conventions

Thoughts in the Wake of the Convention

By / May 30, 2011

The trip home from a convention always feels much shorter than traveling to get there. The oddness of this phenomenon is increased by the fact that I spend the trip out reading and generally trying to keep myself occupied. On the trip home I spend most of the time staring at nothing with only my thoughts to entertain me. Conventions are a serious overload of stimuli, new situations, new people, new ideas, and new information. On the trip home I begin to sort it all, rarely do I get the sorting done before the end of the trip.

***
As we were leaving the hotel room on the first day of the convention, I saw Mary take out two dollars and leave them on the bed for the housekeeping staff. It was one of those “of course I should be doing that” moments. Housekeeping staff often changes from day to day, and each one does helpful tasks. I happened to come up to the room about an hour later just as the cleaning cart was about to get to our room. The tiny woman pushing the cart nodded and smiled at me asking “I come back later?” I smiled back and answered that now was fine, I was just grabbing something. She smiled and nodded several times to me. She had a beautiful smile, it made all the wrinkles of her face into joy lines. Throughout the weekend our room was always cleaned first. She smiled and greeted us every time she saw us. Mary says there were even little thank you notes in broken English. So much gratitude to be purchased at the low price of $2 per day. Sometimes little things make a huge difference.

***
The whole weekend was remarkably free of guilty moments. In the past I have always received a phone call from a child who is having some sort of emotional crisis. The child cries, I attempt to figure out what happened and to problem solve over the phone. Usually I can only help things calm down some and I have to hang up without knowing how it will all be resolved. Then I feel worried and guilty for an hour or the rest of the trip. This did not happen during the weekend.

I liked the lack of guilt and have been trying to deconstruct why it stayed away so that I can repeat the experience. It is possible that everyone was focused on letting me have a break and so they made extra efforts to solve their own problems. If this is the reason it means that I have been assisting in the creation of these crisis moments by placing myself in the center of every crisis resolution. I need to be stepping back more so that they can learn to work things out for themselves. I must think on it further.

Time to Go Home

By / May 30, 2011 / 2 Comments

In about an hour I’ll catch a cab to the airport. As I sat on my bed this morning contemplating my upcoming travel, I realized I was feeling homesick. The odd thing is that I was feeling homesick for California not Utah. California is where I grew up, and usually when I come here I have a strong “not my home anymore” feeling. This time I found myself watching the palm trees, ground ivy, and the architecture. I think it is a reflection of a longing for childhood or a simpler time. The feeling is a very quiet one. I’m only sensing it this morning because all of my usual thoughts are packed away. Indeed the minute I opened my laptop and saw my email, my mind dashed back to Utah and the interesting projects which are ahead of me.

However I am a little haunted by a conversation I had with Mary.
“I miss palm trees.” I said.
“Obviously you need to plant a palm tree in your yard.” she answered.
“Palm trees don’t grow well in Utah.” I answered.

As soon as the words were spoken I could see the potential meta-ness of them. My mind set to work trying to parse out the symbolism of the palm tree. There may be some there, or there may not. Either way I’m glad I’ve seen it and written about it. This way I have a link to that quiet feeling, a thread I can follow even when the trappings of my regular life flow in to fill up most of my emotional space.

Having described the homesickness feeling, I discover that I am also looking forward to going back to Utah which is my actual and emotional home. I will slip back into it like a warm and familiar coat. As I understand it, having a coat will be useful as the weather there continues to be cold.

Introducing Myself

By / May 29, 2011 / 3 Comments

I’m still working on figuring out how best to introduce myself to new people here. The focus of who I am shifts depending upon the social circumstances of the introduction. So far I’ve been introduced as a fiction writer, a blogger, Howard’s wife, the manager of Schlock Mercenary, one of Mary’s alpha readers, and as Mary’s guest. It has been a fascinating opportunity to watch how I am treated based on the framing of the introduction. Unfortunately the usefulness of the experiment is somewhat foiled by the excellence of the people to whom I’ve been introduced. I’ve been uniformly spoken to with respect and interest. The shape of the respect and the follow-up questions is different, but if the conversation lasts for any length of time the other aspects of who I am also get touched on.

