Self

Without financial considerations

By / September 15, 2010

What would I do with the next year if money were not a concern?

There are things I would buy (like new glasses or a replacement for the embarrassing front room couch) that have been waiting for a long time. There are home repairs I would pay someone else to do. But the most important expenditure of money would be to hire some one else to be the business manager/shipping clerk. I would turn over all that product design, email management, convention preparation, and book shipping to someone else. I would keep all the parenting stuff. It is mine no matter how much money I have. Then I would use the free time to garden, read, bird watch, and write.

What would I write?
I would finish that essay book. I would create family photo books. I would still do book lay out for the Schlock books. I would write the short stories which have been kicking around forever. I would write half a dozen picture books and put them into print. Perhaps after all that, I would discover space in my mind for a novel to grow.

So my life would look pretty much exactly as it does now, just in better repair with more discretionary time.

This points out to me that some of my current emotional wrangling is not about whether or not I should be writing. It is about how to spend my limited resources of time and emotional energy. I question the value of my writing only because it does not currently provide any money. The ironic bit is that if I could stop spending emotional energy fretting about money stuff then my life would be all around happier.

I should point out that we don’t actually have money worries, I’m just fretting because I don’t have six months worth of bills sitting in my bank account right this minute. Some parts of my brain argue this is a reasonable goal for a business owner whose primary income stream fluctuates dramatically. Other parts of my brain point out that most people don’t have that much money stashed away and I can see where the money will be coming from in the next six months. Then the first part of my brain starts spouting about counting chickens before they’re hatched. This causes the second part of my brain to express disdain that we’re resorting to folk tales as the basis of arguments. At this point I realize that I’ve spent 30 minutes thinking the same set of thoughts that I’ve spun around before and it didn’t take me anywhere this time either.

So I need to figure out how to silence the voices and use those 30 minutes for writing, or gardening, or anything else instead. It isn’t as easy to do as it is for me to type. I need to perform the same mental trick on all the business management stuff that I do. Because while I would hand it off if we could afford to pay someone, there are parts of the job that are really satisfying. And the truth is that these tasks have a much larger emotional footprint than they need to have. I stress over them too much. If I could get that piece under control, then the actual time to do the job is fairly negligible.
Why do I stress over little things?
because if I get them wrong it might interrupt the flow of income.
Why is the income so important?
Because I love the life we have and I want to keep it.

Strange how money stress can trickle through and change the colors of everything if I don’t pay attention to what is happening. If I am not careful, money stress can destroy the very happiness that I want the money to preserve. Fortunately since this problem is in my head, I can fix it there. Then suddenly my life will be brighter and more hopeful even though my actions and situation have not changed a bit.

Or so the theory goes. I’m working on it.

The thing I am meant to do

By / September 12, 2010

Today’s church meeting was full of things for me to mull over. Mostly it is still percolating, but one piece has bubbled to the surface. One of the speakers talked about not wasting time, but instead getting out and finding the thing we are meant to do. I pondered the question of what I am meant to do and the answer is multitudinous. I do not have one big thing that will define my life. I have many things which need me to accomplish them.

This is actually a relief. If I mess something up it does not disrupt the whole purpose of my existence. So instead of stressing over the grand purpose of my life, I merely have to ask “what is the most important thing for me to do today.” If I do that every day, and remember that urgent is not the same as important, then my life will be exactly what it should be.

Emotional Journey Triggered by Revision Notes

By / September 1, 2010

This week I had my first experience with editorial notes on a piece of my writing that will be published. I found fascinating the emotional processes I had to dispatch so that I could focus on the suggested changes and decide how to implement them. The emotional arcs are particularly fascinating to me as I’ve had turns being a critiquer and an editor. I’ve been the one to dish out editorial advice and I know how hard it can be to criticize constructively. I appear to be very fortunate in my editor in this regard.

The revision notes for my essay arrived in my mailbox during the middle of a week filled with child meltdowns. Remembering that a fellow writer’s group member always makes sure to thank us for complaining about his work, I fired off an immediate Thank You. Then I put the notes aside until I could make space for them. Well, almost. I glanced through first. And discovered that I am far from immune to criticism. I was afflicted by odd flashes of irritation. I was not able to identify why until I had space in my schedule and forced myself to give a more thorough reading to the notes.

