Work

Score Card for the Week

By / October 27, 2011

Projects completed:

Gleek’s multi-page mystery story featuring the ghost of the explorer Samuel De Champlain which needed to demonstrate the qualities of an explorer, have at least three clues, have at least three obstacles, be detailed, and typed. With a card stock cover.

Kiki’s art project for reflections which she originally envisioned as five small paintings matted together to create a single image. But then some of the details were too small for painting, it didn’t turn out how she pictured, and she decided she hated it. In the end she stayed up til 3 am the night before it was due, discarded three of the paintings to finish up the other two, and still was not happy with the result. At least it got turned in.

Gleek’s explorer board game based on the life of Samuel De Champlain. We re-purposed all the pieces from a CSI Miami board game that I found at the thrift store. There was much cutting, pasting, taping, and gluing to get everything in place.

Link’s balsa wood bridge. He did this pretty much by himself, both carefully and methodically. There was a moment of panic in the final assembly, but all turned out well.

Link’s book reports. He had to finish up two book reports before the end of the term. This meant finding and reading books then writing the reports. Fortunately both the books and the reports can be short. One down so far.

Putting up t-shirts in the store and then shipping them. All the packages ordered before 8 am yesterday are out the door.

Howard spent some time designing new merchandise. Most of these items are ready to go.

Gleek’s Tiffany Aching costume. This included the creation of a book entitled The Goode Childe’s Booke of Faerie Tales and the acquisition of a black witches hat.

Patch’s Nac Mac Feegle costume. The Halloween shopping fairies smiled upon me yesterday afternoon and let me find all the needed pieces in a single store. I have a little bit of minor sewing to do, but I still count finding all the pieces as a win.

Projects incomplete:

Mailing another 30 or so packages.

Link’s second book report.

Kiki’s page-long Japanese translation assignment, which was due today.

The repair of the furnace which decided not to heat the house today. Current house temp 61 degrees and dropping.

The repair of my windshield so that I can pass safety and emissions and re-register the car. Also so that I can get that chugging noise in the engine checked.

Howard wanted to draw several weeks of comics, hasn’t happened yet.

Helping both Kiki and Link figure out costumes.

All the less urgent things which got shoved so far out of my brain that I can’t remember what they are. However I will remember them quite clearly next week when they still aren’t done.

Patch’s reflections project which he had originally envisioned as a visual arts piece, but discovered that creating what he had in his mind was beyond his current capabilities. The new plan is for him to write a story on the theme instead. This is due next week. Time must be made for it over the weekend.

Gleek’s book report. This is due on Monday. Fortunately she has already read the book and the report itself is not particularly difficult to put together.

Emotional dramas endured this week:

Gleek’s fear that her story and game were not good enough.

Kiki’s emotional roller coaster over her art piece.

Link’s overwhelmed sadness at having end-of-term pressure.

Kiki needing to work through her emotions about a mean girl at school who has chosen her for a target.

Patch being much more volatile and quick to anger than usual. Still haven’t figured out if this is an age thing or if there is some underlying emotional issue that I need to dig out.

5 out of 6 Taylers having at least one semi-depressed day during which all efforts seemed futile and the tasks ahead insurmountable.

Many arguments over the cat because the whole family loves the cat, but we all have differing opinions about how to appropriately love, play, and interact with the cat. The cat also has opinions, but is fortunately blessed with a deep well of tolerance and patience.

Kiki realizing that she simply does not have the skills nor the time to make the Samus armor costume that she has been envisioning for over a year. She had to grieve and figure out how to put that dream down for awhile.

Many arguments along the lines of “argh! You’re not listening to me!” vs. “I was listening, I just needed to finish this one thing.” Also many arguments over “Yes you did!” “No I didn’t!” Players were completely interchangeable. Everyone took their turn being unreasonable.

Other thoughts:

I have a hard time feeling sympathetic with children who are feeling overwhelmed when I am also feeling the same thing, only my overwhelmed also encompasses all of their things as well. Yet observing this out loud does nothing to help anyone, and it is in some measure false. Their things are theirs and I should keep my mitts off.

Link really impressed me. The day after stomping off sad and depressed, he sat down and made his very own checklist for how he was going to accomplish all of his work. Then he calmly and quietly work his way down the list. He just did it. I need to remember to compliment him for that maturity.

