Month: December 2009

Seeing the good

By / December 22, 2009

At three hours into the holiday break, it was looking like a bust and I was ready to send kids back to school. I’d even written up an entertaining/complaining list comparing the number of hours on vacation to the number of tantrums. But then things got better. I finally got back to my blog entry and realized that the mood had passed. I no longer feel like complaining. Instead I feel all cozy and happy.

It is hard for people to see outside their current mood. This afternoon Kiki was furiously mad at the thoughtlessness of teenage boys. She was also mad at most of the rest of the world for daring to exist while she was angry. I knew that the mood would pass, but she could not believe me. Neither could Gleek who spend most of the time I was cooking dinner bemoaning the fact that I was not cooking something else. And then I could not see out of my mood where I wanted to complain about my kids.

But here we all are and life is much better. It usually gets better if we just try. I need to remember that before I write a blog entry which records the day as awful. The whole day was not awful, just a few hours of it. The rest has been good.

Managing an irregular income

By / December 21, 2009

Our income does not arrive in regular checks made out to the same amount. The bulk of what we make in a year will arrive in the month surrounding a book release. All the money arrives and sits in a big pile in our bank account. It is our reserve and for awhile we feel rich. But then the months pass by and the reserve dwindles. We still have bills to pay and we tighten our belts until the next book release.

One of the things I do to manage the money is keep separate accounts for the family and the business. The reserve sits in the business accounts and gets transferred to the family by means of small regular paychecks. This allows me to manage the family budget the same way I did when Howard still worked for a big corporation. At least in theory. The actuality is that when the business accounts begin to run low, we go longer between paychecks and the paychecks get smaller. Sometimes we even pull money from our home equity to cover bills for the last month or two prior to a book launch. That money gets paid back as soon as the next book launches.

We are currently at the lean end of our income cycle. Last year we launched a single Schlock book and then invested money into inventory in the form of XDM books, a reprint of Under New Management, and slipcases to make boxed sets. The inventory investment was necessary, but it diminished our reserve more quickly than usual. Since last August we’ve been about two months from having to borrow money to pay bills.

I did the accounting this morning and we are still about two months from having to borrow money to pay bills. This is largely due to additional advertising revenue. However all the scrambling we did during the Fall definitely helped. It also helps that Schlock fans were generous and bought the things we scrambled to make. Christmas sales went well.

Now Christmas sales are largely finished and advertising revenue always takes a nose dive in January. However, the end is in sight. Travis is hammering away at the coloring for the next book. Howard is hammering away at the bonus story. We should be able to send the book to the printer right about the time our reserves run out and we start to borrow. The borrowing makes us nervous, but the truth is that our home equity and our IRA accounts represent an enormous reserve in themselves. We stock them up when the money flows freely so that we can draw on them when things are tighter. If we are depleting a couple months of the year and accumulating the rest, then we’re still in good shape.

We really are very fortunate to get to do what we are doing.

Winter Break is Nigh

By / December 20, 2009

On one hand, I am glad I have two more days to get work and writing done before the kids are home all day. On the other hand, I really don’t want to get up early tomorrow. I want to make the kids get up early even less than I want to get up early myself. Most mornings I have to physically wrest the covers from them before they’ll get out of bed. And then there is the problem of breakfast. The kids have an array of dietary preferences. I can either fix multiple meals in order to save on arguing, or I can fix a single meal and weather the complaining. Neither one sounds like much fun at o-dark-thirty in the morning.

BUT, the holidays are near. I will get to sleep in. They will get to sleep in. We will all have a break from homework and routine. It will be good right up until we all start feeling cabin fever and are ready to take on a new year. Then we will be back to schedules and checklists. I will be newly happy because I will remember what chaos ensues when the routine is AWOL.

For tonight, I need to sit in the light of the softly glowing tree and feel glad for a quiet hour.

