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Score Card for the Week

By / October 27, 2011

Projects completed:

Gleek’s multi-page mystery story featuring the ghost of the explorer Samuel De Champlain which needed to demonstrate the qualities of an explorer, have at least three clues, have at least three obstacles, be detailed, and typed. With a card stock cover.

Kiki’s art project for reflections which she originally envisioned as five small paintings matted together to create a single image. But then some of the details were too small for painting, it didn’t turn out how she pictured, and she decided she hated it. In the end she stayed up til 3 am the night before it was due, discarded three of the paintings to finish up the other two, and still was not happy with the result. At least it got turned in.

Gleek’s explorer board game based on the life of Samuel De Champlain. We re-purposed all the pieces from a CSI Miami board game that I found at the thrift store. There was much cutting, pasting, taping, and gluing to get everything in place.

Link’s balsa wood bridge. He did this pretty much by himself, both carefully and methodically. There was a moment of panic in the final assembly, but all turned out well.

Link’s book reports. He had to finish up two book reports before the end of the term. This meant finding and reading books then writing the reports. Fortunately both the books and the reports can be short. One down so far.

Putting up t-shirts in the store and then shipping them. All the packages ordered before 8 am yesterday are out the door.

Howard spent some time designing new merchandise. Most of these items are ready to go.

Gleek’s Tiffany Aching costume. This included the creation of a book entitled The Goode Childe’s Booke of Faerie Tales and the acquisition of a black witches hat.

Patch’s Nac Mac Feegle costume. The Halloween shopping fairies smiled upon me yesterday afternoon and let me find all the needed pieces in a single store. I have a little bit of minor sewing to do, but I still count finding all the pieces as a win.

Projects incomplete:

Mailing another 30 or so packages.

Link’s second book report.

Kiki’s page-long Japanese translation assignment, which was due today.

The repair of the furnace which decided not to heat the house today. Current house temp 61 degrees and dropping.

The repair of my windshield so that I can pass safety and emissions and re-register the car. Also so that I can get that chugging noise in the engine checked.

Howard wanted to draw several weeks of comics, hasn’t happened yet.

Helping both Kiki and Link figure out costumes.

All the less urgent things which got shoved so far out of my brain that I can’t remember what they are. However I will remember them quite clearly next week when they still aren’t done.

Patch’s reflections project which he had originally envisioned as a visual arts piece, but discovered that creating what he had in his mind was beyond his current capabilities. The new plan is for him to write a story on the theme instead. This is due next week. Time must be made for it over the weekend.

Gleek’s book report. This is due on Monday. Fortunately she has already read the book and the report itself is not particularly difficult to put together.

Emotional dramas endured this week:

Gleek’s fear that her story and game were not good enough.

Kiki’s emotional roller coaster over her art piece.

Link’s overwhelmed sadness at having end-of-term pressure.

Kiki needing to work through her emotions about a mean girl at school who has chosen her for a target.

Patch being much more volatile and quick to anger than usual. Still haven’t figured out if this is an age thing or if there is some underlying emotional issue that I need to dig out.

5 out of 6 Taylers having at least one semi-depressed day during which all efforts seemed futile and the tasks ahead insurmountable.

Many arguments over the cat because the whole family loves the cat, but we all have differing opinions about how to appropriately love, play, and interact with the cat. The cat also has opinions, but is fortunately blessed with a deep well of tolerance and patience.

Kiki realizing that she simply does not have the skills nor the time to make the Samus armor costume that she has been envisioning for over a year. She had to grieve and figure out how to put that dream down for awhile.

Many arguments along the lines of “argh! You’re not listening to me!” vs. “I was listening, I just needed to finish this one thing.” Also many arguments over “Yes you did!” “No I didn’t!” Players were completely interchangeable. Everyone took their turn being unreasonable.

Other thoughts:

I have a hard time feeling sympathetic with children who are feeling overwhelmed when I am also feeling the same thing, only my overwhelmed also encompasses all of their things as well. Yet observing this out loud does nothing to help anyone, and it is in some measure false. Their things are theirs and I should keep my mitts off.