I don’t like it when I go into a rant and realize that I sound exactly like the rant which annoyed me from a child only hours ago. It makes me have to face the fact that either I am as childish as they are, or their rant was valid and I should have been more respectful of their emotional experience. A little of both probably.

On Monday the shirts arrived. Today I will ship out the last of them. We’ve had the influx of income which lets us re-stock the store for Christmas and which will let us pay bills in the interim. I am very glad of this. I could wish that this event was not in the middle of all the other events, but it couldn’t have happened earlier and we didn’t want to delay. We need this flurry of merchandise right now, but it will be nice to get back to the slower-paced work on creating books.

And after writing all of that out, I discover that I have no interest in actually calculating a score for the week. Instead I’ll just let it all be what it is and hope that next week can be calmer.

Recovery, Organization, and Feeling Trapped

By / October 15, 2011

Illness has receded for me. Yesterday was made of fatigue with brief reprieves of energy. Today has mostly been normal with occasional bouts of fatigue. I wish I could report the same of Howard. He continues to suffer. I made the dessert quiche and it was passable, an experiment worth repeating with alterations. The spinach quiche was better, but is crying out for the inclusion of artichokes.

The chaos in the boys’ room is trending toward tamed. Usually when the mess reaches that level I can solve much of the problem by simply removing the garbage. Somehow my boys have not grasped that unnecessary packaging should be placed in the garbage can rather than shoved onto the nearest flat surface. I’m hopeful that this round of organization will last longer since I’m requiring the boys to do their own sorting. The complaints have been many and the progress slow. Bit by bit we begin to see what sorts of containers would be helpful in taming the mess. For instance, Patch has a tendency to array small toys on a large shelf. Inevitably things get stacked on the small toys and it all turns into a jumble. We need to acquire a wall-mounted set of display shelves intended for small cool things. I’ve added this to the thrift store acquisition list.

The day felt endlessly long when we were in the middle, the house was full of kids, the doorbell was ringing every quarter hour, and the phone rang almost as often. I wanted to flee the house, go find a quiet space elsewhere. Unfortunately I was tethered by the group of teenage girls using my sewing machine and likely in need of technical help. Also abandoning sick Howard to manage the chaos seemed cruel. So I stayed, and felt trapped, tangled in my web of connections. Then evening came and all the kids migrated outdoors. The blue light of evening began to fill the sky. I sat on my porch watching kids ride in smooth circles around the cul de sac. Sometimes I tipped my head back and watched the slow progress of wispy clouds against the bright blue sky. The evening felt as open and free as the afternoon felt trapped. And I begin to feel that perhaps the day has been a good one.

Excused on Account of Illness

By / October 14, 2011

Being sick is no fun at all, but being excused from my regular rounds of Things To Do is kind of nice. This particular sickness is somewhat confusing. I’m not actively miserable, just blanketed with a layer of fatigue which denies me the energy to accomplish anything except in short bursts. Oh, and there is the occasional coughing fit. In between the short bursts of almost-normal energy, I sit. Sometimes I sleep, drifting from wakefulness into the top layers of dreaming like a fatigued driver unable to keep track of the lines on the road. In the drift my mind ponders things slowly, like contemplating how to make a dessert quiche which includes elements of bread pudding. Why I chose now to plan quiche is something of a mystery, but it is restful and fatigue has interfered with my ability to question. Perhaps later in the day I’ll use one of my bursts of energy to see if reality matches the quiche of my imagination.

In some ways the lassitude which has overcome me feels like the calm drifting I did in early June. In my less lethargic moments, this makes me wonder if I am just being lazy, finding an excuse to lay on the couch and think of nothing in particular. Then the energy passes, or a coughing fit hits, and I know that the fatigue is physiological rather than psychological. I do ponder how good it feels to drift. It is as if I can only comprehend the pressures which I daily place on myself by their absence. This is not surprising news. I have been trying to give myself permission to relax more often, but unlike fictional characters, I don’t complete my character arc and move on. Instead the shapes of my habits and personality send me circling around like Winnie the Pooh in the misty woods, always ending up at the same sand pit. Like Pooh, it often takes me awhile to realize that it is the same pit, because things look different from this side. Yet Pooh did not stay in the woods forever, and neither will I. Each iteration teaches me something new until I finally find my way to a new adventure. Five years from now our lives will inevitably have a very different shape. The things I am doing now, that we all are doing, will make that future a good place to be.