Working at Writing

By / December 19, 2009 / 2 Comments

My brain has been tied up with writing for the past two days. I have this essay which I intend to submit to a contest. The deadline is Dec 31st and the essay is not ready yet. I’ve known about the contest since last spring, but it was only in November that I found the right stories and concepts for the essay. I wrote a draft in early December, but yesterday I had one of those moments where I could see how the ideas were right but the presentation was all wrong. The insight was due to some good feedback from an alpha reader. Many thanks are due there.

My original draft told the story. My new draft is wrapping the concepts around scenes of the story. I am attempting to show rather than tell. This proves difficult because the scenes have to be from my own relevant experiences. There is only a limited amount of rearranging I am allowed to do for narrative convenience. The line between creative nonfiction and complete fabrication is narrow. I keep re-writing and re-adjusting as I go; trying to find the right arrangements of words to communicate the ideas. Even as I forge forward toward a complete draft, I am aware that there are errors I am missing. I’m going to have to go back through the whole thing to check for tense drift. I simply can’t focus properly on tense matching while I’m working on structure.

Writing this essay has been hard. I haven’t had a writing experience this intensive since I wrote the story to submit for a DAW anthology in 2007. Part of it is writing to a deadline and really wanting the work to be my best. Another part of the intensity is the subject matter. I really care about what I am trying to say. This effort is forcing me to push deeper and write longer than I usually do. I am learning a lot from the experience. Naturally I hope that the essay is accepted and published as the DAW story was. However, even if it is not I will still have succeeded.

Christmas Status Update

By / December 18, 2009

One week to go. (The kids make sure I am appraised of the count down daily. As if I might forget.) I ran out today to buy the last Christmas gift. (The remainder are things I must bake.) I have already had my bout with Christmas over-whelmedness. (Yes I made that word up.) I did the fretting over how much we are spending. I worried that we were getting too much for the kids. Then I worried that there might not be enough. Hopefully I can now move on toward the blissful feeling that all will be well. There are still things to do. People continue to order and I must ship the packages. I have an essay that consumed most of my attention for today, and it is still not finished. But this evening I am putting down all my Things to Do and visiting with a friend. There will also be food. It is good.

Dreaming of Grandpa

By / December 17, 2009

I dreamed of my Grandpa today. He died eleven years ago this month. It was the normal sort of mish-mosh dream that I have when I take a long nap in the middle of the day. Then Grandpa was there. He was awake and alert. He spoke with a clarity that he lost some time in my early teens. I don’t remember most of what he said despite the fact that I tried to hold onto it as the dream dissolved into consciousness. All I retained was a sense of his presence and love.

I’d like to believe that my Grandpa came to visit me, that he was really there. This is not the first time I’ve felt visited by people who are gone. But whether it was a visit, or the scattered dreams of someone who has been thinking of her Grandparents lately, it was still a good dream. It was nice to see him again.

Projects in my head

By / December 16, 2009

Christmas–still needs some organizing and shopping and wrapping and shipping.

The Kids– The level of drama around here is lower than it was, but there is still plenty for me to figure out and manage. I’ve figured out the family structures to meet the needs, but I have to keep it all in place.

One Cobble– My brain is almost constantly collecting stuff for blog entries, or composing experiences into stories. Sometimes I can write as soon as I think of it. Other times I have to scribble notes to try to save it for later.

House cleaning — always. This project I often try to ignore out of existence, but it never works.

Family Photo book– This was shoved to the back burner when I realized I couldn’t get it done in time for Christmas. Instead I planned to have it done by my Grandmother’s birthday. Which is at the end of January. And I’ve done nothing on the project for nigh three weeks now.

Resident Mad Scientist book layout– The deadline on this has been pushed back, but that does not mean I can ignore it. We need to know where margin art is necessary.

My essay book– I’ve collected and revised about a third of the essays I estimate I’ll need. I have notes for a bunch more. I really want to get to the point where I can be sending out queries.

Cooking– I’ve recently discovered an interest in occasionally cooking things where I don’t start with a box or a can.

Birthday story– By the end of January I either need to write or revise a short story for posting on my birthday. I like the tradition and I want to keep it.