Link really impressed me. The day after stomping off sad and depressed, he sat down and made his very own checklist for how he was going to accomplish all of his work. Then he calmly and quietly work his way down the list. He just did it. I need to remember to compliment him for that maturity.

I don’t like it when I go into a rant and realize that I sound exactly like the rant which annoyed me from a child only hours ago. It makes me have to face the fact that either I am as childish as they are, or their rant was valid and I should have been more respectful of their emotional experience. A little of both probably.

On Monday the shirts arrived. Today I will ship out the last of them. We’ve had the influx of income which lets us re-stock the store for Christmas and which will let us pay bills in the interim. I am very glad of this. I could wish that this event was not in the middle of all the other events, but it couldn’t have happened earlier and we didn’t want to delay. We need this flurry of merchandise right now, but it will be nice to get back to the slower-paced work on creating books.

And after writing all of that out, I discover that I have no interest in actually calculating a score for the week. Instead I’ll just let it all be what it is and hope that next week can be calmer.

Budgeting 101

By / October 15, 2011 / 5 Comments

The basic concept of budgeting is this: Dividing your estimated earnings into assigned categories for spending. If you are on a fixed salary this process is fairly simple. I’ll cover some basics, and then talk about some more difficult cases. I am addressing this primarily to people who are not in dire financial need or poverty. People in those situations need to seek out local resources for help in finding solutions which are tailored to their particular situation. This post focuses on budgeting on particular. I’ve got a more general post about financial management that might be helpful to read first. Onward we go.

The mechanics of budgeting can be as simple or as complex as you wish to make it. If you never overspend and always have money waiting for emergency expenses, then the system you’re using is working for you. Stick with it. If otherwise, here are some places to start in putting together a budget.

Pick some categories and assign dollar amounts to them, making sure that the totals don’t add up to more than your salary income. We have categories for groceries, gas/electric, water/garbage, auto insurance, life insurance, medical, auto repair, auto fuel, clothing, dining, entertainment, savings, and assorted other categories which are more particular to us. What you name your categories is not as important as making sure that you have one to cover every way in which you spend money. I use a lot of categories because my financial program (Quicken) makes them easy to track, and then I can run reports to tell me exactly how much we spent on comics in the last year. If you’re new to budgeting, fewer categories might feel less overwhelming. However it is best to make sure that your fixed expenses, like utility bills, are not in the same category as discretionary expenses like eating out at restaurants. One of the most important things that a budget can do for you is to make sure that you don’t spend your rent money on going out to see a movie, but it can only do so if rent and movies are not in the same category.

A useful way to visualize budgeting: When I’m teaching my kids about budgeting, I use the envelope method to help them visualize. They divide their allowance into several envelopes or jars. This lets them plan ahead for how much they want to spend on the various things in their lives. If the Candy envelope becomes empty, the only way to spend more money on candy is to borrow from another envelope, or wait for a new influx of income. The kids borrow money from envelope to envelope all the time, but the act of pulling it from another envelope helps the kids see that if they spend all their money on candy, then they will not have any left for books or for what ever cool toy they’ve been coveting. In my budget, I loan money across my discretionary categories all the time. I do not pull money from the fixed expense categories like Mortgage Payment.

Pick a tracking method. We keep all our money in one checking account and just track the categories in our financial program. When money is really tight, I keep a little tally in a notepad that I carry with me. Then I can refer to it at a moment’s notice when making buying decisions. If I buy socks I subtract it from the Clothing category on my tally. I know a friend who issues himself a cash allowance for fun spending, essentially applying the envelope method for everything except bills. What ever method you choose for tracking, always refer to your budget tracking method before spending money. If you don’t have money in an appropriate budget category for those lovely new curtains, don’t buy them. Not even if they are on sale.

Knowing how much to put in each budget category can be tricky if you have never done a budget before. Start by looking at bank statements, bills, and receipts from the last few months. This can teach you a lot about where your money is going. Add up the amounts you spent in the various categories. I’m usually shocked by some category of spending that I did not realize was adding up to so much. Use whatever information you have to make some guesses and then get started. It is more important to start training your brain to think about how you spend, and whether you should spend, than it is to get the numbers right. The numbers are your measurement tools, not something which will be graded by others. You will goof up. That’s okay, learn something from it and do things differently next time.

