Organization

Shipping day 1

By / June 4, 2012

Postage printing, invoice sorting, Howard signing the covers of books, then packaging the orders which contained no sketched SEOS books. Everything went smoothly, except that we ran out of boxes. I thought my box shipment would arrive this afternoon, I’ll be here tomorrow instead. So the second half of unsketched orders will go out Wednesday.

Tomorrow morning Travis and Howard sign the covers of books while three of us unbox, stack, stamp, and rebox the books. Then all will be ready for sketching to begin. Howard focused his day today on making a week’s worth of comics. Progress was good.

I’m feeling much better about how things are working. Seeing the process in action helps me a lot.

My Life in Tweets

By / June 3, 2012 / 1 Comment

My brain and hours have been full. If I’m not actually doing a shipping preparation task, I’ve been planning or tracking some business related task. This next week is when It get to send out 1000 presents in the mail to all the nice Schlock fans who gave us money. It is important not to mess this up. It is also important to make sure that Howard doesn’t over tax himself and to make sure that the kids get some attention. There is no “done” this week. It is all in the middle. However there do come times when I stop. Then it is like that schwarma scene at the very end of the Avengers credits, the one that some people find mystifying. I get it though. I’ve been that tired. After high energy, fast-thinking, intense action, there comes a time where it is all you can do to sit and chew. The brain goes blank and minutes drift by without notice. When I am stopped, I have no energy for crafting words. This is why I’ve not blogged since the books arrived on Thursday. I may not blog again for a week. What I will attempt to do is post short updates, probably based on things I’ve said on Twitter. I can pause work long enough for tweet sized thoughts. This means that those of you who follow me on Twitter will be getting re-runs. Sorry about that. If I can muster the energy I’ll add commentary so it’ll be like DVD extras.

Thursday May 31:
Good morning Thursday. I hope you’re planning to bring me a large truck full of books. If not, then I’ll like Friday better.

Thursday, you are my favorite day this week. You brought me 5000 books.

“Better than pulling a dead mouse from behind the dishwasher” is my new measure for unpleasant jobs. In other news, guess what I did today. [Note: this mouse was the cause of the mystery smell I complained about earlier in the week]

Friday June 1:
The things on my to do list won’t stop arguing about what is most important. Sleep. Really. Sleep is most important at 1am.

Made my to do list yesterday, must now zombie walk my way through it because 4 hours is not enough sleep. Glad a smart person made my list.

I have written up The Plan for my next 14 days. It is a lovely plan, full of things. I expect the first plan revision to occur in 3…2…

This is a day for writing things down because my brain is made of forget.

Saturday June 2:
Next week I’ll be posting updates about shipping progress. Such as: “all Schlock sketched books in the mail” Follow @sandratayler now to play along.

Shipping update for Saturday: Sketch sheets printed. Invoices sorted. cover signing and shipping of unsketched books to commence on Monday.

Oh, that’s right. I need to assemble 4 panels for an art show so I can ship them to DeepSouthCon50 on Monday. How many hours left today?

Art show solved: put art into a box, sort it nicely on the other end, I’ll be there to hang it. No careful instructions needed. Yay.

End tweet list.

I should probably note that I am looking forward to this week. Shipping is the week when I can see that this crazy business model really works. It is the time when I work with my hands and we have money to pay the bills. It also presents fun organizational and logistical puzzles. My brain likes these sorts of puzzles. It is just kind of a lot all at once and I wind myself up with being afraid I’ll do it wrong. Even though I’ve done it all before. Even though I have amazing help lined up. There is still that voice in my head which reminds me that I am human and therefore likely to make mistakes. I think I’ll feel much more relaxed once I see the first pile of packages loaded into a mail truck.

