Month: December 2008

I begin to type, forming sentences in my head before they emerge from my fingers. I craft my words carefully to wrap them around the meanings that I intend for them.

“MetaKnight!”
“MetaKnight!”

The shouts from my children slice through my concentration. I’ve no idea why they are shouting the name of a video game character while tossing stuffed animals, but apparently it is great fun. The mentally crafted sentences shatter and the meanings drift into the aether. I close my eyes and plug my ears, trying to remember what I’d intended.

“MetaKnight!” Thump! Then a child squeals.

The ideas are gone. They’ve slipped through my fingers. Each time I try to collect my thoughts to capture the idea again, the children make more joyful (or not so joyful) noises. I am glad that they are playing. I’m glad that they have so much fun together. I’m glad that they are being creative and that the electronic screens are all off. But I crave silence, a space to think without their words severing mine.

The economic downturn is all over the news and the blogosphere. Everywhere I turn I hear gloomy news and dire predictions of things yet to come. The thing is, we’re having a good year. Sales in the Schlock store have been pretty strong. Much of this is due to the fact that we have things to sell other than just books. I suspect if we had a similar array of merchandise last year we would have seen much stronger sales last year compared to this year. But we don’t have any other year to compare to and so this year feels pretty good. Does this guarantee our future? Of course not. If people have less money to spend, then they’ll spend less of it with us. This is as it should be. Bills before books. But I can’t live terrified of that future. If all the people like me who are in comfortable circumstances hold tight to their money out of fear, then we’re contributing to the economic woes. Sensible spending inside a budget helps everyone, particularly if the spending occurs at small local businesses.

This year we’re giving more to charity and to people in need than we usually do. We’re comfortable and therefore it is our responsibility to help those who are in distress. My friendJulie Wright never walks past a street musician without giving some change. I’ve adopted the same attitude toward those Salvation Army red kettles. But today I realized that I want to be giving something more than money. When I was growing up, my family went out caroling for the twelve days before Christmas. We would pick a couple of families who we thought were having a hard Christmas and we’d show up at their door singing twelve days in a row. That was a powerful accumulation of experiences. I still remember the family whose teenage son died accidentally, the mother and kids going through a divorce, the too-sick-to-stand cancer patient. We never had trouble finding people in need at Christmas time. The caroling tradition does not work well with my family now. But today I realized I can still be reaching out more.

Starting today and continuing at least until Christmas, I am going to do something nice for someone who is not a member of my family. I’m not sure what I’ll do or for whom. The things I do will be small. The point of this is not to burden me, but to reach out and cheer up others. Sometimes the little things matter more anyway. Just today I was a recipient of one of those little things, a card with a foam snowman came in the mail and brightened my day. (Thank you S.M.) Little things can make all the difference in the world, so I am going to find some little things to do which will make the world a better place for at least one person each day.

“Mom, can you get me some of my dark blue paper?” Patch asked
“What dark blue paper?” I answered
“The blue paper in my room.” He meant the stack of multicolored construction paper on a high shelf in his closet. We went to his room and I got down several sheets of blue paper. Then I went on my way, not really paying attention to whatever project that Patch had in mind. Patch went straight to Howard and I overheard his query.
“Dad, can I use your silver pen?”
Howard has some silver sharpie markers that he sometimes uses for signing books. Sharpie markers are not usually turned over to the kids because they’re much more permanent than the washable Crayola markers. Howard and I spent a moment mystified as to why Patch would seek out these particular items. We were soon enlightened when Patch began drawing diagrams of experiments he had seen on Mythbusters. He spent a happy hour drawing pictures and pretending to be a Mythbuster. He quickly moved from the show experiments into imagined experiments of his own. They were evocative little drawings of stick figures meeting all sorts of doom. I particularly liked the one with lightning strikes. I love that he can create his own plans and make them happen even if it is just remembering things we have in our house and knowing how to turn them into a Mythbusters game.

In 2007 I sold a story to a DAW anthology edited by Julie Czerneda and Rob St. Martin. That anthology will finally see print in early March 2009. I’ve already seen and approved galleys and now I have a cover image to share. See the pretty cover:

Edit to add: You can preorder the book through amazon.com click here to go to the ordering page. We’ll also be putting it up in our store for the same price as Amazon, but we have to buy them at full price in order to resell them. This means the only additional profit I will ever see from this short story is if the book earns out its advance and starts paying royalties.

I am waiting for packages. One package is more shipping supplies. I (probably) won’t run out before the supplies arrive, but I’ll be more comfortable once I’m re-stocked. I’m also waiting for two separate shirt re-orders. One was supposed to arrive last Friday. The other won’t arrive until next week. I’m also waiting for at least three packages from Amazon.com. These contain presents. One of them is actually a re-order of an item that I originally ordered used in November. The item never arrived and so I re-ordered a new copy. At least the Netflix movies arrived today on schedule. All those packages clogging the system just for me. No wonder this is the busiest shipping season of the year. It has been so busy that USPS.com has been down sporadically over the last two days. This affects me because stamps.com has to query USPS for cost calculations. It seems even shipping from home requires some waiting at this time of year.