I was irritated because I was tired and the notes pointed out very clearly places where I could work much harder to improve the writing. I was also momentarily irritated when the same issue was pointed out in multiple places. “I get it already!” the back of my brain insisted while the front of my brain knew that pointing out all the examples is part of an editor’s job. Also there is no way for an editor alone with a page of text to know which points will be rapidly clear to an author and which will need multi-iteration to sink in. That kind of rapport can be built over time, but this is the first set of notes. Harder to resolve emotionally for me were the few places where editorial suggestions ran counter to what I felt was right for the piece. This originally manifested as irritation, but once I saw the disconnect, I instantly shifted into problem solving.

The larger emotional curve I had to weather in relation to the editorial notes was not about the notes at all. The subject matter of this essay is very close to my heart. In order to properly revise, I have to dig out all that old emotion and pin it to the page again. I worried that the zeitgeist which led me to write the piece would be gone. I worried that I could not make it any better than I already had. I knew that the revision process would wear me out.

Once that whole mess of emotions was acknowledged, a last emotion emerged and filled me up. Gratitude. Multiple editors have looked at my essay. They know it is flawed and they want it anyway. They not only want my essay, but they are giving me the gift of their time and energy to tell me how I can make the essay even better. I can not express how honored I feel that they care for my words.

Once I cleared all of that out of my head. The actual revision went very well. I’m going to let it settle for a couple of days, look it over again, and then it will be back to the editor for publication or more notes. Even if there are more notes, I don’t think I’ll have to deal with the emotions again. Which is good.

Writing and cleaning

By / August 31, 2010

Tomorrow I need to unpack my writer brain and work on an essay revision. Part of me longs to return to focused writing. Another part dreads the return of ambitious thoughts. I’m still soul-tired from the schedule this past summer. I’m still not feeling balanced in the school schedule or the finances. There are still emotional and actual bills to be paid. I would love to let all of that settle out. Then I would get bored. And then I would be excited to take on a new project, which could be writing.

I cleaned my front room yesterday. I think this is the first time it has been orderly since school let out. It was so nice that I cleaned up the kitchen as well. Both still need detail work, but the central spaces are open, ready for whatever comes next. I want that in the rest of the house. I want that in my mind and heart. Both are full of things not put away, things broken, things new, things old, things which are no longer useful, things for which I must make places. I want time to sort through the mess, not quickly but thoroughly. I want to organize closets. I want to haul out bags of garbage. And suddenly I realize that I am ready for a project. Cleaning is my project. But I am not going to attack it with energy, just do a little each day until I meander my way to a good place.

I still have to revise tomorrow. There is a deadline. Pulling out the writing thoughts will change my internal emotional landscape. But I think it is a necessary part of the clean up. I was going to have to organize that closet anyway.

Thoughts on being older and managing my own thoughts

By / August 17, 2010 / 4 Comments

On Sunday I attended a social event with a group of people whom I enjoy. There were a couple dozen of us there and I had a great time. It was only after the fact that I realized that I was the oldest person at the event. (Howard stayed home with sick Patch.) All of these people are peers for me, many of them are approximately my age, only younger by a year or two. But all of them have families who are younger than mine. They are still firmly in the world of Elementary school and pre-school, while I have two teenagers. The same is true Howard’s siblings, with whom we gathered for a reunion yesterday. Their oldest kids are matched to my younger ones. We’re in different life stages and I have to shift gears in my brain to remember being where they are. Then I feel strange and old because their present is my past. Then I get over it an just enjoy visiting with all these people whom I like.

I begin to understand why people pay attention to forty as a birthday. It isn’t about being physically old. It is about seeing age coming and about seeing the choices you didn’t make. It is about having adult life stages behind me. I’m still a couple of years away from forty and I’ve already got these thoughts in my head. I have never wanted to be a person who complained about getting old. I have always wanted to be happy in myself no matter what. This is the reason that I pay attention to these thoughts. I drag them out in the open and look them in the eye. Then I decide what to do about it.