Sometime last week Kiki was having a particularly difficult day, wrestling with problems which no one else could solve for her. After all the listening, hugs, and outpouring of my thoughts on conflict management; the most important thing I said to her was “I know this feels huge right now, but I promise that in the scope of your whole life this will become small.” If I could only keep this thought in mind, then each day could be filled with more of the calm, faithful drift which this sickness has imposed. Today I haven’t the energy to feel stressed about what I’m unable to do. Instead I focus on the few things I can. So I answer a few emails, then I nap. I ponder quiche, then I pick up my kids from school. I sleep and then read. Next week I will have to catch up on things not done today, and I will, but for today I drift.

Finding places to query

By / October 7, 2011

The process looks something like this:

See a book on my child’s desk at Parent Teacher conferences. Realize that the book cover and title seems very like the type of book I’ve written. Carefully scribble down title and author when teacher thinks I am writing notes about the conference.

When at home, look up the book at Amazon.com. Read synopsis. It does seem similar in tone to my book. Write down the name of the publishing company next to the name of the author. Scroll through the “people who bought this book also bought” list. Identify more books which look similar to my book. Write down those authors and publishers.

Take the titles to my local library’s online catalog. They do have the book, so the next day when I’m at the library with the kids, take a detour into the adult non-fiction section. Find the book. Peruse the shelves around the book for other books which look similar in content or tone. Shush kids who are playing with the library’s rolling stools. Grab a stack of books to check out.

When at home, sit down with the books and the list. Flip through the books to see who the publishers are. Look at acknowledgements to see if the author names an agent or an editor who worked on the book. Write those names on the list next to author names. Take the list to my computer. Google to identify more agents and/or editors associated with the book titles.

Open agentquery.com and start filling in agent names. See if the agents are open to unsolicited queries. Peruse the “what I’m looking for” list to see if the agent will be interested. Compare the agent’s name to my submissions document to make sure that I don’t already have a query out at that agency. If all looks good, copy the agent’s name and contact information into my “To Query” file.

Google publisher names and editor names. See if I can find submission information. Add that information to my “To Query” file.

I am now ready to send out queries. Each query takes at least 10 minutes as I try to personalize the opening and closing paragraphs. Sometimes I have to print and mail the query.

By this time I am tired of the whole process, so I sigh in relief that I’ve done my job. Either it will sell, or it won’t. For the moment I can cheerfully ignore it… until I happen across another book which looks like it might cater to the same audience. Then I have a job to do again.

Financial Management for Creative People 101

By / October 13, 2011 / 5 Comments

The first thing any creative person needs to know about managing finances, whether you’re an artist, a writer, a musician, a film maker, or anything else: Good financial management is a skill. It can be learned by anyone no matter how good or bad they are with numbers. Granted, if numbers are not your friends, there may be struggling and swearing involved, but learning and practice will gain you the skills you need. You will get things wrong, sort them out, and then get them right. More than once. The key is to not give up, because if you are a creative person who wants to make a living doing creative things, you’re going to need to manage your finances effectively. Even if you don’t want to make a creative living, you can still make your finances more organized and less stressful. I graduated with a major in Humanities. I picked that major in part because it did not require me to do any math. Numbers were not my friends, and yet I learned this. You can too. Here are some places to start:

1. Create physical space for financial things. This can be anything from a basket to an uber-organized filing cabinet. The key is to have a place to drop all those bills and receipts before they have a chance to get lost. I have a file basket on the end of my kitchen counter. It contains file for the school papers of each kid, and a file for bills and other To Do papers. When mail arrives, I throw away the junk and drop the bills, checks, and other business papers into my accounting folder. Howard empties his wallet and dumps receipts into the folder as well. Then I ignore them until it is time to go through the folder.

2. Pick a method for tracking your money. I use Quicken for family finances and Quickbooks for the business accounting. Both of these are solid programs which will require a learning curve, but I’ve found them invaluable. I know people who use spread sheets or even hand-written ledgers. Pick something that feels most comfortable for you. The key is to start keeping track of where your money comes from and where it goes. If you’ve never done it before, this process can be very instructive about your spending habits. It is vital information which you can use to make your life better.

3. Make an appointment to do your accounting. Put that appointment on your calendar and keep it. I do this weekly. Every Monday I grab that accounting folder and go through everything in it. I pay the bills, enter the receipts, cash the checks, and file important papers. Once per week gets me the good news quickly and prevents the bad news from getting out of control before I handle it. When I’m pretty sure the accounting holds bad news, I do it anyway. The bad news I imagine is always worse than the bad news in the papers. I know people who do their accounting every other week or once per month. I found that it was easier to procrastinate on the longer schedule, so now I account every Monday morning.