At the same time that I’m doing all this postal waiting, my mind is running. For some reason my subconscious has decided to dredge up a pile of unfinished story ideas and throw them into my conscious thought. This set my brain bubbling with possibilities for possible combinations. It also required me to google Tam Lin and sent me searching through my writers forum in search of advice on how to plot. Characters and feelings come very easily to me, but I keep writing things that are more vignettes than actual stories. So now I’m seeking to fill my brain with some plotting theory in the hopes that some of it will collide with the story fragments to birth new drafts that may grow up to be finished stories some day. Add to that stew, the fact that Howard was doing some thrilling/emotional plotting this morning which I got to read and then talk over with him. His story makes me want to chew my nails even though I know how it ends. What with all the reading and thinking, my brain is now tired. It is tired, but it can not stop. I’m going to have to find something mind numbing to do. Something that allows my brain to follow the train of someone else’s story rather than working hard at creation.

Busy busy all day long, no time to stop and think. Since quiet thinking is the font of good blog entries, I find myself dry when faced with this empty space to fill. If only the things that kept me busy were as intrinsically interesting to others as they are to me. First there was accounting. Then shipping. Then more accounting. Then errands including grocery shopping and a trip to the bank. Then more accounting. Then dinner. And then it is 7:30 pm and I’ve had no leisure time.

I should not complain. Howard almost never works any relaxation times into his days. He tends to be either sleeping or working. It is a good thing that we both enjoy our work so much, otherwise we’d be miserable instead of just being occasionally inclined to gripe.

I’ve stopped buying fancy wrapping paper for gifts. This is not some moral stand about wastefulness. Nor is it some effort at penny pinching. It is simply an acknowledgment that there is no point in buying paper with pictures on it when my children believe that drawing pictures on the package is part of wrapping the present. I think Link was the one who started it. The year he was 8, he carefully wrapped his gifts and then drew a picture of the contents on the outside of the package. He claimed the pictures were hints, but to me they looked like present spoilers. After that all the kids wanted to draw pictures on their packages. This year I just let the kids use my roll of packing paper. They love taking the sharpie marker to the package to draw the pictures. I’m trying to convince them that we could just use regular markers since the paper is not slick, but I guess using the sharpie is extra special. So we’ll be having something of a monochrome present pile.

This year Patch’s gifts are decorated with Legend of Zelda themes. That little stick figure with the pointy hat is Link. (The legend of Zelda Link, not Patch’s brother’s nickname Link.) Zelda Link is having many adventures. On the large package two Zelda Links are facing off against two snowmen with swords. It looks like the Zelda Links are winning because one snowman is down. I’m not sure what is happening on the smaller package, but those might be wolves and I think some of those stickmen are defeated foes. Gleek’s packages run heavily to unicorns and horses. Link’s packages tend to have Kirby or Mario. Kiki doesn’t draw on her packages anymore. Art is too important to her to put effort into a drawing that will be torn off. I looking at the pile of wrapped gifts makes me happy because I know that they’ve put a little of themselves into the wrapping.

Today I was filling orders from our store and I noticed that someone was having some of our books shipped directly to a Toys for Tots coordinator. I loved this thoughtful gesture so much that I threw some extra books into the box. Then I got thinking. This year has been lean for Toys for Tots and similar charitable organizations. So I’ve decided to do what I can to help them out. For every copy of Hold on to Your Horses that is purchase in our store and mailed directly to a charitable organization, I will add a second book at no cost. So if you buy three books and have them mailed to your local battered women’s shelter, I will mail out 6 books.

The website for Toys for Tots lets you look up the addresses of local businesses which accept donations. I would love to see some books go to battered women’s shelters. United Way offices are often collecting points for donations to women’s shelters. Children’s hospitals are another perfect fit for this offer. Books are ideal for helping a child who has to lay in a hospital bed. I will also be happy to consider other worthy charitable causes you think might be benefited by this offer.

Books are what I have to give, but please remember that these organizations benefit greatly from monetary donations made directly to them. They are also in constant need of staple supplies such as diapers. Check with your local United Way offices to see what is needed in your area.

I’m looking for children’s picture books about non-Christian holidays. I want the holidays to be a part of the story, but I’m hoping to find books where the story has more to it than imparting information about the particular holiday. I want to read the books to my kids and I want characters and stories they can identify with as well as learning about holidays. Hannukkah and Kwanzaa are obvious holiday choices, but I want less obvious ones as well. I’d love to find books about Ramadan, the Day of the Dead, Solstice, Mardi Gras, Chinese New Year, Eid Al Fatr, etc.

If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment.
Thanks

Edit: It has been pointed out to me that the Day of the Dead is in fact celebrated by Christian people and can therefore be counted as a Christian holiday. This is an excellent point. Another good point is that just because the holiday goes by the same name, the manner of celebration may be very different. So I’m broadening the request. I’ll welcome any holiday book suggestions.

Thanks again.