business

Schlock Moving Day November 2nd

By / October 25, 2013

We signed the warehouse lease. I’ve arranged for light, heat, insurance, and mail delivery. The time has come to move all of the stuff. (Stuff being tons of books from the storage unit and many boxes of other merch from my basement.)

If being part of the Schlock Mercenary shipping day sounds like fun to you, email schlockmercenary@gmail.com for specific details and addresses. We’ll start work at 9:30 am and work until we’re done or when I have to return the rented truck at 3. As usual we’ll provide food and gifts of merchandise. We’ll need to limit the number of volunteers to around 10 people or we’ll start to have crowding and transportation problems.

NOTE: This will be hours of heavy lifting. I mean literal tons, thousands of pounds of stuff. If you have a bad back, bad knees, or other easily strained body parts, please wait for an alternative volunteer opportunity.

For the amusement of those far away, but who wish us well, I will be sure to write about the fun and post some pictures. After I’ve rested.

News and Updates

By / October 16, 2013

Tomorrow (Thurs Oct 17) I’ll be hosting a Writer Hangout at the Provo Library from 11am – 1pm in study room #155. You’re welcome to join us. We’ll mostly be writing, but there will also be some visiting. Over the next weeks I plan to hold more of these in various locations until I find one that fits. If no one else shows, I’ll still be there, writing.

This morning we signed a lease on an office/warehouse space. It is a small space for a warehouse, but still bigger than what we’ve had before. I’m surprised how quickly and smoothly picking the right space went for us. I really expected to spend much longer looking around and feeling ambivalent. Instead I’ve got keys in my pocket and a whole new list of things to do. The landlord needs to do some cleaning and fixing, the biggest of which is to the heating system. Somehow our unit is connected to the furnace from the next unit over, which is not ideal. I have to acquire insurance for the location which covers liabilities and possible damages to inventories in case of unfortunate events. I’m also accumulating a list of things to acquire, like garbage cans. Then there will be all the moving in. It is interesting that I’m not feeling stressed by this list. Instead I feel happy, because I’m gaining more space for business and more space for family.

We’ll almost certainly be having some sort of a “help us move” event with food and merch for minion volunteers. If you’re a person with a strong back and think the idea of helping haul tons of books from a storage unit to a warehouse sounds like great fun, please email schlockmercenary@gmail.com to get onto the volunteer list. That way I can contact you when I know more details.

I’ve received word that the Tub of Happiness reprint has arrived in LA. Soon it will be on a truck bound for Utah. It will be the first thing delivered to our new location. So I’ll get to see how this works.

Angela is spending this week putting together the final art for Strength of Wild Horses. I expect to spend the lion’s share of next week putting together the Kickstarter page and generally preparing that project to launch. Once it launches I’ll need to do layout for the book and there will be lots of work to do to maintain and push the Kickstarter.

The Jay Wake Book has been sent off for what I believe will be the final test print. If this one looks good when it arrives, I’ll be making it available to the public.

I’m in the middle of layout for Longshoreman of the Apocalypse. I have the recolored strips from Travis and am in the process of cropping them and checking for errors. So fare I’ve gone through about a quarter of them and identified two fixes. Then I’ve got to put them all into place in the book. The bonus story is completely scripted and drawn. I believe it is in Travis’ hands being colored. Hopefully we’ll have the whole thing bundled up and sent off for print soon.

Howard is working on the 2014 Schlock calendar. It is about a quarter complete. I’ll have to take a pause from prepping LOTA and Kickstarter to make sure I’ve got all the calendar layout in good shape. I have to update the handy holiday list and the pages themselves. This one needs to get off to print soon so that people can have their calendars before Christmas.

We also have promised to put together the Unofficial Anecdotal History of Challenge Coins. Editorial work on that project has not begun, but needs to.

On the home front, Link and Patch are needing regular homework support. Fortunately they’re both good workers and we’ve found a rhythm that works. Gleek is enjoying her year of almost complete freedom from homework. Kiki will be coming home to visit this weekend once we figure out if she can catch a ride with friends or if she needs to ride the bus.

Wow. Lots to do. I’d better get back to it.

Getting a Warehouse for Schlock

By / October 14, 2013 / 2 Comments

At some point in the last month it became obvious to me that our business needs a home of its own. We’ve been making things work, reconfiguring rooms as necessary so that our family room is sometimes for play and other times a business space. I like the idea of multi-use spaces and we’ve been doing things this way for a long time because we had to. The trouble is that the highest stress work times are exactly when I would most benefit from having an organized home. Yet those same high stress work times invariably turn my home chaotic because we have boxes of inventory and shipping supplies stacked into most of the corners. My neighbors have almost never seen my front room without stacks of boxes in it. I try to comfort myself that they’re always different boxes. It is not that we’re sloppy, but the boxes are always there.