The one major role in my life that has not been my primary introductory lead-in is being a parent. Again, that gets mentioned but often much later. Once again I’m having the experience where I mention the quantity of my children and people are a bit startled. I’m still sorting the experiences and trying to rehearse so that I can introduce myself comfortably. The process is surprisingly similar to writing an elevator pitch for a book. I now have two sentence introductions for my blog, my Schlock Mercenary work, and my book. Having the pitches is really useful so that I don’t have those deer-in-the-headlights moments when someone says “And you are? What do you do?”

This convention is perfect for playing with the introductory options and pitches, because I’m not actually trying to pitch anything. I have no goals to forward, no people I need to seek out in order to advance my career. I am able to just meet cool people rather than seeking out people because I am hoping for something from them. It is a very pleasant way to attend a convention.

And now, to breakfast.

Three Snippets from the Second Day of Baycon

By / May 29, 2011 / 4 Comments

I was sitting at lunch with Mary and Kimmi. For them it was a discussion about Mary’s upcoming GoH interview with Kimmi as the interviewer. I was along for the food. The con was not in full bustle around us, but there were lots of interesting distractions. This was when my phone rang. The kids at home had locked themselves out of the house. I directed them to our backyard neighbor who has a key. I also spent several minutes calming a distraught Gleek, who was afraid that she would have to spend the night without the backpack full of security objects which had been locked in the house. They got the key, liberated the all-important back pack, and the kids went off to their aunt’s house for a sleepover.

I’ve gotten phone calls from home mid-convention before. I have one pretty much every convention I attend. It is often quite hard for me to stay calm because the calls bring out into the open whatever guilt I may be feeling about leaving the kids to attend the convention. This time I was not rattled at all. While the fate of the backpack was in question, I knew that two responsible adults were right there to help the kids deal with whatever outcome there might be. It was more amusing than anything else and gave me a story to tell when I got back to the table with Mary and Kimmi.

***

Mary’s signing here at the convention was pretty much the antithesis of the perfect signing. It was held during the dinner hour, wasn’t in the program book, the dealer’s room had already closed (so no one could buy books), and she was tucked away in a corner room far off the beaten path. Mary was cheerful and amused about it. She and I sat and talked for an hour. We were joined after awhile by a member of the convention staff with whom we had a lovely conversation. He took notes about how things should be different in other years. As Mary said it, conventions always have troubles of one sort or another. Things get mis-communicated, double booked, or overlooked. The key is for everyone to learn from the errors. And the Baycon staff have been wonderfully attentive in every interaction I’ve ever had with them.

***

I sat at a table in the lobby next to the bar with an ever-shifting group of authors and editors. I’d been there for several hours already and never once been bored. As people came and went I always had someone new to speak with and learn about. I had several quite-extended conversations with people I’d never met before, but with whom I hope to keep in touch. The night extended into early morning and I was still in my chair half from inertia, I finally pulled myself from the group and made my way upstairs. Tomorrow I have plans for tracking down my new acquaintances and visiting more.

Traveling, Baycon, and Getting Settled at the Convention

By / May 28, 2011 / 1 Comment

I meandered through the San Jose airport looking at shops and pausing to admire several art installations. I had no one to mange but myself. It was odd. I counted back through my memories and came to the conclusion that I have not traveled solo since I was 19 years old, single, and a college student. Even then my parents came with me to the gate and Howard met me at the other end. (We were dating, but not yet engaged.) I was not afraid to be in an unfamiliar airport by myself. I’ve done enough traveling to know what to expect even when I don’t know the exact locations of the things I expect.

San Jose is a mix of things familiar and things new. I grew up only 45 minutes from here. I see the palm trees, ground ivy, yellow hills, and part of my brain says that I’ve come home. Right outside my hotel window is the Great America amusement park which was the cool place to go when I was a middle school kid. I was looking at the architecture as I rode in a taxi to the hotel. It is quintessentially California with all those early spanish influences. The colors and red tile roofs would be exotic except that they are so familiar.