Short stories– My back brain has decided that writing Christmas stories would be really cool. This comes despite the fact that it is notoriously difficult to write a Christmas story without doing a re-write of The Grinch, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Fill-in-the-blank saves Santa Claus, or It’s a Wonderful Life. I don’t even have characters or plots in mind. I’m waiting patiently on this one and hoping that the mood subsides, because I honestly don’t have time at the moment.

In which I revise my thoughts about cooking

By / December 16, 2009

Every time the kids turn on Ratatouille, Howard wanders into the kitchen and cooks something. All of the cooking scenes in the film remind him how much he loves to combine ingredients. I watched this with puzzlement. The movie didn’t inspire me to cook. It didn’t even make me hungry. In fact contemplating cooking takes up the same piece of my brain that I use to contemplate chores. Cooking is a necessary step in the “feed the children” task which comes up with annoying regularity. Julie and Julia, which I watched last week, is another movie focused around cooking. I really enjoyed the movie, but (as I smugly told Kiki and Howard) it didn’t make me want to cook. I just wanted to eat what the folks in the movie cooked. I was to be proven wrong.

The first shift in my thinking arrived at the Women’s Relief Society (church organization) dinner. It was a marvelous meal featuring two kinds of shredded meat and an array of sauces. The Bearnaise sauce was to die for. I snarfled up a plate full and went back for seconds. I was certain that the sauce had been catered by a local restaurant. It hadn’t. It was made by my friend’s husband. That marvelous sauce had been made in a home kitchen. Not only that, but the recipe was set out for anyone to take. I looked at it and realized that the primary ingredient was “Bearnaise sauce packet.” In theory I could cook this sauce in my very own kitchen and eat a lot more of it.

Next I was browsing in a grocery store and I noticed that they were once again stocking rosemary bread. I love rosemary bread. It is for savoring. I love the way the aroma mingles with food while I’m eating. I brought the bread home and toasted it. The flavor reminded me of the plan I had several months ago. It was a plan for healthy eating which involved eating small amounts of things that I truly desire to eat, rather than discovering I am hungry and filling up on whatever is handy. It was a good plan, but somehow I’d lost track of it.

Then Kiki needed at treat for school and she wanted fudge. So I found myself standing over a stove on Sunday afternoon, stirring. As I stirred, I explained how the heat helps the sugar crystallize and how all cooking is really chemistry. It was a good little speech. By the time I was done, I’d convinced both Kiki and myself that cooking is a fascinating scientific process.

So there I was stirring, spoon swooshing through sugar bubbles, and I realized I was enjoying myself. I thought about Julie from the movie and how her cooking challenge (524 recipes in 365 days) saved her from a dark time in her life. Scenes from the film played back in my mind’s eye and I saw the joy of creation. It helps that Julie is also a writer and so the movie is as much about writing and living as it is about cooking.

The fudge was done and poured into a pan and I stood back satisfied. It struck me that I wanted to do more cooking. Somehow I’d gone from thinking about the film, to picturing myself stirring sauces. I wanted to have a piece of the amazing experience that Julie had in the film. I wanted to understand cooking better, to find ways to enjoy it, to make some dinners that do not start with a can of cream of mushroom soup. I found that I wanted it despite the fact that I know some of the things I attempt will go disastrously wrong. I even wanted the associated emotional melt downs, because at least it would mean that I tried something new instead of staying where I am comfortable.

The last thing I need in my life is another big project. I have no space for a big project. This means I can not undertake so grand an effort as Julie did. I can not add stress to our family in pursuit of cooking. But there are times when my brain is tired of writing and I loathe the thought of being in my basement office. There are times when I have time and space to think about a short term creative project like cooking a single meal. So I am going to try this. I am going to attempt to educate myself about foods and how to prepare them. In between preparing new foods I will be feeding us all the ordinary stuff. I like the idea of introducing new foods, but not at the expense of the family budget.

First up: Bearnaise sauce. We shall see how this goes.