Not only are there boxes everywhere, but my shipping room is in the basement and our storage units are two miles away. This means I have to haul boxes of books from our storage unit downstairs where I rearrange books into customer packages and carry everything back up the stairs again. As systems go, it is far from efficient. We never have the space to set up a test booth so we can plan ahead. Add to all of this the fact that when Kiki comes home from college to live with us for a month in December and for the summer next year, she will be coming as an adult with an art business of her own. She simply doesn’t fit into the shared bedroom space that used to be hers. Not anymore. Which made me realize that maybe it is time for the business to grow up and move out of the house.

I began looking at office/warehouse spaces today. I expected to spend several weeks looking and thinking before finding one that would work. Instead I made an appointment with one guy who owned three units near each other. I walked into the second unit and realized that it is pretty much perfect for everything that we need, even in the right price range. Not only that but some of the left over furnishings from the prior tenant would come with it and be very useful. I looked around and knew that it would end up being the warehouse that all the other ones I looked at were compared to. I asked a lot of questions, didn’t sign anything, and came home to look at my accounts. There are so many reasons that getting a warehouse makes sense. Yet it is a scary step because it ties us to additional monthly bills and there have been times when money was very tight. We’ve put it off in order to maintain as much financial flexibility as possible.

For the last month, every time I’ve contemplated renting a warehouse I felt calm. All my contemplations on the subject both at church or at home have made me feel like this is the right choice for our family and our business at this time. I came home feeling like I ought to be scared of the financial commitment, but not actually feeling it. Howard and I talked about the space and about taking this step for the business. He felt good about it too. To be absolutely sure, I went and prayed. The answer I got was You know it’s fine. It’s what I’ve been telling you to do for weeks. So after letting all the thoughts simmer for a few more hours, I called the owner of the warehouse and left a message saying we want it. He’ll probably call me back in the morning. I’m still not scared. Well, maybe a little bit. I’ll probably have some scared when I actually sign paperwork because that is a normal pattern for me.

Once everything is squared away with the lease and the facility, we’ll have quite a bit of work to do getting tons of merchandise shifted from their current homes and into the new space. It’ll be a new phase of our business. The next adventure.

Interrupt Driven Day

By / September 10, 2013

I planned for today to be a catch up on all the work day. Instead it was an interrupt-driven catch up on all the community and parenting stuff day. It was the kind of day where I get to the end of it having done important things all day long, but not having crossed of a single to-do item. I know I chose the right things, but that part of my brain which uses task completion as a measure is very frustrated by this sort of day.

And I’m tired, because the parent stuff is only begun, not concluded. My girls are doing well for themselves, though Kiki had an emotionally rough day. My boys both need me to follow through, track their homework, check their grades, and enforce homework time.

I also wish for the space to properly process all of the things. Because I should write an informational post on the challenges and accommodations to help my son with Auditory Processing Disorder as he faces public high school. The adjustment has been rough, partially because we’re still figuring out what resources and options are available. We’re also still identifying problem spots. At least this time I’m paying attention. Kiki’s transition into high school hit crisis level before we found some solutions. I could also write up how much I disliked having to email the 5th grade teacher to confess that my son was behind on his work because I’ve been too busy to tell him to do it. As long as I remind him, the work is cheerfully completed.

Tomorrow I need to send all of my kids to school (had kids home sick the last two days), ignore all the phone calls (except the ones from schools about kids), and finally put away the mess of things left over from Worldcon. Then I need to do all the post-convention accounting and remember what comes next fore the Jay Wake Book project. After that I need to work on layout for Longshoreman of the Apocalypse and sort my storage room. After that there are weeds, dishes, and laundry. Maybe I’ll feel caught up by Friday. If I hurry.