Some good practices for budgeting:

  • Pay your bills first, as soon as you can. That way you’re less likely to use the money for something else.
  • Don’t use your checking account balance or your credit card balance as a measure for whether you can afford something. Use your budget.
  • Build savings into your budget. Keep an “in case of emergencies” fund. But also, pick something you want and save for it. It can be anything: college, retirement, a trip, a car, being debt free. It needs to be something you’re willing to sacrifice for. Put that money aside until you have enough to pay cash for your dream. This fund will probably be raided in times of emergency, but then you’ve made your emergency less financially catastrophic.
  • Pay down your debts as fast as you can. Debts weigh on you and limit your financial possibilities. The interest you pay on debt does not add anything to your life except stress.
    Be extremely cautious about acquiring debt. See above.

Some questions and answers about difficult cases:
What if your income is irregular? Not everyone has a bi-weekly paycheck, which can make budgeting seem difficult. However most bills are on a monthly billing cycle. If you set up your budget on a monthly basis, then having a budget can help even out the bumps. Average out your expected income over the course of four months, then divide that by four. I would recommend low-balling your estimated income per month. Some months you will have more than this, others less. Sticking to your budget in times of financial plenty will help you fill in the times when money is scarce. If your income is irregular, stashing money into savings is crucial.

What if money is always scarce? If the total of your estimated expenses by budget category is greater than your estimate income, you are in financial crisis mode. It is time to sit down and seriously look at all all your financial commitments to see what can be eliminated. Being able to eat is more important than having 300 channels. Find every way you can to reduce expenses: cancel subscriptions, pick less expensive foods, sell a car. There are a lot more than you might think. I recommend reading books like The Complete Tightwad Gazette many of the methods inside won’t apply, but the mindset of “I can do this cheaper” is important when money is tight. If you can’t bring yourself out of financial crisis mode within a couple of months, look up local debt management resources. There are often free resources out there to help people get control of their finances.

What if you get hit by an unexpected expense? This happens all the time. Medical bills and car repairs are the biggest culprits. In a solid budget there is some planning ahead for these things. Create a budget category for “in case of emergency” and stick money into it each month. This is what savings accounts are for. Planning ahead means that the unexpected expense is merely annoying instead of an emergency.

What if you have an expense which is not monthly? My auto insurance comes due twice per year. Property taxes on our house are due once per year. I take the amount I’ll need to spend on these bills and divide it by the number of months between payments. Then I put that amount aside each month. To use some made up numbers: if $100 per month is allotted to Car Insurance, then when the $600 bill comes due I have money waiting. If the $600 insurance bill was an annual bill, I would only need to set aside $50 per month. Put this set aside money where you can not accidentally spend it. I routinely put this into my savings account and then transfer it back out when time comes to pay the bill.

What if I goof up and forget to track my budgeting? I do this all the time. This past year I hardly checked my spending against budget categories at all. I was too busy and distracted. The result is that we over extended a little bit, but not much. The reason we did not over extend is because all the years of practice I’ve had in tracking a budget trained my brain to think about money in ways which kept me in check. The act of tracking your budget is training your brain to be financially responsible. Like any sort of training, it takes practice. Just start up again and keep going if you forget for awhile.

What if it is just too overwhelming and stressful to track all those numbers? Then your budget needs revision. Simplify it. Break down to something that is one step more organized than you were before. Adding little pieces of financial organization to your life can make a huge difference over the years. I revise my budget about once per year to make sure that my categories and tracking methods are still working. Systems fall apart, just use the good pieces from the old system to build a new and better system.

And that is enough for now. There are lots of good books on budgeting and financial management that you can get from your local library for free. Your librarian will be happy to help you find them.

When I get Financial Management for Creative People 102 and 201 written up, I’ll link them here.

Take time to read the comments below. Lots of additional good ideas there.

