conventions

Oh the Places I’ll Go

By / January 26, 2015

First up, I need to clarify that I will not be at FanX in SLC later this week. The last couple of years Howard and I went all-in for Salt Lake Comic Con and FanX. We learned a lot and hope to participate in future versions of these events. Unfortunately for 2015, by the time the dates for FanX and SLCC had been announced, we already had conflicting events on our schedule. We opted out for this year. I must admit that this week I’m very glad that I get to have a normal work week instead of tooling up for a massive convention. Having a major event in January would break my brain I think.

In two weeks I’ll be taking a trip to Chicago, because sometimes I should just go visit my friends even when there isn’t a convention involved.

I will be at LTUE in three weeks. I’m very excited about this. We’ll be fetching Kiki from college, so she’ll be at the event as well. They’ve given her a solid amount of programming, which makes me glad. The remaining Tayler kids are likely to sit the show out at home. Though Patch really enjoyed his day at Salt Lake Comic Con last fall and so he may want to come for a day at LTUE. We’ll see.

For further information regarding my whereabouts in 2015, you can check my newly updated schedule.

I’m Excited for the 2015 Out of Excuses Workshop and Retreat

By / October 16, 2014 / 1 Comment

Being writer has a specific set of joys and challenges. One of the biggest challenges is finding out how writing can fit with all the other things in life. I’m quite familiar with this, as my writing is often victim to parental priorities. I know I’m prioritizing correctly, or at least sometimes I do. Other times I feel a strange dual guilt that I’m insufficiently devoted to writing because of the other things in my life and that I’m neglecting everything else because of the writing I do. It is a Gordian Knot; a tangle that seems to have no solution. I’ve come at it a dozen different ways and I’ve tried to share those with others in various presentations and private conversations over the years. I’m thrilled to announce that I’m going to get to do so again. This time I’ll be teaching at a venue that is perfectly selected to both ease, and bring to the fore, the challenges of blending a creative life with a family life.

I’ve been asked to teach at the 2015 Out of Excuses Workshop and Retreat put on by the Writing Excuses podcast team. I’ll be talking to writers and their families about ways they can survive and support the act of creation. The venue for my presentation will be Independence of the Seas, a cruise ship which makes stops around the Caribbean. Why is a cruise ship an ideal venue for this discussion? It is the only workshop I know that actively encourages attendees to bring their families along for the event. This is because cruise ships are designed to house and entertain diverse groups of people. There is childcare and child activities available right there on the boat. The ship is huge with plenty of room for everyone. There will also be attendee-only workshop classes and writing time, spaces that are child-free. This means that it will be a glorious mix of learning, focused creative time, and splendid distractions. It will be a microcosm of how demands for attention must be balanced in regular life. We’ll get to talk about all of that. We’ll have daily examples of how children impact creative work and how the needs of significant others must be weighed against creative time. Then we’ll have opposing examples of how those kids, families, and significant others also make sacrifices to allow for creation. I’m really excited to meet these fellow journeyers, these people who will be with me on the ship, but who are also traveling similar life paths.

I’ve never been on a cruise before. I’m kind of nervous about it. I’ve never thought of myself as a cruise-taking person. Yet the more I’ve heard Mary, Brandon, Dan, and Howard talk about this workshop, the more excited I become for it. For the exact same cost per attendee, this cruise will offer much more than the retreats they’ve been doing at Woodthrush Woods. It will offer more than a hotel offers for small conventions. Instead of having to say “Attendees only” they can say “Sure, bring your kids, bring your boyfriend, bring your mom.” I love that, because the one thing that is most likely to make me skip a professional writing event is if it causes a problem for my family life. The event is still a long way off, not until next September, but I’m already excited to get there. Hopefully some of you can be there too.

Recovery Day and Schlock Book Printing

By / September 9, 2014

Most of my local friends are beginning to emerge from their post-comic con crashes. I had my crash today. I spent 3-4 mid day hours asleep. The delayed crash is a common experience for me, because I always come home to endless evidence of things not done and I scramble to catch up. Until the exhaustion catches up with me. I didn’t really want to crash today. I had other plans, only I was so tired I could hardly remember what they were. Instead I just had a head of free-floating thoughts and worries, which my brain kept assembling into jumbled predictions about how all the things will go badly in the next few months. Sad that my pessimism and anxiety circuits have more endurance than anything else. Possibly because I try not to use them at all if I can help it.