How You Walk Matters as Much as What You Wear

By / September 8, 2013

I spent three days helping run a booth at SLC Comic Con. There were lots of people in costumes, everything from professionally created and modeled down to made at home by a ten year old. I quickly discovered that some of the costumes impressed me while others did not. The difference did not lay in the quality of workmanship, nor whether the body shape of the person who wore the costume matched the character portrayed, though those things did have an influence. What consistently caught my eye was how a person walked while in costume. There were many people dressed as Loki who passed by my table, some of them in full kit with the horned helmet, but the core element of the Loki character is his arrogance. He honestly believes he should rule the universe, this means he must walk like he owns the floor. The very best Loki I saw was a woman shorter than myself (I’m 5’3″). She did not have the height to be imposing, yet people got out of her way. She had Loki down. Lord Vader is another character whose clothes are actually ridiculous, but when the person in the suit stalks, then ridiculous transforms into ominous.

The importance of body motion holds true even when the costume in question is that of a doctor, or sales clerk, or writer, or parent, or any other set of clothing. When you walk confidently, people assume you have authority. If you hunch a little bit and don’t meet people’s eyes, then you’re more likely to be able to pass unnoticed through a crowd. There are dozens of things you can do with your body to either draw attention or deflect it. The really cool thing is that body control is a learned skill. Though during the process of learning you will have stages of high self-conscousness, eventually the different ways of presenting yourself become like clothes that you put on when needed. At comic con my role was to be a booth support person. I was also pretty stressed by the sheer quantities of people at the event. I focused my energies on sliding through the crowds or staying in the background at the booth. Sometimes I stepped forward into a sales role where I needed to be personable and meet people’s eyes. At other events I am a presenter and author, then I dress and walk in ways that draw attention and make people more likely to listen to the things I have to say. Then I go to church and my job is to be a connected and supporting part of the congregation. Each of these roles requires different clothing and different personal presentation. If I just put on the clothes without changing the way I walk, I halve the effect.

The Things that Keep Me Busy

By / August 31, 2013 / 1 Comment

The past few days have felt tumultuous, but they weren’t. This disparity between external and internal experience of events is not my favorite. It means something in my brain is out of alignment. What I finally saw in the past few days is that this is the result of all my jobs expanding just a little bit, so that it is just barely not possible for me to do them all. Truthfully I haven’t been able to do any of them well in a long time, at least not up to my standards for “doing them well.” I admit those standards are high. I expect a lot of me. I’m far more forgiving with everyone else. But in the past few days it finally clicked that the reason I’m failing at all my things is because there are simply too many things.

“I wish we could hire _______.” Howard has said it more than once after coming home from GenCon where we have an amazing crew. This was the first year where he and I looked at each other and thought maybe we could. Business expansion is scary. I’m going to have to do a bunch of research and crunch some numbers to make sure we do not over extend ourselves. (I’ll add those things to the ever revolving list of too many things to do.) But there was a moment when I pictured handing off some of my jobs and I felt such relief at the thought. I might have time to pull the waist high weeds in the front garden, or to reshelve that pile of books, or to vacuum once in a while. I might be able to think ahead enough to plan meals.

Granted, some of those things will come back when convention season is over. Except I’ve seen the release schedule we’ve got planned for next year. Things are closer together. I’m not sure the old patterns will hold.

It was setting up the point of sale system which tipped me over. It was the critically important thing that I’ve been meaning to do since February. It sat on my task list. I looked at it every day for six months and there was always something else more urgent. At the last minute, in a tearing panic, I pulled it together. Then I had to scramble to fix it because in my panic I’d set it up wrong. Nothing like having my system in Texas while I’m in Utah and relaying critical troubleshooting information via text message to people who have never worked with the system before and neither have I. We’re learning how it works while we use it, and I’ll be writing a post talking about the system we’re using, because it really is a good system and the customer support has been stellar. The way this fell out is a far cry from the careful research and testing I’d planned to do.

In the meantime, Link is learning how to tackle high school level homework and teacher communication. Gleek’s choir class has her singing again and sitting down at the piano to pick out tunes. Patch hops into my car cheerfully after school and chatters to me about his day. Kiki has landed her first paying illustration job (probably, contract pending), has made friends, and discovered that the high quality of her high school art classes have prepared her well for college. In light of these things the weeds and vacuuming are less important. Yet I only see this perspective in glimpses right now. Mostly my eyes are on the task list. So many things to do before Salt Lake City Comic Con next week.

I assembled a hand truck today. It was one of the many things to do for SLCC. I thought I’d ordered a nice mid-sized hand truck that converted to a cart. It is rather bigger and more sturdy than that. Good thing I can store it in the storage units with our inventory. When I was most of the way done, Link said wistfully “next time can I help? I like putting things together. At which I immediately handed over the wrenches, because I didn’t like assembling this thing at all. Fortunately I’ll never have to do it again. I meant to stack all the boxes of things for SLCC, but the assembly took longer than anticipated, so that rolls over onto Monday.