Baycon itself is also a mix of things different and familiar. Other than Mary Robinette Kowal, with whom I am staying, and John Picacio, whom I’ve met briefly on a couple of occasions, I didn’t know anyone. I do now. Conventions are like that. After the Mingle with the Guests event, I have new blogs to look up and people with whom to keep in touch. The feel of convention hotel is very familiar. The vibe of the attendees is comfortable. Yet everything has a slight spin which reflects the local aesthetic and zeitgeist. The most different part is being completely at my own disposal.

On the first evening I discovered yet another small adjustment I need to make professionally. The very first moment I was called on to introduce myself I said “I’m Howard Tayler’s wife.” It was a useful hook because the other person then connected me with where they’d seen me before, unfortunately it also emphasized the wrong part of who I am. Here at Baycon I’m trying to be Sandra Tayler, writer rather than Sandra attached to Schlock Mercenary. Mary helped me rehearse a better introduction and has flawlessly introduced me to many people in ways that make me sound interesting. There was a moment at breakfast this morning where someone I’d been talking to for an hour finally connected me to Howard and lit up with delight. It made me happy, in part because having someone be delighted at you is always a positive experience, but also because it meant that the respect I’d been getting before was all earned by me rather than bestowed upon me by my association with Howard.

I was at the Mingle with the Guests event and Mary introduced me to a friend. I ended up telling about my writing for a little bit. In a moment when the friend was distracted by something else, Mary leaned over and said “Do you realize that you keep stepping backward like you’re trying to flee?” I looked down and realized that I was indeed at least two feet from where the conversation began. I had been slowly moving the conversation because I’d take a tiny step back and others would step forward to keep within good talking proximity. It wonderfully expressed the tentativeness I feel when presenting myself for my own works rather than the associations with others. I think I shall also find comfort in it because they did step forward so that we could continue to talk.

Thus far my conventioning without Howard experience has been a good one. There are edges of missing home and kids, occasional moments when I feel odd or misplaced, but on the whole I am having a great time.

Packing for the weekend

By / May 26, 2011 / 2 Comments

When Howard goes on a trip, packing is always a source of worry for him. This is not because packing is complicated. Packing just ends up as the focal point for all the various stresses ahead. When Howard gets within a day of departure and his bag is not yet packed, he gets anxious and cranky. He needs the physical representation of being prepared.

Last night I sat in my chair after writer’s group and stress descended upon me. Howard saw it and asked if I was all right.
“You know that feeling you have when you’re leaving on a trip and you’re not packed yet?” I answered. “I feel that right now and I think it is focused on the childcare situation.”
My statement was a tightly controlled response, deliberately calm in opposition to how I actually felt. Odd that I can feel that everything will be fine and also want to jitter in panic at the same time.
“Sounds like making childcare arrangements is first on tomorrow’s list.” Howard said.

And so it was. I now know where the kids will be while I am in California and Howard is at CONduit in Salt Lake. I have the framework upon which I can build meal plans and instructions for the kids. I will arrange things and then I will let go.

I am not the only one planning for this weekend. Several weeks ago we pondered the logistics of Howard managing a dealer’s table by himself and determined that he needed a minion. We mentioned the job to Kiki along with the possibility that this might be a paid gig. There was a road block in that she would have to miss school on Friday. I set the problem aside to think about a different day, but Kiki did not. She talked to all of her teachers. She made arrangements to take a final exam early and to turn in homework assignments. She calmly and responsibly cleared Friday from any conflicts. She is going to CONduit with Howard and is quite excited about it.

Working a table is not the only source of excitement for Kiki. She is also putting some of her work into the art show. Yesterday included a last-minute scramble to select pieces and matte them. There were difficulties, matting is a skill which neither Kiki nor I possess at expert levels. But the job got done and the show is prepared. Whether or not her pieces sell, the experience of preparing for a show is a good learning experience for her.