In the last few days before Comic Con, I was scrambling to ship files to our book printer. There was some concern that we would not be in time to ship books to customers by Christmas. Then there were communication delays due to an email server meltdown. But now I have an estimated schedule, which is tight for everyone, but may put books into my hands the week of November 17. Though experience tells me there may be a delivery variance of a week on either side. A week early would be fantastic. A week later lands in the week of Thanksgiving, which is not ideal, but manageable. So now my job is to be extremely efficient any time the process is waiting on an answer from me. Also, I must double check any time I don’t get a response to make sure that we’re not having another email snafu. My brain wanted to gnaw on all of this and tell terrible stories of unhappy holiday customers. Instead Howard sent me to go sleep and then defended my sleeping against doorbells and phone calls.

The sleeping helped. My brain is no longer foggy, but my desire to Accomplish All the Things is still missing. Also, a couple of my kids have come down sick. This means instead of normal normal we’re getting adapted normal, which, when I look back on our lives, may be more normal for us than normal normal.

At least I found the energy to run some loads of laundry. That’s a start at least.

Salt Lake Comic Con 2014

By / September 8, 2014 / 5 Comments

Salt Lake Comic Con is so big that it is impossible to write a single summary which encompasses all of what happens during the three days. (Four if you count the set-up day.) I have friends who were miserable throughout the event and other friends who had a fantastic time. Some of the miserable people were made that way by decisions that were beyond their control. Some of the happy people experienced serendipity that was likewise out of their control. In many ways planning to exhibit at an event this size is like planning an outdoor event. You prepare all you can, but you have to deal with the on-site weather once you arrive.

This is how I plan ahead to figure out what to bring.

I make little papers to represent tables and furniture. Then I slide them around until I’m happy with the configuration. Once I’m at the booth it is just a matter of putting the tables where I pictured them.


Every show we have something that sells better than expected and something that doesn’t move at all. This year the run away seller was the Shadows Beneath anthology. Halfway through the show we had to go and get more from the Dragonsteel folks. The other delightful surprise was how well our booth-mate’s books sold. Brian McClellan shared our space and he sold out of books on Saturday morning.

Here I am with Brian. Howard had stepped out for a minute.

On Thursday Howard was able to get some work done in the quiet hours before the crowds arrived.

For the vast majority of the event traffic near our booth moved smoothly. Things did get pretty crowded mid-day on Saturday.
This was taken from our booth space.

This was taken from the green room looking over the wing where our booth was located. (Ours is far out there in the distance.)

Also taken from the green room, looking across the other wing where the celebrity signings were located.

As is usual for Howard and I, our favorite parts were when we get to participate in interesting conversations. Sometimes those happened in small groups at our booth, other times they were when we participated in panels. I was particularly happy that there was a Writing Excuses panel where they didn’t have to record, they just got to talk. Mary was much missed in the conversation.

I was very fortunate in my co-panelists. They were all interested in sharing good information and making sure everyone got a chance to talk. This is not always the case. The only challenges with my panels were things outside the panelists’ control. They were the “weather” we had to manage. In one a loud speaker next door was booming through our wall. In another we were next to a zombie apocalypse live action roleplay, so we were treated to periodic screaming.

But the super mega challenge was the one where the fire alarm went off. I was moderating and it took me a moment to realize what was happening. Lights along the wall started flashing and a polite voice said “An emergency has been identified in this building. Please cease operations and exit the building.” Within a minute we determined that, no there was not really an emergency, we could stay. (Some child pulled the fire alarm.) Yet the emergency message repeated over and over for the next five minutes as we tried to talk intelligently in spite of it. I think we succeeded and the panel managed to be beneficial anyway.

Really that is the miracle of an event like this. Hundreds of thousands of people gather. They get in each other’s way. They cause problems that others have to solve. But then there are the people who move through the event making it easier on others. People band together to rescue each other; whether it is loaning tape, finding a child, or making a joke to cover fire alarm confusion. The building was full of heroes and many of them were not wearing costumes.