Like last year, I’m not sad to be missing Worldcon. There are people I’d love to see, but the timing is just wrong. I need to be here. However I’m hoping to attend ConFusion in January and if I have to miss that, I will be very sad. It has been a long time since I’ve gone to a convention to be among my writer friends.

And now it is late. I should sleep.

Conventions and Preparations

By / August 27, 2013

On the drive to take Howard to the airport I feel relief, not because Howard is leaving, that part isn’t my favorite, but because all the convention preparations are complete. Driving to the airport means that all the things are done, or they are forever not done, either way I don’t have to think about them. Over the next few days I’m in a business pause, the space between convention preparation and convention clean up. I like those pauses. They give me time to catch my breath and reorganize all the pockets of chaos that end up all over our house because I shove things out of the way to get work done.

This morning Howard left for the airport, but this week is not a pause for me. I’ll be spending this week preparing for Salt Lake City Comic Con. The first setup day begins on the day after Howard returns from WorldCon. My job is to be on top of things because Howard needs to crash for two days before he has to be focused for SLCC. I miss my pause.

A Day of Odds and Ends

By / August 16, 2013

Link was hoping that today would be a go-to-the-waterpark day. Instead it was an odds and ends day. I watched my older sister’s two youngest kids while she and her husband helped their college boy move out of the dorms. He’s headed back home to file paperwork to go on a mission. Watching the two girls was much more low key than last Wednesday when I watched my younger sister’s crew of four. Not having a toddler and preschooler makes a difference in how much attention has to be paid per minute. It was nice for my kids to see their cousins, though in both cases it did make clear that my kids are moving out of the free form pretending stages. Patch is still there, the rest are not.

I also tackled some customer support issues for which I was the customer. In the end I achieved my goals, but I can’t call it a pleasant experience when I have to chat with two different people and leave a message with a third to even figure out if I’ve reached the right department in the company. If that third department could have just said “we’ll totally fix that for you, just give us an hour” It would have saved me from complaining out loud on Twitter. Customer support via twitter is not good for anybody really. The messages are too short for complex problems and they are public instead of private. But in the end we got an email with the proper serial number to make Kiki’s copy of Adobe Creative Suite 6 into an official copy. She has the tools she needs.

The return of the “thinks it’s been stolen” iPad is still pending. I had to call that company and nudge them, which irritates me. They got the return on Wednesday, but did not process the replacement until I called them this morning (Friday), despite the fact that I made it very clear that I was in a hurry to get the replacement. The lady told me she would rush it and send it next day. Except they assembled the package in the afternoon (I got a shipment notification) but haven’t yet given it to UPS (Not in their tracking system yet) so I have my doubts that it will show up at my house on Monday like she promised. Fine. I’ll reshuffle my schedule for setting up my Point of Sale system. It’s not like I had anything else to do. (I may be a little cranky about this. Logically I understand that these things happen and I try not to take it out on the customer support people, but it leaves cranky flying loose and I guess this is where it vented a bit.)

I took Gleek to get re-pixied. This time I really like the shape of the pixie cut, which is a relief and means that my reservations about the prior cut were particular to that cut and not to pixie cuts in general. The style really suits her and she’ll be adorable for the beginning of middle school on Monday. She is not the only one headed to school on Monday even though the official first day is Tuesday. The High school called to inform me that there is an orientation for incoming students, of which Link is one. This was the first I’d heard of this orientation day. So Link and Gleek will be off to school on Monday while Patch and Kiki remain at home.

I wanted to do more focused work through out the day, but it was a scattered day instead. Perhaps tomorrow will see some effective efforts from me.

Separate Busy Days

By / August 15, 2013

Howard called me twice today and the booth crew called me once with a quick question. I am so very removed from what they are experiencing. It is strange to realize that Howard has spent all of his day running and talking with people, trying to be entertaining, and selling merchandise. In contrast, I slept late, took my kids to a dinosaur museum, sat with them to watch Jurrasic Park, and then cleared out my office for guests by stacking all of the merchandise for WorldCon in the front room. Both of us where quite busy, but in very different ways. I’m glad to have my day, but I’m starting to feel a wish that I could have some more convention type days in the future.

When Howard calls we talk about how the current event is going, what should be done differently for future events, and which projects we should prioritize in the coming year. There are always more projects than time. Always. This year the GenCon discussions circle the fact that next year GenCon and WorldCon happen during the same week. We’re currently planning to pick WorldCon in London. This is going to require some structuring so we can bow out of the GenCon booth for one year and step back in the year after that. So we talked a bit about how that is going to have to work.