4. Outline clear responsibilities for all people associated with the accounts/bills. If you’re a single person who manages your own money, this is not yet relevant to you. If you share your bills or finances with any other person, it is important to know who is responsible for the accounting and bill paying. Early in our marriage, Howard and I split the accounting. These days I do it all and just give him financial reports. How exactly you do it doesn’t matter as much as the fact that everyone involved knows their responsibilities.

5. Create a budget. A budget is a plan for how much money you will spend on the various expenses in your life. This topic is big enough for it’s own blog. I wrote up some basic budgeting in my post budgeting 101. For now, let this suffice. If you have never budgeted or planned your spending, start by keeping track of what you earn and what you spend. When you have several months of information you are ready to make a budget. The power of a budget is that it lets you see when you should not buy that shiny toy even if you still have money in your checking account because that money will be needed next month for car insurance. A budget helps remove the surprise from your bills and can lower your levels of stress.

6. Save save save. If you get extra money, squirrel it away into a savings account. This money is what helps you reach your dreams. The only reason Howard was able to become a full time cartoonist was because we spent the prior decade of salaried employment saving up money and paying down bills. A solid savings account is also your shield against disaster. Everyone ends up with unexpected bills. These are easier to handle if you have money in your hands instead of lots of take out pizza. It is easier to save money if you know what you are saving it for, so keep your dream in view and save for that. This year I’m saving money because there is a trip I want to take next summer.

That’s enough to get started. Changes and learning are easier to incorporate in your life if you don’t try to change too much at once. Other financial posts which may interest you:
Budgeting 101
Financial Management for Creative People 102: Structuring your finances to support a creative business. (Forthcoming)
Financial Management for Creative people 201: Taxes, incorporation, and business plans, Oh My! (Forthcoming)

You can learn this. Good luck!

Querying Through the Fog

By / September 21, 2011 / 2 Comments

I’ve been sending out Queries on Stepping Stones for several months now. I haven’t sent all that many. Sorting through online information about literary agents to find one who might be interested is both time consuming and emotionally exhausting. Once I do find one, I then have to adjust and personalize my query letter for that agent. It is hard to convince myself that this expended effort will net me anything beyond rejection letters. A couple of the rejections were personalized and said nice things, which is about the best I expect really. I know that Stepping Stones is full of flaws. I also know that it is something of a niche book; a memoir about the ordinary rather than the extraordinary. Not only that, but it is written in a personal essay format rather than the novel format which is more common for memoirs. So, I know that the project will be hard to sell, will likely have a small print run, and be a marginal earner; hard to believe that a New York agent would get excited by that prospect. Only a persistent and pounding feeling that it was important made me write it at all. Now I send it out because that is my next job. I am responsible for sending out queries. If it is supposed to sell, it will. If it doesn’t sell within a year, I’ll re-evaluate. Perhaps it is only important to me. Either way, I found a weird sense of satisfaction in sending my first paper queries yesterday. All the rest had been via email. There was something more real about putting pages into an envelope and hand writing New York addresses on them.

I’ve been thinking about imposter syndrome lately. It is the persistent belief that one has not actually earned the recognition one has received. I think everyone experiences this to some level, the fear that everyone around us will figure out that we’re only faking and then they’ll de-mask us and ridicule. I’ve been feeling a lot of quiet and pernicious imposter syndrome lately, not so much with professional endeavors, but in friendships and relationships. “They’re just being nice because they’re nice people, not because they actually like you.” whispers the voice in my head. These voices are quiet and pervasive, like fog. I discover myself slowing down, altering my choices because of the fog. If I shine logic and rational thought onto it, the fog melts away. I just wish I could find my way back into sunlight instead of wandering around with a lantern. I think it is coming. Things are getting better as I find my rhythm in the new schedule, as we make adjustments to give me time for my creative things, and as I slowly get my thyroid medications balanced again.