Of late I have had strong thought elements revolving around being boring, unattractive, and old. These are familiar thoughts. They arrive when I am strained and empty, when I have not had enough time alone to sort my thoughts. I just have to retain enough self awareness so that I can see them for the indicators that they are instead of swimming in them. Right now they flood me because school is incoming and I am uncertain what normal will look like next month. One of the things I have to fit into the new normal is time for me to rest and recharge.

Social events help when I haven’t used all my social energy on business tasks. So I visit with my friends and talk with them about life stages that I’ve already been through. Or I visit with my other friends and talk with them about life stages I’ve yet to experience. These second types of conversations are incredibly helpful to me in managing where I am and where I’ll be heading next. And when I realize that, I’m glad that I get to have the first kind of conversation as well. They help me view my life again so that I can find patterns I did not see before. Then I realize it really is not about who is older or younger, who has more or less experience. They joy is in sharing our experiences so that we all have a broader view of things as they are and as they could be.

A Trio of Thoughts on a Sunday Afternoon

By / August 15, 2010

I have succeeded in rummaging through everyone’s drawers and assembling a set of clothes that will look coordinated for a family photo tomorrow morning. The intelligent thing to do would have been to do the rummaging yesterday so that I could go shopping if necessary. But I was not ready to think about it yesterday. Instead we are loaning shirts to some family members and hoping that they will not retain the unpleasantness of loaned-shirt as the primary memory attached to the photo.

Patch woke up with a fever this morning. I discovered it after I was already dressed for church. So I sent everyone off without me, sent Patch back to bed, and sat down to have church at home. Mostly this involved reading scriptures, singing a hymn, and studying the lesson I would have heard if I had gone. The largest part of the time I spent writing a journal entry in my hand-written journal. That is the place I spill my rambling thoughts without editing. In my blog entries I try to retain some semblance of focus. In the paper journal I just spill my thoughts onto the page. Often I am surprise to see what lands on the page. Today the page was much covered with specific concerns for each child as they begin school. I also spent time contemplating my stalled writing projects. I reached no startling new conclusions. I just need to keep on going and hope that the path lays somewhat closer to my hopes than to my fears.

I have three social events this week and I actually have time and emotional energy to look forward to them. This is very nice.

Convention wrap up

By / August 8, 2010

The convention is over. The boxes are packed and hauled away for shipping and storage. Nothing went wrong. There were no disasters. I can feel myself unwinding, relaxing. This whole event has been a very stressful one for me. It was filled with things I knew I could do, but had never actually done. Most of them were small things, like calling for a cab. But small things add up and filled the weekend with variables rather than certainties. I spent most of the event riding an emotional sine wave with oscillations between overwhelmed and okay. I tried to keep all of it suppressed so that my oscillations did not affect those around me, but they’re smart people and they could tell I was stressed.

More than anything else this event taught me that large events require a crew. We had an amazing booth crew. Problems were solved without me even knowing that they existed. They had things so well in hand that I was able to be away from the booth more than I was present at it. That capability was critical because I had to shepherd Kiki and Link through the show, keep track of them, and make sure that they were safe. This was made easier by the third cell phone we acquired several weeks ago. Kiki and Link are fairly self sufficient and were very good about following instructions. Even so, there were several times when I felt like I’d lost track of them or was not doing as much as I could to maximize their convention experiences. This was where my second crew came in, the one I hadn’t even considered as a crew, but who turned out to be invaluable in reducing my stress and helping me make sure the parenting portion of this event was a success.

Friends drove down from Michigan specifically to visit Howard and I. They hauled me out to lunch and listened to me ramble about my stresses. I mentioned how I wanted Link to have a chance to explore some games that were not electronic. They then introduced me to one of their friends who is here demoing board games. Together we collected Link and hauled him, despite his protests, to a board game room where he proceeded to have fun for hours. The whole process was one of those moments where I am filled with gratitude at not being alone in the tasks that are in front of me.

These same friends then continued to hang with Howard and I through dinner and late into the evening. It was so good to have familiar people near me. We wandered the convention looking at the spectacle and talking. We wandered by the place where giant structures were created out of cards then knocked down by a siege of small change. Then the change was collected to donate to charity. It is only one example of the activities at the convention. Everywhere we looked adults were expending energy and creativity on play activities. I love this about science fiction/fantasy/gaming conventions. Grown ups get to play. I’m very glad my kids got to witness it. At the end of an evening wandering with good friends I was calm and happy for the first time in the entire convention. I was sad to say goodbye, but they had to go home.