Other preparations for this weekend involve Patch and Gleek. I have been working with them so that they are more independent at bedtime. For years our bedtime routines have been heavily dependent upon me being present. The structures were rigid. First snack, then reading with snack, then reading in bed after snack, then talking with mom, then a dozen excuses and delays, eventually sleep. A week ago I declared that they needed to practice putting themselves to bed. It was their job to track the time and get everything done. The results have been mixed. I’m still heavily involved in keeping them focused, but bedtime has been more fluid and they are beginning to step up and take responsibility rather than shouting at me if I try to skip steps due to the late hour. I don’t know how well bedtime will go when I am removed from the equation, but they have better ground work for success than they did a week ago.

The preparations are coming together. The pieces are starting to line up. My clothes are not yet in a suitcase, but I am beginning to feel packed.

Hugo Award Nomination

By / April 24, 2011 / 2 Comments

This was written two weeks ago, but I could not post it until after Hugo Nominations were publicly announced:

Through the joys of caller ID, I knew it was Howard calling before I picked up the phone.
“Hi hon. How is Canada?” I asked, cheerful to hear from him while he’s off at a convention and I am home with the kids. He was out in the world, giving presentations and promoting the comic which pays our bills.
“Canada is good. Email is better.” He answered. I could hear the smile in his voice and I knew what was coming next before he said the words. “Schlock Mercenary Massively Parallel was nominated for a Hugo.”
I smiled through my sigh of relief. The comic has been nominated for this Science Fiction award for the past two years, but it came in last place both times. Howard had all but convinced himself that he wouldn’t even make the ballot this year. The fact that he did, that we did, is a boost. One that apparently doesn’t get old.
“Yay!” I said into the phone. It doesn’t say enough, but Howard knows what I mean.
“Know what else? Writing Excuses made the ballot too, best related work.”
My smile inched into a grin. We’d been hoping for this. The wording on the best related category had changed so that podcasts were eligible. I could think of nothing more worthy than the weekly podcast Howard did with Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells.
“Oh wonderful!” I said. It was just as inadequate as yay, but words really can’t express the rush of good feeling I was trying to send to my husband so far away from me. It seems we’re always sharing the Hugo nominations over the phone. The second weekend in April is popular for events which involve Howard.
I thought ahead to August and the award ceremony which would be held at the World Science Fiction Convention in Reno. During the nomination period I’d silently told myself that if Howard made the ballot, I would get a new dress. He’d made the ballot twice. I’d stick to one dress, but my feet fairly danced with joy. I would have friends with which to share the emotional crucible of award nomination. Instead of feeling slightly misplaced at the pre-Hugo party, I would have good friends to stand with. If the nomination ended with an award, we could rejoice together. If not, group commiseration was built-in.
But all that was in the future. Standing in the kitchen, pushing the phone to my ear, and grinning, I could only feel the joy and honor to be nominated. It meant that out there in the world of Science Fiction, people liked Howard’s work enough to put his comic on the ballot. That truly matters, because we love this genre and we love the people in it. The fact that they love Schlock is heartwarming.
“The hard part,” Howard continued “Is being here at a science fiction convention, with people who would love to rejoice, and not being able to tell them yet.”
“So call Brandon and Dan. You can all be glad together.”
We talked of other things for awhile before he had to go, both of us smiling more than the conversational topics called for. Then we hung up and my feet did another cheerful little dance as I walked over to return the phone to its charger. In two more days he would return home and we could celebrate together.

Congratulations to all of the Nominees!

In which I explain my current sleep deprivation

By / February 20, 2011 / 1 Comment

Three days of high intensity social and public presentation time came to a conclusion when my cell phone rang multiple times. Link, having been an excellent baby sitter for most of the evening, abdicated his post 30 minutes too soon. Kiki failed to back him up and to do a couple of simple chores that I specifically requested. So instead of coming home to a clean quiet house, Howard and I had to come home and be parentally disapproving. The kid are contrite and perhaps a lesson has been learned which will result in long term good. We all dragged off to bed, quite thoroughly drained.