Howard was tired, but not beaten down. I’m glad to hear that. In the past convention stress has been hard on him. I’m watching this year to see how things are different now that he’s on anti-depressants. That is part of my job too, I observe the changes and tell Howard about what I see, because trying to live in your own brain while watching for the differences created by a chemical change is crazy-making. So far, good. I hope he sleeps well tonight so that tomorrow can be another good day.

I slept well last night, which was a blessing because the night before had highly interrupted sleep. Gleek woke often and woke me as well. She claims she is not nervous for school, which was my fear regarding the disrupted sleep. Yet I watch her too, because both the doctor and I believed that we’d see an upswing of internal stress as school got close. I’m not seeing it yet, which is either really good news, or it means that we’ve all been too busy to spend much time contemplating the start of school.

I tell Howard a little about our day here at home, enough to let him know what is going on and that everyone here is doing fine. Mostly he doesn’t have energy to listen. He needs sleep or to empty his brain of business thoughts. It does not help if I try to give him home thoughts. Anything that is not a crisis can wait. We’ve had no crises yet this trip, not at home and not at the event. This makes me glad. It is always hard when Howard is stressed far away and there is nothing I can do to fix it. I think that is one of the hardest things about sending him away to conventions. It is particularly difficult if the problem is one that I could have solved if I’d managed to track all of the things.

Our phone calls are short. We say goodnight, because tomorrow we both have busy days.

Conventions, Family, and Making Choices

By / August 13, 2013 / 2 Comments

Shipping day, booth set up day, and post-con accounting day are when I discover which out of hundreds of things I failed to adequately track. That is the not fun part, when I realize that I’ve failed to do some simple thing and because of it life is more complicated. The problems are usually small and often easily resolved, but there is a voice in my head which berates me for failing to anticipate and prevent the problem. This is one of the reasons that I was glad that events conspired for me to take a break from being with Howard at major conventions. I had to figure out how to disconnect that angry voice in my head. Once the event is in motion it does not matter whose fault it is that we’re about to run out of tape. What matters is sending someone on a quick run to the store to buy more tape. Problem solved, on we go.

After I dropped Howard at the airport (he’s headed to GenCon) I came home and sat in my hammock to think. It was the first real pause I’d had all day. As part of our preparations for the three big conventions, we got to talking about the big events we have scheduled for next year. Worldcon will be in London next year, and the conversation made clear that Howard assumed I’d want to go. In my mind I’d been assuming that I would not be going. I’d love to go. We could come up with the money somehow, but childcare is the issue. One a daily basis I don’t have to seek out babysitters anymore, but if I’m going to be gone for a week or more, I have to make sure that my kids are cared for. There are three events in 2014 that I would like to be able to attend, I’m not certain which of them I’ll be able to manage. I thought about that as I swung in the hammock. And while I was thinking about the professional things I’m giving up in service to my ongoing parenting project, I also spent some time thinking about what family things I would have to give up in order to attend all the professional events that interest me. I have to choose. I am fortunate to be able to choose between things I want instead of having only bad options.

Howard is at GenCon where he will work hard, be with friends, feel exhausted, laugh loud, and come home with stories. I am a little sad that I am not there. I’m a little sad that it makes sense for me to be the one to stay home. I feel cliche about that sometimes. In two weeks Howard will be at WorldCon. Again he will be surrounded by friends and I will be home making sure the kids settle in to their school routines. I will be participating in the booth running for Salt Lake City Comic Con, but the exact schedule and extent of my participation has yet to be determined. I’ll get at least a partial professional event this fall.

On the other hand, I’ll be spending this final week before school with my kids. We’ll get to go on a final outing (if Gleek gets over her sore throat and fever). I’ll be here to sit with Kiki in church on the last Sunday before she departs for college. I’ll get to organize and clean, prepping back packs and school schedules. I wouldn’t want to miss any of that. There are so few days left. Part of me wants to slow down and savor. A larger part wants to jump ahead because things are going to change and we might as well get the change made so we can settle in.

I thought about all of this as I swayed gently in the warm evening. Then I thought of nothing much at all, because today began with a half day of shipping, was followed up by last minute convention-preparation, and then a 90 minute drive to drop Howard at the airport. I was tired. I am tired. Bedtime needs to be early tonight and all the rest of the decisions and things to do can wait until a different day.