Seeing the imposter syndrome inside my head naturally leads me to think back on my assessments of the quality and likely future of Stepping Stones. I was pretty narrow in my expectations during that first paragraph. Am I doing that as a disappointment management technique? Is it me being unable to accept that I have an accomplishment? Or is it an honest assessment of the book and the market? I really can’t tell and trying to figure it out only sends me in useless mental circles. Instead I need to shut out the noise and just do my job. I send out queries. I write something new. I apply faith and choose to believe that my friends and family love me. Then I keep going, headed for the light.

Hugo Bright and Dark

By / August 30, 2011 / 1 Comment

I have a story to tell about the night of the Hugo Awards. It is not the story I wanted to tell. In fact it fell so far off of my pre-planned story possibility tree that it has taken me more than a week to sort out the beginning from the end. Going in to the Hugos I knew Howard was unlikely to win and that the demons of self-doubt would begin their assault upon him the moment the announcement was made. I figured the one variable in the situation that I could manage was myself. Whatever else happened, I would be with Howard, holding his hand, supporting him. So I made myself a beautiful dress, bought new shoes, put up my hair, and marched nervously into the evening. Then I fell right into a trap I had made for myself.

I spent the four days prior to the award evening being outwardly social. I enjoyed it very much, but it drained my reserves. I spent the four nights prior shorting myself on sleep. I stayed up late visiting with amazing people. Then stayed up even later as my brain spun trying to process it all. I put away all of the home and mother thoughts, which often provide me with a sense of perspective on life events as they pass. I did not take breaks during the days. I intended to, but without realizing it, I shifted my breaks out of existence so that the people on my team would have them. Then there was the dress itself, my beautiful dress. I loved making it. I felt beautiful wearing it. It was snug around my ribcage, but not uncomfortable. It swished around my legs. I’d deliberately chosen the colors to stand out and attract attention. It was so different from the formal wear I’d worn to the Montreal Hugo Awards, when I was dismissed from attention by two women who proceeded to exclude me from the conversation while they dissected the styles and clothing around them. I was going to stand up and own the dress I’d made, hoping it had the effect I desired. Before I even arrived at the convention I spent weeks in stressed preparation. The moment I left the convention I had to scramble to get kids into school. The entire time at the convention, I was outside my usual context and away from my usual means of decompression. There were no plants or grass anywhere I went. I could not have picked a more toxic mess of stresses (both good and bad) had I taken time to plan it out.

So the story I wanted was me in my lovely dress, holding Howard’s hand no matter what happened. Instead I found myself half way through the Hugo ceremony, just after the announcement that Girl Genius had won again, oppressed by the heat of the room and unable to sit still. I leaned over to Howard and he told me to go find some place cooler. I stepped out into a quiet hallway where it became all-too-apparent that heat was not the real issue. I had outrun my strength and over tapped my reserves. I spent the rest of the ceremony pacing in a dark corner, hoping to be seen by no one, unable to leave because I wanted to hear the results, unable to re-enter the hall because I did not feel fit to be seen. Have I mentioned the crying? I did that too. I didn’t want anyone to see, for fear they would think that I was crying over losing the award. I wasn’t. My tears were guilt because I had abandoned my post by Howard’s side. Standing in a corner, with my face to the wall, wearing a dress like sunlight, was the moment when I most felt the spiritual radio shadow of the casino hotels. I prayed frantically for peace, but my emotional state banished the peace I sought.

Howard found me when the ceremony was over, or I found him. He hugged me tight and told me it was all okay. Afterward, he said that my tears were oddly useful, because it have him a sharp and clear perspective about what really mattered to him. The demons of self doubt found him armored against them. It was not how I wanted to be helpful, but at least I can hold to the fact that I did not drag Howard down. We left the quiet corridor together and walked out with brave faces. When we met up with some friends, Howard sent me back to our hotel with them. He got me to go by looking me in the eyes and assuring me that he would be better off for the rest of the evening if I left. He was right. All I could do beside him was to throw him off balance. So I truncated all the planned branches of story tree which had me wearing my dress far into the night. I returned to my room, hung up the dress, and slept.

At this point I imagine some of my friends, who were at the event, friends who read this blog, and probably my parents as well are all feeling some distress themselves. They didn’t know, they wish they could have helped, am I okay now? This is part of why I did not want to tell the story. Somehow in my head there is this illusion that an award ceremony like the Hugos should be a lovely event full of happy winners and gracious losers. To be so honored is marvelous, and I wish to always speak gratefully about it because it is the collective good will of the fans which carried us there. Yet the emotional mix of all that hope, anticipation, and disappointment of so many people fills the air. I pick up on it, and apparently it can overwhelm me. This makes me sad, because I have so few opportunities in my life to dress up in a place full of fascinating people who love so many of the same things that I love. I want my stories of the Hugo Awards to be straightforward, unambiguous. I want them to be filled with honor, gratitude, joy, beauty, and support. Dark corners and tears don’t have much to do with that. But the effort to bury the dark corner also took with it some of the bright moments of the evening. In fact it also dragged into obscurity many of the bright moments of the entire event. In order to rescue them, I had to tell this story.