Finding places to query

By / October 7, 2011

The process looks something like this:

See a book on my child’s desk at Parent Teacher conferences. Realize that the book cover and title seems very like the type of book I’ve written. Carefully scribble down title and author when teacher thinks I am writing notes about the conference.

When at home, look up the book at Amazon.com. Read synopsis. It does seem similar in tone to my book. Write down the name of the publishing company next to the name of the author. Scroll through the “people who bought this book also bought” list. Identify more books which look similar to my book. Write down those authors and publishers.

Take the titles to my local library’s online catalog. They do have the book, so the next day when I’m at the library with the kids, take a detour into the adult non-fiction section. Find the book. Peruse the shelves around the book for other books which look similar in content or tone. Shush kids who are playing with the library’s rolling stools. Grab a stack of books to check out.

When at home, sit down with the books and the list. Flip through the books to see who the publishers are. Look at acknowledgements to see if the author names an agent or an editor who worked on the book. Write those names on the list next to author names. Take the list to my computer. Google to identify more agents and/or editors associated with the book titles.

Open agentquery.com and start filling in agent names. See if the agents are open to unsolicited queries. Peruse the “what I’m looking for” list to see if the agent will be interested. Compare the agent’s name to my submissions document to make sure that I don’t already have a query out at that agency. If all looks good, copy the agent’s name and contact information into my “To Query” file.

Google publisher names and editor names. See if I can find submission information. Add that information to my “To Query” file.

I am now ready to send out queries. Each query takes at least 10 minutes as I try to personalize the opening and closing paragraphs. Sometimes I have to print and mail the query.

By this time I am tired of the whole process, so I sigh in relief that I’ve done my job. Either it will sell, or it won’t. For the moment I can cheerfully ignore it… until I happen across another book which looks like it might cater to the same audience. Then I have a job to do again.

Financial Management for Creative People 101

By / October 13, 2011 / 5 Comments

The first thing any creative person needs to know about managing finances, whether you’re an artist, a writer, a musician, a film maker, or anything else: Good financial management is a skill. It can be learned by anyone no matter how good or bad they are with numbers. Granted, if numbers are not your friends, there may be struggling and swearing involved, but learning and practice will gain you the skills you need. You will get things wrong, sort them out, and then get them right. More than once. The key is to not give up, because if you are a creative person who wants to make a living doing creative things, you’re going to need to manage your finances effectively. Even if you don’t want to make a creative living, you can still make your finances more organized and less stressful. I graduated with a major in Humanities. I picked that major in part because it did not require me to do any math. Numbers were not my friends, and yet I learned this. You can too. Here are some places to start:

1. Create physical space for financial things. This can be anything from a basket to an uber-organized filing cabinet. The key is to have a place to drop all those bills and receipts before they have a chance to get lost. I have a file basket on the end of my kitchen counter. It contains file for the school papers of each kid, and a file for bills and other To Do papers. When mail arrives, I throw away the junk and drop the bills, checks, and other business papers into my accounting folder. Howard empties his wallet and dumps receipts into the folder as well. Then I ignore them until it is time to go through the folder.

2. Pick a method for tracking your money. I use Quicken for family finances and Quickbooks for the business accounting. Both of these are solid programs which will require a learning curve, but I’ve found them invaluable. I know people who use spread sheets or even hand-written ledgers. Pick something that feels most comfortable for you. The key is to start keeping track of where your money comes from and where it goes. If you’ve never done it before, this process can be very instructive about your spending habits. It is vital information which you can use to make your life better.

3. Make an appointment to do your accounting. Put that appointment on your calendar and keep it. I do this weekly. Every Monday I grab that accounting folder and go through everything in it. I pay the bills, enter the receipts, cash the checks, and file important papers. Once per week gets me the good news quickly and prevents the bad news from getting out of control before I handle it. When I’m pretty sure the accounting holds bad news, I do it anyway. The bad news I imagine is always worse than the bad news in the papers. I know people who do their accounting every other week or once per month. I found that it was easier to procrastinate on the longer schedule, so now I account every Monday morning.

