Updates from the Tayler House

Three fourths of my kids are sick today. This is going to significantly change the tenor of my day. I’ve grown accustomed to having longish stretches to focus on work. There are still random phone calls, script aprrovals, and business meetings to interrupt my focus, but on the whole I can work. I was thinking about this the other day after reading a post from my sister who is potty training a toddler and thus having to orbit said toddler pretty closely. After reading the post I swiveled in my office chair and realized that I’d been sitting in that exact chair for over two hours. Such a thing never happened when my kids were little. I was up and around, feeding kids, cleaning messes, negotiating deals. So in some ways today will be a return to that. I expect to be paged for deliveries several times per hour.

LTUE begins one week from today. If you’re local in Utah it is definitely an event to consider. I’ve already begun compiling notes and thoughts for my four panels. The nice thing about pulling together notes for a panel is that the same notes can be used to write a blog post later.

In writing news: My short story “The Road Not Taken” was selected to be featured as a finalist during the Mormon Lit Blitz over on the Mormon Artist blog. This was a cheerful addition to yesterday. Subscribing to the RSS of that blog from Feb 15-29 is probably worthwhile. They’ll be posting one finalist per day. I’m looking forward to reading them. I hope you’ll join me and perhaps cast your vote for any writing you especially like.

To balance out the happy writing news, I got another form rejection on Stepping Stones. My only reaction to this one was the thought “of course” followed by a thin thread of “this is wasted effort. No one will ever want it.” Sometime in the near future I’ll pull up my boot straps and figure out where else to submit. Right now I need to focus on the primary February goals.

Good heavens, it is February. This is the month when I need to finish layout work on Sharp End of the Stick and I need to dismantle and reassemble our shipping system. In theory I’ll get some further work done on my office remodel, but truthfully that project is paused until I can allocate the necessary funds to pay someone for framing, electrical, and drywall. I have ongoing support for kids, homework, and household maintenance. The weather remains cold, but not really wintery. LTUE is a bright spot, but only lasts three days. Hopefully my participation in Letter Month will help me find small bits of happiness in a month that is looking sloggish from this end of it.

And now it is time for me to begin the work of today.