Sharp End of the Stick Arrives

By / May 31, 2012 / 3 Comments

It is nice that I am sufficiently familiar with the printing and book delivery process that I don’t panic anymore. I remember spending an entire week eagerly anticipating the arrival of a truck full of books and fretting that somehow all the books would be broken or wrong. It was terrifying to be holding pre-order money and not have the merchandise in hand to send. It is still tense. I always feel something unclench inside me when I crack open the first box on the first pallet of books to see that all is as expected. Each shipment has had its own little adventures. Our first book, Under New Management, arrived a week late so we’d arranged a shipping party and had nothing to ship. Howard ended up renting a truck and driving to Salt Lake to fetch the books. I think it was Tub of Happiness that was delivered in several feet of snow. Teraport Wars was the book where the lift gate on the truck threatened to tip the pallets over as it creakily lowered them to the ground. Emperor Pius Dei gave us a brief fright because all the boxes were stamped with Emperor Plus Dei and we were suddenly terrified that all the books had been misprinted, even though we’d already seen advance copies. These stabs of terror are not rational and reason has trouble banishing them.

Today’s adventure was receiving an email from our printing company to congratulate us on receiving our books yesterday, which we hadn’t. I did not panic, because it is very common for there to be confusion and miscommunication about book delivery. Shipping over seas on a freighter is inexact. The time spent clearing customs varies. So until the books arrive in Salt Lake City, no one is able to give us an exact delivery day. Reason told me that our books had arrived in Salt Lake yesterday and that was what the email meant. But I couldn’t sit still, because What If… I called our printer to tell them that we did not have our books yet. She said she would call the shipping company right away. Then I proceeded to pace while trying to pretend I was not pacing. What if the books had been accidentally delivered to someone else? What if there were no books?

Fortunately about fifteen minutes into my pacing I wandered past the front window and saw a truck in our cul de sac. He had four pallets of books for me.

It turns out that he’d attempted to deliver yesterday, but someone with a forklift had stacked the pallets on top of each other and they were too heavy to move that way. So he’d hauled the pallets back to Salt Lake to have them unstacked. An automatic system notified our printer of the first delivery and confusion was explained. This is our 13th time receiving shipments of books. There is always something unexpected.

Now I can begin to nail down the shipping schedule in earnest.

Summer Strings

By / May 30, 2012

Sometimes sleep is not easy, something internal is too restless or misaligned and I lay awake in the darkness instead of resetting my mind and body for the next day. The day following an insomniac night is either fantastically productive as my mind snaps into a sort of overdrive, or the whole day is like jogging in water. I still get places, but it all seems to take a lot longer and be more work. On a jogging in water day, I spend a significant amount of energy figuring out how to realign whatever internal rhythms allow for falling asleep quickly. Generally it takes a few days for the sleeplessness to resolve.

I wanted to accomplish a hundred things today, but I was jogging through water. This was the last full day of school before our life shifts into a summer rhythm. I know what it will look like. I have plans for making it work, but I wanted more groundwork in place. I wanted the house cleaner, things more organized. I wanted more business tasks complete. The next few weeks are very tightly focused, like focusing my camera on the strings of my hammock.

Beyond those strings, these few weeks, there are large green spaces that I both long for and dread. They will offer more freedom to relax and will leave space for all my carefully planned life structures to shlump unto untidy heaps. I like sitting in my hammock, it is a small and cozy space, supportive and comforting. I like that I’m beginning this summer with the energizing focus of book shipping.

One of my children came home with a packet of summer homework. It isn’t much. I’ve shoved it in a place where we can think about it again in August. The onset of school next fall is out beyond the open green spaces. It is something else entirely and I’m not yet rested enough to contemplate it. For now I’ll sit in my hammock, wrap my fingers in the strings, and contemplate the green spaces.

Testing the Summer Schedule

By / May 28, 2012 / 1 Comment

I declared today a test run on my planned summer schedule even though it is Memorial day and thus a holiday. I set my alarm to go off at 6:30 and dragged myself out of bed at 7 after only three snoozes. I have discovered that summer days are really long when I do not sleep through a third of them. I’ve made good progress on my to do list for the day.