4. Outline clear responsibilities for all people associated with the accounts/bills. If you’re a single person who manages your own money, this is not yet relevant to you. If you share your bills or finances with any other person, it is important to know who is responsible for the accounting and bill paying. Early in our marriage, Howard and I split the accounting. These days I do it all and just give him financial reports. How exactly you do it doesn’t matter as much as the fact that everyone involved knows their responsibilities.

5. Create a budget. A budget is a plan for how much money you will spend on the various expenses in your life. This topic is big enough for it’s own blog. I wrote up some basic budgeting in my post budgeting 101. For now, let this suffice. If you have never budgeted or planned your spending, start by keeping track of what you earn and what you spend. When you have several months of information you are ready to make a budget. The power of a budget is that it lets you see when you should not buy that shiny toy even if you still have money in your checking account because that money will be needed next month for car insurance. A budget helps remove the surprise from your bills and can lower your levels of stress.

6. Save save save. If you get extra money, squirrel it away into a savings account. This money is what helps you reach your dreams. The only reason Howard was able to become a full time cartoonist was because we spent the prior decade of salaried employment saving up money and paying down bills. A solid savings account is also your shield against disaster. Everyone ends up with unexpected bills. These are easier to handle if you have money in your hands instead of lots of take out pizza. It is easier to save money if you know what you are saving it for, so keep your dream in view and save for that. This year I’m saving money because there is a trip I want to take next summer.

That’s enough to get started. Changes and learning are easier to incorporate in your life if you don’t try to change too much at once. Other financial posts which may interest you:
Budgeting 101
Financial Management for Creative People 102: Structuring your finances to support a creative business. (Forthcoming)
Financial Management for Creative people 201: Taxes, incorporation, and business plans, Oh My! (Forthcoming)

You can learn this. Good luck!

Lists and Staging

By / August 9, 2011

This is the week when WorldCon preparations swamps everything else in my life. You’d think that would be next week when I am actually at WorldCon, except that I’ve arranged for everything else to be managed next week. Next week I can give WorldCon 100% attention. This week the preparations are all mixed up with feeding kids, house chores, shipping packages, customer support, and community events. At the moment it feels like I’m not doing any of these things particularly well. We’ve also reached the stage where it is too late. We wanted to create better banners as backdrops for the booth, but there isn’t time to get them made and shipped. We’re going to have to pay more for fliers and business cards because we have to print them locally instead of at the discount place online. I have half a dozen other clothing and sewing ideas, but have neither time nor clothing budget to execute on them.

My major focus for the next week is thinking ahead. I have to make sure that nothing critical is forgotten. I have to anticipate what we’ll need without ever having seen the space in which we will be setting up shop. I have a packing list for the booth, a packing list for me, a packing list for Howard, and I still need to make a packing list for the kids. I also have price lists, inventory lists, and schedules of events. It is all coming together and yet I’m fighting back a persistent feeling that it is all falling apart. To combat this feeling I’ve started piling things up in the front room.

Our front room is often used as a staging area. This time as I accumulate pieces I am stacking them where I can see them. Once I put them in the pile, I can stop trying to hold them in memory. Also I can start gauging how much stuff we have to haul and whether it will all fit into the two vehicles we’ll be driving to Reno. Our neighbors will loan us a car top carrier, which will help, but it will still be tight. My internal volume estimator says it will all fit, but actually seeing the stuff stacked up will help me know that for sure. I’m taking process shots for later blogging.

I think I am doing today what my younger two kids did last week. They each had a day where they cried about going to a new school because they didn’t know what to expect and were worried about it. The next day they were fine and have continued to be fine with only small signs that they still have increased levels of tension. Here’s hoping that tomorrow I can be back to excited anticipation instead of stressed worry.

In good news, we have Schlock Mercenary water bottles to sell at WorldCon. The Writing Excuses badge ribbons also arrived. We now have all our merchandise in hand. Tomorrow I will go shopping to acquire booth supplies and dressings.