Sleep was interrupted at 2 am when Patch crawled into bed with me and declared “I need a pot!” I ran for the pot, he ran for the bathroom. Thus began twelve hours of a particularly vicious stomach flu. Howard stayed home from church with the sick boy. I went to church with the other three. This was when I learned that my newly acquired church job (Relief Society Committee Member) came with an attached afternoon meeting that precluded me taking a long nap. I’ve been sleepwalking all day, fortunately the day is drawing to a close and the kids have no school tomorrow. I will be shutting off the alarm clocks and sleeping late. Patch seems to be feeling better and has managed to keep water down for two hours now. As long as no one else comes down sick in the middle of the night, I should be able to sleep.

I’m far too tired to feel much about the concatenation of tiring events. At most I feel a mild amusement, knowing that this will be fodder for good stories in the future. It really has been a good week and a good weekend. I need to hold tight to that thought as a shield against anyone else in the family getting sick.

Lunch at LTUE

By / February 18, 2011 / 2 Comments

Julie Wright and I walked fast as we exited the conference center where the hall was filled with LTUE attendees. We waved at friends as we passed, but kept moving. When the doors closed behind us we looked at each other and giggled like teenage girls ditching school. One of the joys of conferences and symposiums is the fact that there are always large groups of people with which to have lunch or dinner. I like having the chance to visit over food. The disadvantage is that large groups are hard for restaurants to seat and I only really get to visit with the five people seated near me anyway. So this time I took a page out of Mary Robinette Kowal’s book. When she came to visit in Utah, she arranged her schedule so that she could have small group visits with many of her friends. I loved that. Large groups are for laughing. Small groups are for talking, catching up, and really learning how the other people are doing. I wanted to make sure I had some of both as part of this year’s LTUE experience. What I’d really love to do is sit down and visit for an hour with each of my writer friends. That project would take about a week of 8 hour days. Instead a casual facebook conversation resulted in lunch plans with Julie Wright and Jessica Day George. I figured the plan was a good place to start.

My very first year attending CONduit, the annual science fiction and fantasy convention in Salt Lake City, I attended a reading. It was a joint reading by James Dashner and Julie Wright. I stopped by because I’d never been to a reading before. I wanted to see what they were like. I don’t remember what Julie read, but James read from the manuscript that later became The Maze Runner. What I remember most is sitting around a table and talking to everyone. They were all published authors. Jessica was there. She had just sold her first book. I was not published, most of them didn’t know me at all, yet I felt completely welcomed and at home. It was the first time I felt like a professional writer.

After our escape from the conference center, Julie and I met up with Jessica at a nearby Zupas. We did not talk about anything profound. Profound does not quite fit with a crowded soup and sandwich shop. However I was able to catch up with a few details about how their lives are going right now. Of such small conversations are friendships formed.

I had friends in High school. Quite a lot of them, but then we graduated and no longer had shared experiences or proximity to keep the friendships alive. I lost touch with all but one or two. I had friends in college, girls who were my roommates or lived in my building. Then I got married and they moved far away. For awhile Howard and I had friendships with other young married couples, but they moved and somehow I found myself adrift. I did not quite know how to make an acquaintance into a friend. I remember hearing about other women and their Girls’ Night Out events. I wanted to be a person who went out to lunch with friends, but somehow it never occurred to me to arrange these things. I longed for them, but never was willing to risk calling and arranging an event. I look back at my younger self and I wish I could get her to say “Hey, next time you have a Girls Night Out, can I come?” This is exactly how I found my Writer Girls group almost a decade later.

I’m not sure how I learned to be a person who collects friends and arranges for lunches out. I think it was mostly by being around people who knew how. Some of it was demanded of me in the course of learning how to be a business manager for Schlock Mercenary. I do lots of things now which used to terrify me. The doing of terrifying things makes me stronger. Perhaps sometime I will try to identify core thoughts about making and being friends. Maybe I’ll even write up a list. Mostly though it is about arranging to be around each other and listening with sympathy. The women I observed did not have Girls Night Out because they were friends, they were friends because they arranged to have Girls Night Out. I had the causality wrong all those years ago.