The first item of business was to tackle the over-abundance of clothing. All of my kids have enough clothes to fill their laundry baskets and still have things slopping out of the dresser drawers. So I declared that every single item of clothing would be examined for size, whether the person likes it, and if it fits. I now have four dressers neatly full of clothes and four garbage bags full of things to give to a thrift store. Link’s dresser is the one exception. He assured me that everything in it fit just fine. I’m pretty certain that he just crammed everything in without folding, but since he does his own laundry and the drawers are neatly closed, I’m just going to take his word. Kiki did her own sorting too. Mostly I had to help the younger pair and then apply the same standards to myself. One of the most important things I can have in my house is extra space. The space lets me see what I need and how to arrange it.

Next I forced myself to sit down and make a meal plan for the week. I don’t like meal planning, having one is great, making one uses up creative energy that I would rather spend on other things. Meal planning is particularly hard on the change-over from spring to summer; Suddenly lots of my fall-back meal options become forbidden because using the oven mid-summer makes the house hot and drives up the bill for AC. I have to dredge my memories to remember what we used to make last summer. Somehow switching from summer to winter feels like it opens up cooking options even though it just changes them. Adding to the difficulty, I’m trying to change my default meals. Chips and chili is easy, but it is not particularly healthy nor cheap. Step one on our push toward frugality and healthy eating is to eliminate ready-made things like chicken nuggets and chimichangas. The meal plan is made. The shopping is done. Hopefully I can just follow the instructions for the rest of the week.

As part of my newly-remodeled office, I set up a desk space for Kiki. It is a little studio space for her to store her supplies and to work on projects. I spent some time helping her see how to use things we already had to make the space usable. It is still not finished, but no studio space is ever “finished.” At least now she can see her supplies and use them to inspire her to make art. Once the space was set up, Kiki trekked down to the local art store for some new brushes. She discovered that the store is closed on Mondays, but that they have a Help Wanted sign in their window. Now she has big plans to dash down there first thing tomorrow and apply for a job.

With all of that completed, I looked at the clock. It was only 2 pm. I wandered outdoors to pull some weeds, plant some flowers. When I came back in it was 3:30. In just a little while I’ll need to follow my dinner instructions. Then I have to get kids to bed on time, because it is not quite summer yet. We still have three days of school. They’re mostly goof off days, dance festivals, and field days, but the kids need to be there.

Preparation and Follow Up

By / May 10, 2012 / 1 Comment

In the category of preparation:
Preorders for Sharp End of the Stick open on Monday. Before that can happen I have work to do. I spent a portion of today setting up our online store. I also need to set up some rules and logistics so that we can run a social media contest. At least three lucky Schlock fans will be able to get copies of SEOS a month before anyone else. These advance copies ought to go somewhere that they’ll be loved.

The other thing that is happening next week is my departure for Nebula weekend. I’ve got some sewing to do in advance. Howard needs some alterations for his steampunk costume. He departs for World Steam Expo only a few days after I get back from Nebula Weekend. I do not want to count on having brain cells available for sewing in those three days, so it needs to be done now. I’ve also got a couple of things I want to alter before taking them with me to Nebula Weekend.

In the category of follow up:
I went to a writer’s conference last weekend. While there, I met several lovely agents and editors. I need to package up some queries and send them off to these lovely people. My book has zero chance of selling if I never send it anywhere. I’ve also made some notes about things to update on my website. Even more importantly, I released Cobble Stones in a manner that was more like sliding it under the door than giving it a fanfare. I should do an actual marketing push for the book, which means contacting some of the nice book bloggers I met at the writer’s conference. Also, I should write new things.

My office is 85% complete (the remaining 15% is organization and shelving), but our family room is still a jumbled mess. It contains furniture and things which I evicted from my office for construction and have decided will not be going back. Some of it needs to be hauled to a thrift store the rest needs to be sorted and given new homes somewhere else in the house. Hopefully I’ll be able to vacuum the family room sometime before Sunday.

We’re three weeks out from the end of school. There are all sorts of trailing educational ends which need to be tied up before the school doors close for the summer. Kiki has to finish her AP art portfolio. Link needs to bring up his grades. Gleek and Patch have projects and performances nearing completion. My brain tracks all of this, even the things that the kids ought to be tracking for themselves.

By this time next week I hope to have it all done.