GenCon and WorldCon

By / August 2, 2011

GenCon will open its doors to the public first thing Thursday morning, but I’m already done with it. My very last responsibility to GenCon was to drop Howard off at the airport this morning. He’s going to have a great time. It will be a fantastic show. I’m sorry I won’t get to visit with our fantastic crew there, but at the moment I’m very glad to get to stay home. I’m done with all the last minute emails and merchandising decisions. Now I can focus my attention on WorldCon which I will be attending. First item on the WorldCon list: Finish my dress. I’m loving working on it and I’ll write up a process post with pictures when it is done. With all the frantic GenCon thoughts out of the way I can look forward to WorldCon with anticipation.

Staring at Another Busy Week

By / July 31, 2011

My list is full of urgent tasks. I am supposed to be ignoring them because it is Sunday and I don’t work on Sunday. Except that somehow I slid into working today without meaning to. Oh I didn’t ship orders or do accounting, but I did answer a business email. Howard and I have had a dozen conversations about business things relating to merchandise or upcoming conventions. I spent an hour updating Howard’s electronic calendar to reflect all of his GenCon events. And I was supposed to pack his suitcase today. I know these things don’t belong in my Sunday. I do a much better job of keeping my Sundays holy when I’m not scrambling to keep up.

However, I spent three hours at church. During those hours I listened to speakers and lessons. I felt my heart open and some of my pathway in the weeks to come felt a little more clear. I also wrote down even more things which I need to not forget to do. I always emerge from church with a list of To Do. The good news is that at least 50% of that list was about house, family, and spirituality. The bad news is that my ever-expanding list expanded yet again. Top on that list was taking Kiki driving. We’re running out of time on her permit and she needs to take her road test soon. I did that first. Then I sat down with my kids and watched the Sci Fi movie classic The Cat from Outer Space. They loved it. If you add in two family meals, the total is 7 hours where my focus was on family and spirituality. This is good, but it is not the same as having a whole peaceful sabbath day. I was hoping to spend time working on my Hugo dress or on the guest blog entry which I have 90% percolated in my head. Perhaps I’ll get to them later this evening, if I don’t run out of evening.

Want to see my list? …

Staring at Another Busy WeekRead More »

Warehouse Day

By / July 27, 2011

My teenage boy and two boys borrowed from a neighbor were my minions this morning. The four of us moved three and a half pallets of books from my garage to our storage unit. Each pallet held 56 boxes of books. Each box held 22 books. Each book weighed one pound. Doing the math, we come up with approximately 3800 pounds of books moved this morning. I rejoice that my van survived hauling all of that in only four loads. I drove slowly, particularly down the hill. All that mass made it hard to stop quickly. This is one of the final steps to finishing off a Schlock shipping.

This year I decided to take the warehousing even further. We hauled all the empty pallets and pallet tops back from the storage unit where they’ve been taking up space. We also hauled out several large bags of paper and plastic garbage. At the moment we have 6 spare pallets and 24 pallet tops. Hopefully some kind soul from the Provo freecycle community will be delighted to have them and will haul them away for me. Right now they’re “decorating” a corner of our driveway and adding an air of class to the house.

The other warehousing I have to do in the wake of a shipping day is to find places for all the extra shipping supplies to belong. I also have to rearrange my storage room to make space for another book. Then there are the last few orders which required extra help to get out the door. Those are all done now. The storage room is mostly rearranged. I just have to find the energy to carry stacks of boxes and rolls of packing paper down the stairs. I’m hoping for a burst of energy later this evening. At the moment I just want to sit for awhile.

Shipping Day: Emperor Pius Dei

By / July 26, 2011 / 11 Comments

At the beginning of the shipping day we scramble to explain process to an ever-growing group of volunteers. twenty people stand and wait for me and Janci to sort out what we are doing. We have to pull out our dusty memories of what worked last time and make them fit over the physical changes in the store space since the last time we shipped. We have to assess quickly and assign jobs. Everyone is kind and patient. They are glad to be there, but I feel frazzled.

In the middle of the shipping day we have five tables with 4-5 workers at each. They’re working fast and smoothly. The book boxes are beginning to empty. The stacks of packages near the back door grow. Janci and I have time to stand back for a minute and agree that everything is going well. Two of my volunteers brought their toddler sons. These little boys walk with their dads, grabbing stray papers and putting them into the trash. I would not have expected it to work, but it does and they are adorable. Another volunteer has her infant bundled to her chest and reaches around to apply labels. Everyone is working and talking and laughing. I take some pictures and tweet our progress.