We had dinner right before the pre-Hugo reception. Sal arranged it for us. Howard and I showed up wearing our evening wear. Caryn showed up with a bundle of silk roses that someone had given to her. The tones of the roses matched my clothing perfectly, so she pulled several out and wound them into my hair. I still have them. I suppose I should have given them back, but seeing them makes me remember that moment when the evening was still bright. Howard and I walked from dinner to the shuttle. When we stepped outside, the breeze caught at my skirt and the drapes from my shoulders blowing them behind me. I caught a glimpse of the effect in the building windows as a I walked past. I wish I had that photo. Instead we have serious faced ones of us standing very statically. I wish there were photographic record of the smiles during that evening. I smiled often. I was delighted to see all my friends, each in their evening wear of choice. I loved seeing how the clothes expressed the person wearing them. I wish I’d had more time to sit back and people watch.

During the ceremony I got to watch Chris Garcia win the Hugo for best Fanzine. I will treasure that moment always. I know Chris as only a passing acquaintance, but he was so incredibly happy that it radiated across the whole audience. I cried tears of joy with him, though previously the outcome of that particular category hadn’t much mattered to me. Late the ceremony, I listened to Robert Silverberg’s brilliant deadpan speech as he deliberately taunted his friend Connie Willis who was up for an award. My friend Mary Robinette Kowal won in the short story category, which makes me very happy. I loved that everyone from Writing Excuses was there. Travis Walton, our colorist, came. I wish he’d been able to take home a rocket, because his beautiful colors make Schlock look good. I’m very glad that I finally got to see Phil and Kaja accept a Hugo. In Montreal they weren’t there. I wasn’t there in Australia. They were wonderful and charming as always. Many, many people complimented my dress and my hair.

All these bright things were contained in that evening, but they were obscured from memory because I wanted to be able to tell a different story about my experiences that evening. I’ve also spent time pondering how this story, which is so divergent from what I intended, affects story trees into my future. I already know that I need to wear my dress again, probably several times. I need to disconnect the dress from the dark spots in the evening. I need to run my conventions differently, and with less surrounding stress. I need to bring things with me that ground me and provide perspective. Most of all I need to review the bright memories, savor the lovely things. Then the dark spots fade in importance and I can go forward.

Lists and Staging

By / August 9, 2011

This is the week when WorldCon preparations swamps everything else in my life. You’d think that would be next week when I am actually at WorldCon, except that I’ve arranged for everything else to be managed next week. Next week I can give WorldCon 100% attention. This week the preparations are all mixed up with feeding kids, house chores, shipping packages, customer support, and community events. At the moment it feels like I’m not doing any of these things particularly well. We’ve also reached the stage where it is too late. We wanted to create better banners as backdrops for the booth, but there isn’t time to get them made and shipped. We’re going to have to pay more for fliers and business cards because we have to print them locally instead of at the discount place online. I have half a dozen other clothing and sewing ideas, but have neither time nor clothing budget to execute on them.

My major focus for the next week is thinking ahead. I have to make sure that nothing critical is forgotten. I have to anticipate what we’ll need without ever having seen the space in which we will be setting up shop. I have a packing list for the booth, a packing list for me, a packing list for Howard, and I still need to make a packing list for the kids. I also have price lists, inventory lists, and schedules of events. It is all coming together and yet I’m fighting back a persistent feeling that it is all falling apart. To combat this feeling I’ve started piling things up in the front room.

Our front room is often used as a staging area. This time as I accumulate pieces I am stacking them where I can see them. Once I put them in the pile, I can stop trying to hold them in memory. Also I can start gauging how much stuff we have to haul and whether it will all fit into the two vehicles we’ll be driving to Reno. Our neighbors will loan us a car top carrier, which will help, but it will still be tight. My internal volume estimator says it will all fit, but actually seeing the stuff stacked up will help me know that for sure. I’m taking process shots for later blogging.