Naturally the costumes were fun.

So much attention and effort goes in to creating them. I’m happy that the creators have a place to come where their work can be appreciated.

This one made my kids very happy.

The final hours of the convention were very busy for me. At 4:30 I had to move my car to where I could easily load it once the show was done. Then I had back-to-back panels (including the fire alarm one). Then it was time to dash back to the dealer’s hall and tear down the booth. Many people stopped by to see if we needed help. There was kindness everywhere at this event. For the most part Brian and I had it handled. The hardest part was me remembering what came next through my fog of tired brain. It was less than an hour before the booth was packed and loaded into my car.

As we walked back to the convention hall for a final check to make sure nothing was forgotten. I saw a crew loading the Tardis onto a truck.

The workmen have the police box…

And the show is done. All that creative energy has scattered into hiding until there is another event to bring it together again.

Moments that Make the Convention Worthwhile

By / September 7, 2014 / 2 Comments

I was the panel moderator and it was the last minutes when everyone was sharing a last thought with the audience. It came to be my turn and I began to talk. I had a plan for what I wanted to say, but by the second sentence I could tell my words were deviating from my intended course. Yet that third sentence was so obviously right, so necessary that I just followed along with the words to see where they were going. I’ve had such moments before, when I’m given the words that I should say. This was one of those moments. The panel was about structuring life to support creativity and this is approximately what I said:

“It is hard to make space in our lives for creative things. Sometimes it is hard to believe that our creative things deserve any space. Yet the act of creation is powerful and important, even if what we create only ever has an audience of one. Even if the only one changed by it is the creator. This is how the world becomes a better place, one transformation at a time. That’s not what I meant to say when I started talking, so perhaps someone here needed to hear it.”

As I left two different people paused and said they thought it was for them. I know it was also for me, because of late I’ve had a hard time believing that my creative things deserve space.

Moments like that one are why this experience of Salt Lake Comic Con is so different. We came home tired and happy rather than drained and depressed, which is a big improvement over FanX last spring and SLCC last fall. We had a better location, a better network of support with other professionals near us, enjoyable panel schedules for both Howard and me, and we brought our kids with us. That last was something I’ve not done before. I usually try to keep the parenting spaces and the business spaces separate because trying to do both broke my brain. Except the kids are bigger now. They came and they helped work the booth. Patch was excellent at it. He loved telling customers about Schlock, taking credit cards, and interacting with people. Gleek liked those things, but she was far more interested in shopping and in negotiating with me for the most possible things she could buy. However once she had her shiny new things, she settled down. Both kids were really good at running errands and trying to be supportive. Patch stayed for a whole day. When Gleek was offered a ride home with a neighbor, she took it. Link opted out of the whole thing, because he knows his limitations with crowds and this event was likely to make him miserable. Kiki was at college and spent Saturday hiking with a group of college friends.

I leave the convention with a list of what to prepare for the FanX event next spring. I also have a list of all the things that fell behind while I was focused elsewhere. Tomorrow I need to hit the ground running and head out into a new work week.

Salt Lake Comic Con: Where to Find Me

By / September 3, 2014 / 2 Comments

For the next three days I’ll be at Salt Lake Comic Con. The majority of my time will be spent at our booth. It is #1600, right across from the Wordfire booth and near a concessions stand. I hope you’ll stop by. The event is much more fun when people do.

This year I’m also on some panels. If you want to hear me talk, come to one of them. Hope to see you there.

Thursday 3pm Room 255C Geek Parenting: Raising the Next Generation of Geeks

Friday 1pm Room 255E From Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind Also Rises: Why We Love Hayao Miyazaki

Friday 6pm Room 255E Writing and Illustrating Books and Comics for Kids

Saturday 5pm Room 150D Structuring Life to Support Creativity

Saturday 6pm Room 255B The Business Side of Your Dreams

Reasons Why Blogging is Sparse Right Now

By / August 30, 2014

I’ve got Massively Parallel to complete by Monday so that I can upload files to the printer. This must happen so we can have books before Christmas.