I Keep My Brain in My Office

By / April 28, 2012 / 3 Comments

I am very tired today and I have learned an important thing about myself; I store parts of my brain function in the organizational structure of my house. Once I got the correct desk installed in my office and set up my computer on it, much of my inability to prioritize vanished. This effect increased as I moved my books and projects into their new places in my office. I depend upon visual reminders to help me keep track of what I need to do during the day. I post school notes on the kitchen bulletin board and on my fridge. My old computer hutch was papered with post-it notes. A business card sitting at the foot of my monitor would remind me of an email to send. With all of that stuff packed away in boxes I carried a level of stress and internal confusion. My written to do list has all of those reminders as well, but apparently my back brain requires spacial orientation to the tasks. It is fascinating. I may get more analytical about why this works for me at some other time. For now I am very tired.

In the last two weeks I’ve been to IKEA four times (Howard once), Home Depot six times, Lowe’s twice, and I think there was a Walmart run in there as well. Each time I was making expensive purchasing decisions or returning the results of last trip’s bad decisions. I helped three kids keep track of their work so they could get it done. I kept in touch with my parents (Grandma is better, moved back into the physical rehabilitation facility). The prom dress was altered, not perfectly, but well enough. Kiki was sent off smiling to prom. Gleek is into the middle of her time swap. All of this week’s critical tasks are done all of it despite multiple nights of insomnia followed by mornings where I had to get up early. Next week has a new list of critical tasks, I am not going to think about them tonight. Instead I’m going to show you pictures of my remodeled office, because it is pretty. …

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The Next Seven Weeks

By / April 9, 2012 / 1 Comment

In the next seven weeks we have:
re-building the shipping system
all the end-of-school activities of which I’ve not yet been notified
advance copies of Sharp End of the Stick (SEOS)
a school art gala
opening pre-orders for SEOS
Kiki’s AP art portfolio
receiving the SEOS shipment
teaching at LDS Storymakers conference
sending me to the Nebula weekend in DC
a time-swap week during which Gleek will pretend to be living in a pre-computer era
sending Howard to World Steam Expo in Ann Arbor
a dance festival
a week long visit from my mom
office remodeling
unspecified child crises which will pop up randomly and inconveniently
field day
preparations for Deep South Con in June

All of those things are important, as are preparations for GenCon and WorldCon. But this week contains the most important event of the entire year. This is when Howard and I gather the kids and flee our work to go do nothing in particular in southern Utah. The only agenda is to be together. Hopefully fun will be had, but even if crankiness is had, that is fine. Uninterrupted time together is the point.

As for the other stuff, I’m not particularly stressed about it all. I can see where everything fits. It is going to be busy, but not crazy. I hope.

How I Spent My Conference Saturday: A Report of an Ordinary Day

By / March 31, 2012

General Conference Saturday is the day when I turn on the radio and work at some project while I listen to the elders of my church teach about true principles and how to be better people. This time I decided that my project would be a major re-organization effort in Gleek’s room. She hoards things. In the space of two hours I hauled four trash bags of stuff from her room. Most of it was actual garbage, cardboard boxes, crumpled papers, paper bags, candy wrappers. Some of it was the remnants of games long forgotten. Some of it was things that got broken because they were buried. None of it is stuff that she will ever miss or think of again. Sometimes things enter our lives and then stick around long after the purpose for them has gone.

The two hours of conference ended before the job was done, but in the space between sessions I went on errands. I was in need of new shirts. I bought a whole pile of new shirts three years ago. They served me well, but about the only good thing left to say about them is that they are still serviceable. I wanted some shirts that I would not be embarrassed to wear in public. Fortunately the Merona brand at Target is reliably inexpensive and looks good on me. I discovered that this year’s spring palette is perfectly designed to be all my favorite colors and to compliment my skin tones. I don’t think I’ve seen bright persimmons and oranges like these since I was a teenager. I bought an array of shirts. I’m going to watch for sales and buy more to stash away for when these become merely serviceable. This will be important because either next year or the year after all of these lovely colors are going to go out of fashion again. Perhaps this inclination of mine might indicate where Gleek gets some of her tendency to hoard.