Holiday Shipping, Business, and Family

By / December 15, 2009

Yesterday was the US postal service’s busiest shipping day of the year. We here at Chez Tayler have been doing our part to add to the load. I’ve been shipping out 5-15 packages per day for the last week or so. This is not a surprise to us. In fact we’ve kind of been counting on it this year to help us make the ends meet until we can release the next Schlock book. In another week I’ll be able to do the math and see how much gap is left. I’ll also do the math to see how Christmas spending added to the gap.

I enjoy the Holiday shipping. It has a cheerful urgency to it. I love looking at the invoices and seeing when the billing address is different from the shipping address. Then I know what I’m sending is a gift. It is a gift to us as well. Every package we send is a gift to us from the Schlock readers out there who enjoy the comic enough to spend money. I sometimes wish I could thank them all. I put a Thank You post card into each order, but it hardly seems like enough.

Things do not always go smoothly. People email me with questions. This year I’ve had multiple inquiries about merchandise for which we’ve run out of stock. That makes me sad because I know the other person is disappointed. I am much happier when the problem is one I can solve by sending out a replacement or filling a special request. I know that the time will come when we are too busy to manage special requests, but that day has not yet arrived. The more I interact with customers, the more impressed I am with Schlock readers. They are courteous, patient, and understanding of our human errors. I even had one guy who replied with startlement that I was the one to answer his email personally. This amused me because I realized he did not know how small our operation really is.

Today I had to assemble more boxed sets to fill out the orders. Six year old Patch sat with me as I slid books into boxes. He’d wanted to help slide books into sleeves, but sometimes the books require coaxing to slide into place. Instead I handed him the note cards which are included in each set. As I finished each box, he would slide card into place. Then he lined the sets up very carefully. Eight year old Gleek was the one who helped with the shrink wrapping. She likes to run the heat gun which makes the plastic fit tightly over the sets. Then we cleared all of it off the kitchen table so that dinner and homework could take place.

As I restocked the shipping table in the unfinished storage room, I pondered once again the cottage industry we are running. In some ways what we have is the re-invention of the family farm. We have busy seasons and slow seasons. My kids measure their lives by these business seasons as much as they do by the seasonal weather outside. They remember the times that Mom and Dad are distracted and pushing to send a book off to print. They like book shipping because it provides work they get paid to do. Shipping season is also celebrated for the treat foods we eat because Mom and Dad are too busy to cook. Convention season is frequently hectic and often involves over night stays with friends and relatives. In our lives, business and family are all tied up together. I like it that way even if it is chaotic at times.

I sometimes wonder how my kids will look back on our family life. Will they consider it as an ideal to live up to, or will they take from it things that they do not want to replicate? I hope they’ll do both. For now we have orders to ship.

Link’s Teeth

By / December 15, 2009

Link came trudging toward the car after school, shoulders slumped, eyebrows fixed into a scowl. He met my eyes and for just a moment I saw the corner of his mouth quirk up. That was the only clue that all might not be as it appeared.

“Mom. I had a terrible day.” Link flopped himself into the seat next to me.

“Oh? I’m sorry to hear that. What happened.”

Link hunched over a little bit more. “I lost six teeth.”

This was nowhere on the list of probable causes for a bad day. Also, had I heard right? “What?”

“I lost six teeth.”

I looked over at my son. There was no sign of the slight smirk. He was looking at me, deadpan serious. Part of my brain was still convinced that I’d heard wrong. I knew he had a wiggly tooth. Losing a tooth would not be surprising, but six? Really? Then Link grinned at me. There were four teeth across the front surrounded on either side by huge gaps. Link also held up a little ziploc bag containing the teeth in question. Six teeth in one day.

A closer inspection showed that the new teeth are already showing through. Link won’t have the big gaps for very long. This is good, since he’s discovered that chewing is a bit of a challenge at the moment. Also he is very pleased with himself. Not only did he lose more teeth in one day than anyone else we’ve ever known, but he fooled his mom with the “I’m having a bad day” schtick.

Edited to add: The lost tooth count is up to seven. Link just pulled out one on the bottom. This one was not quite as ready to let go as the top teeth. Link was just enthusiastic. None of the rest are even remotely wiggly and I have commanded him to leave them alone. I guess he was just overdue on losing a bunch of teeth.