I’ve also got a new slipcase to design. This involves nudging things around on my computer, then printing it out on multiple sheets so I can tape it together into a sort-of box shape to see if it works. Then I’m back to the computer to nudge again. This also has to be done by Monday.

I’ve got Salt Lake Comic Con next week, for which I am a panelist. Also we’re running a booth there. And I’ve not even begun all the packing up of merchandise and gear that is necessary.

I’ve got kids with homework who are still in the process of adapting to the demands of school. Also I have to plan ahead so that they have food to eat while I’m away at the convention. And one of them has a birthday that is directly impacted by the convention. We got it wrong last year, so doing better this year is very important.

I’ve put some final touches on the CC PDF. Now I need to find time to put it in front of Howard so that he can put pictures in it.

I’ve got a kid at college, who kept watching for me on Skype so she could talk to me about her first week of school. But I have Skype on my laptop and all my hours have been spent on my desktop design machine. We caught up this evening and she told me all the things, which were lovely to hear about. Only it was already late so the conversation was short.

All of these things fill up my brain. Hopefully there will be more writing in the wake of the convention.

In Which I am Distracted by GenCon and Summer’s End

By / August 14, 2014

There is this list of things that I’m supposed to have done today. Instead I did things which were supposed to happen on other days, or things which were on no lists at all. Part of my fractured attention is because I’m on-call for the GenCon crew. Nothing has been an emergency, just little tweaks. Yet I’ve spent quite a bit of time using our Point of Sale software to check in and see how things are going in far-away Indianapolis. Things are going well. There really isn’t anything I can do to make them go any better, so logic says I should go do something else. Logic is only winning about two rounds out of three today.

It has been a good day here at home as well. Usually the final week before school starts is filled with squabbling, as if the kids can sense the change in the air and it puts them on edge. Today my kids put all of their squabbling energy into playing Super Smash Brothers Brawl. It was every bit as loud, probably louder, but it is building relationships rather than damaging them. So I let them all shout. Later tonight I’ll cook frozen pizza and all will be happy.

Tomorrow morning we’re all headed to a museum for a family outing. It’ll be good for all of us to get out of the house. Me included.

Crunch Time

By / August 9, 2014

In advance of GenCon there are a hundred tasks to be done. Each task is simple taken by itself. The tricky part is remembering to do all of them and sorting them so that they are accomplished during the right windows of time. Merchandise must be shipped early enough to arrive. Ditto Banners. I have to put a credit card on file with the hotel, but that can’t be done earlier than a week in advance. The cash register must be updated. Schedules must be coordinated between the seven person team that is required to run the booth. Each of those listed tasks actually breaks down into a multitude of little steps and I have to remember them all. My task list is always full in the weeks before a large convention.

We actually have two large conventions coming. Salt Lake Comic Con follows GenCon by only two weeks. It is a slightly simpler convention to prepare for, partly because it is local, partly because we have a smaller booth and smaller crew (only four people.) Also some of the work done for GenCon can double for SLCC. We’ll just use the same banner, for instance. Yet there are some time-sensitive tasks related to SLCC that I must also track.

During the week between these two large conventions, my kids will start school. For the younger three, this means we’ve been doing wardrobe assessment and discovering that most of them need some new clothes, underwear, or socks. They’ll use the same school bags that they had last year, but we’ll stock them with new folders and binders. I’ve also been having the kids sort and organize their bedrooms so that they’re both mentally and physically organized for the school year to come. On top of that, Patch had some over-the-summer homework which we ignored until this week. For Kiki “starting school” means that she’ll be packing up all of her things and on the Saturday after Howard comes home from GenCon, I’ll be driving her back to college. Kiki does her own packing and organizing these days, but there are a few tasks, such as making the tuition payment, which require my participation.

Speaking of kid things, between now and the end of August is the time frame that we’ve declared for the completion of Link’s Eagle Scout project. We made a fantastic start with selecting the project, getting it approved, and clearing the site. Then for the last week we’ve been stalled, waiting for someone to get back to me with information. She never did. Instead I had to go shake the information out of an entirely different person and unfortunately the information wasn’t “Sure you can have a donation of materials.” It was “Before we can consider your request we need you to get tax ID numbers for Habitat for Humanity and your scout troop.” The request is reasonable, but it means I’ve left messages with additional people and now I’m waiting for them to call me. I hate waiting. I also hate not being able to clearly see how this project will fit with all the other things. Am I going to spend portions of next week helping Link set up construction help or am I going to spend the next week helping Link figure out how to secure funding? I can’t know until people return my calls and we then go petition in a written letter for a donation of materials.