I think I am doing today what my younger two kids did last week. They each had a day where they cried about going to a new school because they didn’t know what to expect and were worried about it. The next day they were fine and have continued to be fine with only small signs that they still have increased levels of tension. Here’s hoping that tomorrow I can be back to excited anticipation instead of stressed worry.

In good news, we have Schlock Mercenary water bottles to sell at WorldCon. The Writing Excuses badge ribbons also arrived. We now have all our merchandise in hand. Tomorrow I will go shopping to acquire booth supplies and dressings.

Staring at Another Busy Week

By / July 31, 2011

My list is full of urgent tasks. I am supposed to be ignoring them because it is Sunday and I don’t work on Sunday. Except that somehow I slid into working today without meaning to. Oh I didn’t ship orders or do accounting, but I did answer a business email. Howard and I have had a dozen conversations about business things relating to merchandise or upcoming conventions. I spent an hour updating Howard’s electronic calendar to reflect all of his GenCon events. And I was supposed to pack his suitcase today. I know these things don’t belong in my Sunday. I do a much better job of keeping my Sundays holy when I’m not scrambling to keep up.

However, I spent three hours at church. During those hours I listened to speakers and lessons. I felt my heart open and some of my pathway in the weeks to come felt a little more clear. I also wrote down even more things which I need to not forget to do. I always emerge from church with a list of To Do. The good news is that at least 50% of that list was about house, family, and spirituality. The bad news is that my ever-expanding list expanded yet again. Top on that list was taking Kiki driving. We’re running out of time on her permit and she needs to take her road test soon. I did that first. Then I sat down with my kids and watched the Sci Fi movie classic The Cat from Outer Space. They loved it. If you add in two family meals, the total is 7 hours where my focus was on family and spirituality. This is good, but it is not the same as having a whole peaceful sabbath day. I was hoping to spend time working on my Hugo dress or on the guest blog entry which I have 90% percolated in my head. Perhaps I’ll get to them later this evening, if I don’t run out of evening.

Want to see my list? …

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Embracing the Drift

By / July 28, 2011 / 1 Comment

Long about 1pm I ground to a complete halt. Every attempt to continue getting things done resulted in me staring blankly at my list of things to do without actually reading it, or, alternately, me standing in the middle of a room knowing I’d entered it for a reason but not being able to remember what the reason was. I decided a nap was in order. Unfortunately while my brain was too fractured to work, it was also too revved up to sleep. I lay like a lump while my brain ran in circles through the forest of stress. Sometimes I would snap completely awake with a terrified thought about something I’d forgotten, only to remember that I’d not really forgotten it. I’d just forgotten that I already did it. Fun.

The nap was not working, so I decided it was time to break out my new swing chair and embrace getting nothing done for the rest of the day. Remember that day last week when I browsed through porch swings and arbors on the internet. I bought neither, but I did happen upon this cotton padded swing chair. My will to resist was defeated by the $15 price tag. I ordered one for me and one to reduce the number of times I’d have to fight to get to sit in my swing chair. The seller sent the chairs promptly, they arrived last Tuesday and had been sitting quietly in the middle of my office floor every since.

I detached the standard swings from our redwood swing set and hung up the chair swings. When I settled my weight into them, they sunk lower than I expected, but it was very like sitting in a hammock. I swung gently and drifted in thought. Gleek came out and claimed the second seat. At first she chattered at me, talking about how she was bored and wanted to have a mother daughter date so that we could go somewhere. Going had fallen out of my repertoire. I answered noncommittally and soon she too was sitting in silence and drifting. After awhile I retrieved a book and read. Sense and Sensibility is a lovely book to read while sitting under dappled sunlight in a hammock seat. The air was a perfect 80 degrees. When the sun peeking through the leaves felt a little too hot, I’d turn the seat so that it hit differently. Sitting. Swinging. Reading. Drifting.

I finally dragged myself out of the seat somewhere between one and two hours later. My arms and legs felt limp and heavy, relaxed. I went downstairs and discovered that one of our marvelous GenCon helpers had proactively solved half a dozen problems. I got reports of Schlock book orders which arrived in perfect condition to balance out the few mistake reports. Our Schlock Mercenary shopping bags arrived and are stashed away for WorldCon. The world felt better and I began to get a few things done again, but when my brain fuzzed out, I would read for awhile. Or just sit. I guess I was overdue for a drifting day.