My next stop was Sam’s Club. In an effort to be a healthier person, I’ve taken to eating salad for lunch. Sam’s has big cartons of Spring Mix lettuce for just $4. It provides me lunch for almost two weeks. I am amazed at how much lettuce is crammed into these containers. I drove the long way to Sam’s Club because the construction-crowded freeway is a place to be avoided on conference weekend when the roads are filled with out of town visitors. As I drove this more leisurely route, my eye caught on the pair riding a scooter ahead of me. A middle aged man was driving, but his passenger was an elderly man. I watched them as they chatted while stopped at a traffic light. They were quite obviously enjoying the same beautiful spring weather which had me driving with my windows down. I imagined a whole little story for this man and his grandfather. Seeing them made me happy.

The second session of conference let me finish Gleek’s room. Four hours of work and four garbage bags of things which are leaving my house never to clutter again. This makes me quite glad. Though one of the conference talks did make me cry. It was unexpected to be feeling contented and happy then be crying. I felt like Amy in the fifth season of Doctor Who, when something reminds her of the boyfriend who was wiped from her memory. She would be happy and then suddenly crying without knowing why. Oh well. It passed quickly and I finished the job I was doing.

To complete the day, I pulled out my hammock swings and hung them in the back yard. Then I sat in one and drifted for awhile. That was followed by a phone conversation with Howard, always worthwhile. Up next: dinner. Then later this evening I’ll sit down and watch some Avatar with the kids. All in all, a very good day.

Getting Through

By / March 7, 2012 / 2 Comments

I’ve been here before, holding my young son tight while he grieves for a friend moved away. I’ve done it for both of my sons. The parallels are hard to ignore. They each gained a friend as a toddler. Both friends were red-headed. Both friends lived only a house or two away from ours. Then around the time the boys turned 9 or 10, the friend moved away. If I had a third son, I might be inclined to be wary. The pattern is illusory, a coincidence. This week it is Patch’s turn to grieve. The grief is compounded because this close friend is the third of Patch’s friends to move away recently. All I can do is hold him and agree that this is hard. I’ll also make arrangements for the friend to come visit, but it is not the same as when he lived next door. Patch needs to grieve. I just have to hold on to him while he does.

We rearranged Link’s class schedule yesterday. He had reached the point of despair. He’d done fine in debate class while the focus was on public speaking practice, but the class was poised to squash him with practiced orations, impromptu speeches, and competitive debates. The first section was good for him, but it was time to get him out. Fortunately we have a good advocate at the school who made this process simple for us. Link feels tons lighter and is ready to pull up all his grades which had been slipping due to stress. I have my own sorting to do. I was the one who put him into the debate class. It really felt like the right decision at the time. I told Link that I think putting him in was right and that now taking him out is right. But there is a quiet voice in my head which wonders if I’m telling this story because it casts my decisions in a good light. It is possible that I was just wrong. I’m afraid of that possibility because so many of the parenting decisions I make are based on informed instinct. I guess I just have to get it wrong and move on.

The book isn’t done yet. I intended for it to be done by now. My mind can trace back to decisions a week ago, two weeks ago, when I did not work as hard as I could have. I was not pushing then. Then all sorts of urgencies converged into the same two weeks: the last mad scramble to prepare everything for LunaCon, Howard’s birthday sale and accompanying shipping days, the final stages of book editing, the final stages of art for the Schlock board game, two family birthdays, and three out of four kids having valid emotional issues which needed immediate attention in order to avoid crisis. Events descended on me in a pack. I still haven’t sorted it all out and most of it is in various stages of incompleteness. Then threaded through it all is the feeling that there are other things which I was supposed to be starting right now. There are creative tasks which I should have already begun in order to have them done before the time runs out.

I’m doing what I can. I haven’t actually failed at any of it yet. But it feels like I have and that is murking up my thinking spaces. The way out is through, so I’m focusing on the things right in front of me. I do quick checks to make sure that I don’t get ambushed by deadlines, but mostly I just do the work at hand. If I keep doing that, then sometime next week I’ll discover that I’ve emerged into my life with more quiet spaces in it.