I’ve been attending local conventions for six years now. They’ve grown to feel like family reunions as much as professional events. I had my stolen time with Julie and Jessica. It was the result of over a dozen emails as we tried to figure out where in three days there was a block of time long enough that none of us was busy. The effort was worth it. Tomorrow I will take time to step aside and talk with dozens more people. Inevitably I will miss someone with whom I’d dearly love to catch up. Thank goodness for the internet. Social media tools allow me to create a simulated proximity. I will be able to share messages and thoughts electronically. It is not the same as talking in person, but better than nothing.

I need to remember to make efforts outside of conferences to plan for lunches and dinners with other creative people. I always come away happier and with new thoughts to think.

Notes from LTUE panel: The Writing Life

By / March 26, 2011 / 2 Comments

My final panel of today was The Writing Life. On the panel with me were Julie Wright, Berin Stevens, and Angie Lofthouse. It was one of those panels where I scribble down notes, not only to help me remember what I wanted to say, but also because other panelists said things I want to remember. It was also one of those panels where I say things which I then have to write down because somehow the act of talking about living a writing life reshaped my thoughts in new ways, then the new thoughts spilled out of my mouth.

I knew before the panel began that I wanted to mention the inevitable break down of systems. Creative people get very excited and enthusiastic about their goals and plans for achieving those goals. When the plans fall apart three days later, they get very discouraged and are inclined to give up. The thing is to pick up the pieces and make a new system based on what you learn from the old one. Through iterations of this process a writer can find what works for her. Then life changes and iterations begin again.

The other panelists made excellent points about finding your priorities, setting goals, and scheduling time. I particularly liked the statement that writers need to not wait around for writing to be convenient. Time is made, not found laying around. Several panelists discussed getting up early, writing on work breaks, or staying up late. There was also much discussion of sacrifice, specifically giving up things like television and video games in order to make time for writing. We also touched on the importance of community. I loved all these thoughts and nodded agreement while scribbling notes.

Then I found myself thinking of fractals. The defining attribute of a fractal is that the large pattern is repeated when you zoom close to any particular part of the fractal. As you get closer and closer you see the same pattern ever smaller. Our lives are fractal. We don’t have to make our whole lives meaningful, but if we make each day balanced and good then the larger pattern will reflect that. I seized a microphone to share this insight and ended up talking about the five things I am still trying to put into my life daily. Every person will have different things, but the point is to try to balance each day so that priority items are front and center.

Since this was a symposium at a religious university, the authors on the panel with me shared that they often begin their writing sessions with prayer. They talked about how this calmed them and that they felt it inspired their writing sessions. I think this is a marvelous idea and I intend to try it.

A question was asked about specific practicalities of making time for writing. The truth is that I don’t always make time for it. There is a level of guilt attached to writing because sometimes I have to sacrifice things which are more important than television or video games. Sometimes it is a choice between writing and doing the laundry. It seems like a no-brainer, who likes laundry. But I know that if the laundry does not get done, then the next morning’s school scramble will be awful which will lead to a cascading failure of day. There are times when laundry is more important than writing and I choose it. Or I choose some other thing in my life. Other times I choose writing. Each day has its own answer and the only way I can find the right answer for today is to be in touch with my own priorities and inspiration. This is where my five daily things are so critically important. They center me in the priorities of my life. Often I discover that, contrary to what guilt would have me believe, writing first makes the laundry easier.

The panel wrapped up on the thought that sometimes what we have to sacrifice for writing are our own neuroses. We have to relinquish control of some things. We have to be willing to let kids do jobs poorly or to let them struggle and fail. We have to be willing to emotionally untangle ourselves from dramas which we can’t really solve, but which sap our energy. We have to find ways to allow ourselves to not be perfect. This can be very hard.

It was a really good discussion and I am glad I got to participate.