Going to church this morning completely changed my emotional landscape in regard to the convention. The kids and I walked into the church building and it was like we had taken a single step that transported us home. The feel of the place and the format of the meeting was completely familiar. My brain was too full for me to pay focused attention to the speakers, it was the place I needed. I finally had sufficient clarity of thought to see a disconnect in my own thinking which has been creating emotional dissonance.

When deciding what events and challenges fit into our lives, I evaluate them for business usefulness and family strain. These are important measures in decision making. I have been neglecting a critical third evaluation measure. After I do all my logical, logistical, and emotional evaluation, I need to step back from all that I’ve previously considered. I need to pray and try to feel whether the thing I am considering is right or wrong for our business and family. I did this today. I sat in church and prayed about our attendance at GenCon both this year and next. Both feel right. Having that confirmation separate from business considerations was amazing. All my conflicted feelings about the amount of effort and expense vanished. With them went my worries about the strains on our family and about working on Sunday. I felt peace and was thus able to be happy about the convention as a whole. After church I returned to the booth and it was fun. Having the quiet confirmation gives me a big stick with which I can beat back the voices of doubt. Because doubt always sneaks in the back door and tries to make me second-guess my stressful decisions.

This convention has been full of amazing things about which I’ll be telling stories for years to come. The stressful aspects will fade away. Next year will be easier because fewer things will be new. We won’t have as many set up costs. I can truly and honestly say that this has been a good show and I finish it feeling both happy and grateful to have been here.

Thoughts on ambition in the absense thereof

By / July 30, 2010 / 1 Comment

My ambition appears to be AWOL right now. Not surprisingly in the absence of ambition, I’m finding it hard to feel stressed about this. I would probably be more worried about it, but it has done this before. My ambitious drive is somewhat similar to my childhood dog who would periodically escape our yard to wander for a bit. He always came home, just as I know that my drive to create and put myself forward professionally will come back to me. But in its absence I find myself reveling in the calm security of home things. And I wonder why on earth I wanted to struggle to write and then put myself through an emotional grinder to attempt to publish. I already have so many important and difficult things to do without that as well.

But in the back of my brain a quiet little voice whispers a that once I had a strong feeling that finishing my book is somehow important. The voice is a mere echo, soft and low. I hear it, but I’m not ready to rediscover that sense of importance. I’m not ready to do all the hard and scary things necessary to bring that project to completion. It has been so nice to vanish into my supportive roles, to be wife, mother, business manager, neighbor, sister, daughter, and friend; all roles where I am defined by how I relate to others. I even find scriptural and religious evidence that self-abnegation in the service of others is a good thing. I remember how a decade ago I used to picture myself as a sturdy, deep thread in the tapestry of life; the kind of thread that is almost invisible but makes the beautiful patterns possible. That is who my younger self believed I would be. I remember that then wonder from whence came the drive which has me stepping forward to attempt to weave a shiny pattern of my own? Religion and scripture answer me here as well. Yes, I am to serve others, but the primary point of my existence on earth is to learn, grow, and become. The service I give is to teach me as much as it is to bind me to others and assist them. Because all I will get to take with me when I go are the things in my head and the relationships I have formed.

So I am called to step forward, do hard things, be not afraid. I must follow the call, not for personal ambition or aggrandizement, but because I feel it is the right thing to do. The call is soft right now, like the distant bark of a dog headed home, but I know it is coming. Then it will be time to stop resting and work again. At the moment I don’t look forward to that, but I know when I get there I will find the work rewarding.

Fashion, Haircuts, and Folk Art

By / July 26, 2010

When I look in the mirror these days I feel weathered. Not old, I get too many things done and carry far too many boxes of books to feel old. But the mirror was not showing me things I wanted to see. I kept noticing wrinkles, and other signs of aging. I’ve always been one who believed that wrinkles add character and create beauty. I’ve always intended to be a person who doesn’t mind them, and treats them as badges of a life well lived. And I have been that person, except lately, when I feel weathered.

