD or Autistic kids, and how parents can use those books to help kids and their siblings to come to terms with these traits. It was to accomplish exactly this that I wrote Hold on to Your Horses in the first place. I’ve had a growing list of books for years and would love to find a useful way to share that list.

I’ve also been thinking about stages of parenting. I’m in the middle of parenting headed for the endgame. Several times I’ve had parents who are just starting out come to my blog hoping to find posts about the early years of parenting. There are some. Patch was only a year old when I began blogging, but I’ve grown as writer since then. I’ve grown as a parent since then. My perspectives have changed and I have new thoughts about old topics. I thought it would be interesting to run a series where I link to an old post and then provide commentary from my current perspective. It isn’t the same as me going through being a young parent myself, but it would help me delve into those topics. It is certainly a worthy experiment.

I’ve also been thinking about cross promotion. Many times people find Howard because of Writing Excuses (or some other project) then they find me because of Howard. Having multiple creative pursuits reaches into different groups of people. For a long time I’ve been dependent on Howard’s internet stature as the primary promotional tool for my creative work. Except we have different audiences and I’ve been feeling like it is time for me to strike out on my own to build my own community which is not annexed to his. In the long run I must do this if I want to be able to afford to create the things I want to create. I need to believe that Hold Horses and One Cobble are works strong enough to be the foundation of a community.

All of these thoughts connected with the advice to build community in advance of running a Kickstarter and the result is an experiment that I intend to run for the next several months. I’m going to extend myself a little bit further online to see what I can accomplish. I’ve picked venues where I’m already comfortable and have been for awhile: Facebook, G+, and Twitter. These are places I like to play already and so I’m just introducing a new game into those spaces.

On Twitter I’ve just set up an account @OneCobble. It will be a simple feed of links back to this blog. This provides a simple way for those on Twitter to follow the blog without me feeling like I’m spamming everyone with links to blog entries. People who want to see every single blog entry will follow @OneCobble. Others will be able to blissfully ignore it.

On G+ I’ve used the new communities feature to set up a One Cobble at a Time community. This is where I’ll post those blog links with commentary. I’ll also post links to articles of interest. I’m sure I’ll come up with other things as well. I’ll be deliberately trying to encourage conversation about these topics.

I’ve also set up a One Cobble community on Facebook. At first I expect it to be nearly identical to the posts on G+, but I’m quite curious to see how the two communities develop differently. If they don’t become different, it will be because I’m talking to myself and I’m pretty sure I’ll get tired of that in a hurry.

Facebook also has a Hold on to Your Horses page. This is where I’ll post about those picture books. It is also the measure I’ll use to figure out when I have enough community support for a Kickstarter to be successful.

A month from now I’ll evaluate to figure out which of these ventures is adding happiness to my life and which is adding only stress. I’ll see whether I can feel an increase of interest in the things I write and do. Perhaps at the end of that month I’ll pull back inward. I don’t know for sure. I just know that this feels like the right experiment.

I haven’t yet sent out invitations to these new feeds and communities. I’m still debating whether I should or if that feels spammy to me. (It is pretty important to me that I not annoy people by misusing social media tools.) If I do, it won’t be for at least a week. I want to make sure that I’ve already got interesting things in the spaces before inviting everyone. However if any of you blog readers want front row seats while I figure this stuff out, I’d love for you to join me. You’ll be like the guest who arrives early and helps set out the snacks for everyone who will come later. If none of those things sounds interesting, feel free to hang out here. I’ll be keeping this place the same.

Let the social media experiments begin.

Recovery, The Legue of Utah Writers, and an Interview

By / July 17, 2012

Today I am recovering. All day. I got to 5 pm and really could not account for where the hours went except for knowing that quite a lot of them were spent unconscious or semi-conscious and staring vacantly while my brain processed thoughts. Five days of family activities with very little down time is apparently just as exhausting as a convention weekend. The family reunion was everything it needed to be. We have photographs to prove it. I loved reconnecting with siblings and their offspring. But now I am tired and my brain is not supplying much in the way of new thoughts. So I will instead direct you to two cool things.

The League of Utah Writers Round Up.
This is an event taking place in Park City Utah on September 14-15. Howard is presenting and I’ll be participating in a panel discussion along with Howard, Emily Sanderson, and Brandon Sanderson. They also have many other excellent guests and presenters. If you’re nearby, or even if you’re not, this event is probably worth your time. Rates for LUW members and non-members are listed on the Round Up web page. Take a look.

Amber Sistla is a writer who interviews other writers for her blog. I found her questions to be thought provoking and had lots of fun answering them. It helped me think about my writing process in new ways. You can see my interview over at Finding My Words See how I answered and then think about what answers you might give to similar questions.