Later in the shipping day, we have begun to run out of things. The lists of invoices and labels have gotten shorter. People are asking for new lists much more often. There are more questions. The orders are more complicated. I scramble to help find missing books which have the Elf sketch, resorting to having Howard draw new ones. I stare at the tall stack of Ebbirnoth sketched books and know that the stack is tall because somewhere I made a mistake. I think I just counted wrong, but I look at the packages stacked by the door and wonder if these Ebbirnoths should go in there. But we don’t have a matching scarcity of something else to balance the extra Ebbirnoths, so I must have counted wrong.

At the end of the shipping day, we run out of labels and lists. I tell the volunteers that their job is to sit and wait for the sandwiches to arrive. They must eat the sandwiches because my kids would rather eat pizza than left over sandwiches. The food arrives and so do two new volunteers. There is nothing left for them to do. I tell them this and they look a little disappointed. I point them to the sandwiches and to the table of give away items, saying they earned them by showing up. I hope that is enough to make up for their trouble in coming. Howard sits down and draws a little sketch for each volunteer. He draws in all the books that they bring to him.

After the end of shipping, most of the volunteers are gone. The few that remain help us return the tables to their correct configuration. We pull out a vacuum and clean up the array of potato chip crumbs. My van is full of left over boxes and packing paper. And books. I drive these home and leave them to sit in the hot afternoon. In the cool evening I will get my kids to help me unload. Until then, I sit and try to quiet the fretful thoughts. It all went well. People had a good time. Just over 1000 packages were assembled and shipped in four hours. Once again we broke our own record for fast shipping. I think we can call that a job well done.

Photos and Tweets from the day:
7:45 am: Today is Schlock book shipping day. It is probable that I will tweet as we go. There may be pictures.

7:50 am: Me to @howardtayler : We can start shipping now, I have alerted the medias. (Twitter, Facebook, Google+)

8:30 am: Minions finished loading my van. Babysitters have their instructions. I’m off and running.

10:00 am: The chaos has settled in some. Note to self: next shipping stagger the start times. 30 people waiting for instructions is stressy.

10:30 am: Both the complicated orders tables and the simple orders tables finished Parcel Post simultaneously. Think this means it is going well.

10:30 am: Note to self: Three tables simple orders and two tables complicated is the right balance.

10:40 am: Boxes of postage starting to empty. This is good.

11:00 am: Youngest ever Schlock shipping helper. Three weeks old today. We’ve given her a supervisory position.

11:00 am: This is crazy. We’re going to be done before noon. I credit the record turnout of awesome volunteers.

11:30 am: …and we’re done. New volunteers showed up in time to eat food and visit. Sorry we ran out of work. #sortof

12:30 pm: Mailman brought the small truck. He’s going to have to make a second trip.

1:30 pm: With the work all done, @howardtayler sits around and draws picture for folks.

Shipping and Convention Prep Status Report

By / July 22, 2011

We are in the last run up to Emperor Pius Dei shipping. This is the season of our lives when the kids tend to themselves because I am busy. Fortunately for me, they are old enough to do so. Balancing the shipping work with family care used to be a lot harder. Shipping season has also been made tremendously easier by hiring a shipping assistant. She’s been helping me for four shipping events now.

Today will be bundle assembly. We’ll be putting together Emperor Bundles and shrink wrapping them. This will make our lives worlds easier on the shipping day because the volunteers will be able to grab a single wrapped bundle rather than 7 individual books. Bundle assembly involves hefting around boxes of books, rearranging the contents, and then hefting the boxes again. Next week I need to round up some strapping young men, hopefully with a truck, to help me shift three pallets of books from our garage over to the storage unit. Then Howard will be able to park in the garage again.

After all that is done, and the odds-and-ends of shipping is cleared away, I’ll ship Howard off to GenCon and dig in to the serious preparations for WorldCon. We’re going to be playing tetris with two vehicles, 8 passengers, luggage, and booth supplies. Fun.