On some level, I knew that my negative observations about my appearance were not because my appearance changed dramatically. I don’t look visibly different than I did three months ago. The difference is psychological, not physical. I feel grubby, boring, unattractive. This is the quite understandable result of being task focused for several months. My primary focus for personal grooming was to ready myself for the job ahead of me. I had no time to spare for more than the minimum of getting dressed and keeping my long hair out of my face. This past week I had time to pay attention again, and this is when I noticed how I was feeling about myself.

For some people fashion is a business or an industry. Some people consider it a social imperative. For me, fashion is a folk art. It is something I do because it gives me pleasure. I knew I needed to make an effort to put it back. What I was not sure of was how to go about that. I decided against going shopping for clothing. I’m feeling very cautious about spending money until after we see how well things sell at our GenCon booth. I seriously considered cutting my hair short. There are things I miss about having short hair. I played with the idea of coloring my hair as well. But a good cut and color are not at all cheap. And I did not want to have to explain over and over again why I had cut my hair. The point of the hair cut would be to infuse me with energy, which gets sapped by having to deal with other peoples reactions to the absence of long hair. (Side note: If you have long hair and cut it short, everyone wants to know why. Then they want to lament for the long hair that is now gone.) Add to that the knowledge that most women make drastic changes to their hair when something else in their life is askew. I knew this was exactly why I was considering a drastic change. I also knew that I was on the way back to being balanced, so I waited to see if the mood to cut would go away.

For me the point of long hair is the beautiful styles that can be created with it. If all I am going to do is throw it into a braid to keep it out of my way, I might as well cut it off. Then Last night I googled historical hairstyles on the internet. Once again my head is full of possibilities and many of them do not take much time at all. This morning I took a few extra minutes to put my hair up. I even stuck a flower in it. It is not much. I still don’t like everything I see when I look in the mirror, but I like it better than I did yesterday. I see the improvement in my face as well as in my hair, which makes clear to me that the faults I am seeing are as much inside my head as they are outside it. This is why I try not to listen to the voice which enumerates my physical faults. That voice has motives that I should not trust, no matter how loud the voice may be right now. Easier said than done, but I can get better at anything if I’m willing to practice.

As a side note, I’m extremely grateful to have time for folk art again.

The cupboard in my mind

By / July 23, 2010

I have many metaphors to explain how my mind works. I swap them out at will, using whichever one most aptly describes my experience at that moment. Today I am picturing my life as a workspace with tables, shelves, cupboards, and filing cabinets. I am finally to a place where I am finishing off projects and clearing tables that have been buried for months. I’ve had time to pull out the contents of the parenting shelves and look at the work that needs to be done there. I’ve also been shuffling things around on the housekeeping shelf. These are good things. I’m glad to have time to give them some of my focused attention, rather than scattered maintenance.

Behind me is a cupboard. The door on the cupboard is closed. In that cupboard are my writer thoughts. I put them away and shut the door once I saw how busy I was. I simply could not afford to trip over them while in the midst of other things. For the first while I added things to the cupboard, supplies for future need. I closed the door firmly each time. But as the busy time prolonged, my brain simply stopped collecting writerly thoughts. I let them go rather than trying to store them. So the thoughts in the cupboard waited. When I open the cupboard I will find everything stacked away neatly. It will take me some time and effort to pull the ideas out, remember where I was, and re-teach my brain to collect those writerly thoughts. I know how it will go because I’ve put away writer thoughts many times over the years. Sometimes I grieved at having to put them away. This time I did not, because I knew they would wait for me.

I have not opened the cupboard yet. I’m a little afraid to. Usually a hiatus from writing is followed by a period of intense creativity. I’m not ready for that. I still want to rest. I want to finish off the summer conventions. I want to get the kids settled in school. But I’m not sure I’ll wait that long. Because I could keep making excuses for why I should wait. The things I keep in that cupboard bring me joy even though they are a lot of work. I am almost rested enough to want that work again. I did not open the cupboard today, but I did some preparatory work. I finally installed Word onto my laptop, which has been without a word processor since it crashed several months ago. The time is near, but for now I’ll turn away from the cupboard and put the kids to bed.