To make the next few weeks even more interesting, we’re trying to push to send Massively Parallel off to print by August 30. I approve of this push. We need it to line up the Holiday season in the ways it needs to go. It means a pile of work for Howard. It also means work for me, but we’d really love to have the book done in time to let people buy it for Christmas.

I have another book I’d hoped to have ready for Christmas, the Cobble Stones holiday-themed book. There is still time, but my timing sense is telling me I’m already late in prepping it. I should be half way through sending it through writer’s group and I haven’t submitted any of it because I haven’t yet revised any of it. Because I’ve barely had space to do anything that wasn’t already on my task list. It seems like all the minutes of all of my days are spent juggling my priorities so that nothing falls apart. Writing so seldom gets juggled to the top. I know the common wisdom is that I must then seize the time for writing. That is the writer-correct thing to do, but I get very tired. Except tired isn’t quite the right word. I’m not sleepy, I just run out of focus. Writing flows when I have spaces to think and consider. I haven’t had those lately. I probably won’t have them for weeks more. So instead of having words flow naturally out of my thoughts, I have to find the force of will to untangle them from the rats nest of other thoughts which haven’t had time to settle.

Other things that are taking up space in my brain this month:
We’ve had to renew our life insurance policies. This required meeting with an insurance agent whose job it is to first make us very afraid of death and then to convince us that we should salve that fear with large policies. We opted for a policy that will give us two years to find a new normal rather than the set-for-life policy which would have cost more than we can afford annually. Then we had to answer health questionnaires over the phone which made us realize that we’re not the golden life insurance prospects that we once were. It costs more to insure us now. On Monday a tech is going to come and do some blood tests and other basic health measures. After which the insurance company will tell us how much we’ll owe as an annual premium. Whee.

We’re going to have to find a new health insurance provider between now and December 31. We’re probably going to end up enrolled in an ACA program. I’ve barely begun to think about this, but knowing I’m going to have to figure it out looms in my head a little.

We ought to meet with an estate lawyer and set up a living trust. I mean, while we’re dealing with thoughts of mortality, life insurance, and health insurance. Why not just get all the unpleasantness managed.

Last week Howard and I had a meeting where we laid out a timeline on the Schlock RPG, which is a project that requires a Kickstarter. Next year could be one that is completely taken over by running and fulfillment of Kickstarter promises. That’s fine. I’m excited by the things which we might get to make. This combined with everything else means that next year’s schedule is full. Already. Which is a daunting prospect when I’m only nine days into a month that promises to be packed to the gills all the way to the end of it.

Preparing for GenCon

By / July 21, 2014

I wish I’d had more day, or more energy for the day that I had, or even just a little bit more smart to apply to the design tasks that I had in front of me. I kept running out of smart and I had to take breaks so that the smart reservoir could refill.

Today was devoted to GenCon. I spoke with our usual partners, who really feel more like family. I had my annual moment of wondering whether the stress and expense are worth it. I hammered out a list of tasks that still have to be done. Tomorrow belongs to GenCon too.

Our booth captain pointed out to me that next year GenCon happens at the end of July instead of the end of August. It means that it is more possible for me to attend than it has been in years past. That would be fun to be present instead of being the at-home crew. But there are still lots of variables in play. I’m already committed to the Cascade Writers Conference earlier in July. I’ll add GenCon to my list of hopeful possibilities for next year.

The good news is that this year’s wrinkles in the pre-GenCon process are mostly ironed out. Every year it gets smoother. The other good news is that it looks like I’ll be able to squeeze in the cool new merchandise that I thought of, though unfortunately it stole some design attention from Howard when he needs that for other things. On the other hand new GenCon banners were going to steal his attention anyway, so perhaps I needn’t feel guilty.

Tomorrow I box all the things so that they can be shipped.