Month: June 2012

DeepSouth Con 50

Howard is a guest of honor at DeepSouth Con 50 and I get to go with him. I’m really excited about this trip. It gives me a chance to travel to the South near where many of my ancestors lived. I’ll also get to just be with Howard while the kids are elsewhere. It is icing on the cake that I’ve been invited to participate in programming.

On Saturday at 11 am in Madison, I get to moderate a panel about the Meeting of Art and Science Fiction: Incorporating Hard Science into Art. I’ll get to moderate for Howard, which is always interesting. He’s pretty easy to moderate, but in group conversations I tend to let him take the lead. For this event it will be my job to lead. The other panelists are Krista Wohlfeil, Dr. Demento, and John Picacio. I’m looking forward to it.

Sunday afternoon at 1 pm in Madison, I’ll be a panelist participating in the Podcasting vs. Print Fanzine Smackdown. I expect my print-based layout and design experience to come into play. Panelist for this event are: Guy H. Lillian III, Howard Tayler, Sandra Tayler, and Curt Phillips. Should be fun.

Not officially part of my schedule, but something I do not intend to miss is the Saturday 9 am walk around Big Spring Park with Toni Weisskopf and Lou Anders. I’ll bring my binoculars and keep my eyes peeled for cardinals or other eastern birds. Yes, I intend to let my inner birdwatching geek out to play. I also expect to commit photography.

If you’re anywhere near Huntsville AL, I hope you’ll stop by and say hello. We’ll have copies of all the Schlock books and Hold on to Your Horses for sale in the dealer’s room. Look for The Missing Volume table run by the lovely Glennis LeBlanc.

Tweet Catch Up: Shipping Week Continues

Wednesday June 6:

Awake. Time to ship more books. The remaining unsketched books are headed out today. Howard is drawing Armored Kevyn.

If you ordered an unsketched SEOS, your book is in the mail. Mailing of sketched books begins tomorrow with Elf and Armored Kevyn. #presents

Thursday June 7:

If you ordered Armored Kevyn or Elf as your SEOS sketch, then your package is in this pile.

Just realized that all of my twitter photos are pictures of packages. This must be fixed. Have a tree at sunset.

Friday June 8:

Artist Choice, Kevyn, Schlock, and Tagon are all packaged. The little white bag contains two donuts for our postman.

We have the best postman in the world. He’s actually happy to see our pile of packages, because he likes his job.

Saturday June 9:

First tweet reports of books received have reanimated my languishing motivation. Off to the storage unit for more shipping supplies.

No packages shipped today. Needed a rest and to allow sketching time. The remaining packages will all go out on Monday.

Non Tweet thoughts:

Yesterday was a day much full of sleep and watching screens. I did print out the last odds and ends of postage. Tomorrow morning we’ll package up everything and set it out for pick up. Then I can dial my shipping brain back down to maintenance mode.

This process reminds me once again that we have much to be grateful for. I never put out a call for volunteers. Usually I do, because we’re hosting a big book shipping event, and I know that there is an emotional reward in being part of a big event. Also I can promise pizza. Somehow the new method, shipping out of our house, felt different. Asking for volunteers felt more like “come do my work for me” and less like “come be part of our fun event.” So I didn’t breathe a word about needing volunteers, but half a dozen people emailed me asking if they could help. They didn’t mind when my answers were tentative. They scheduled time off work or babysitting in order to come. Several of them arrived with treats. Then they worked with energy and enthusiasm. The lift to my spirits was as important as putting books into boxes. This has been a very long week. My whole body is sore from hefting boxes. My fingers are raw from folding boxes and taping them. Howard’s hand, arm, and back are exhausted. But we do what we must because each sketch and each package represents a commitment to someone who supports us. We work fast because deadlines loom and we must clear our work spaces for the next big project. Having friends come to help, Janci every shipping day, volunteers for a day each, makes a huge difference. One more day. I can do one more day.

On Friday one of our volunteers asked if this new method of shipping is working better than the old one. On the whole, yes it is. New challenges are introduced, but the worst of them are a result of the shipping week being sandwiched between two convention trips. We’ll try not to do that again. Howard needs a full week of sketching time before I start scheduling shipping days. This time Howard was frantically trying to get things drawn on Wednesday and Thursday because I had shipping scheduled for Thursday and Friday. That was not ideal. He needs more flexibility. It would also be better if shipping week landed when the kids are in school. They’ve been great about finding other things to do, and even helping. During shipping hours there have been no problems. Sketching hours are a different story. Howard really needs quiet, un-interrupted space to get into the sketch zone. In the sketch zone he plows through boxes of sketches without pondering his aches. Any interruption, however small, is a chance for his brain to get distracted. In order to prevent distractions, I’m on duty to manage conflicts. So I’d switch from shipping work to household management work with very few breaks. Friday night and Saturday were the first real down time we’ve had all week. Those were the hardest bits, and they’re simple to do differently next time. Everything else worked better and the stress was less intense for being spread out over a week instead of focused on a single day.

Today is Sunday. Tomorrow we ship out the next books. Tuesday I clean up all the messes and make the house back into order. Howard gets back to writing and drawing comics both Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday the traveling begins. I suspect we’ll be tired enough to sleep on the plane.

Shipping day…somewhere in the middle

This week it is very hard for me to hold on to the day. The part of my brain which measures time by events is sure that we’ve had at least a week since Monday. Physiology agrees with that estimate, surely I can’t have hefted 4000 lbs of boxes in a smaller span of time. Schedule keeper knows full well that we have lots of week left because there are events planned for this week which have not yet occurred. The planner wants to estimate me backward in time because there are many tasks yet to get done before those scheduled events and with all these tasks, surely we have more days for them. Visual cues are confused as at least a couple of my children haven’t changed clothes in several days. Kids do that if I am sufficiently distracted. My computer thinks today is Wednesday. It is probably right, though I have to work hard to believe that it is not Tuesday or Thursday instead.

I am so very tired.
But happy.
Today I was flipping through invoices and noticing how many of the names I recognize. I see them year after year as we release books, names from all over the world. I’ve never been to Finland, Germany, Indonesia, Spain, France, India, or Portugal, but our books are going there. I see these names and remember the wonder of it all, that Howard and I, who feel very ordinary, can be part of something that travels so far and brings at least a small measure of happiness.

I’m also happy because the new “small batches every day” system has succeeded in lowering the intensity of my stress. I still get stressed. There isn’t any less work, but the work is getting done. Next time we need to leave Howard more lead time on the sketching, but he’s being amazing, as always. The first batch of sketched books will go out tomorrow. All of the unsketched books are sent.

The kids have been amazing troopers. They’ve fed themselves breakfasts, helped make dinners, and not complained when we have to kick them out of the family room to get work done.

Tomorrow begins early, all my days do this week. Tomorrow is…Thursday.
I’m pretty sure.
Whatever day it is, it’ll be a good one.

Shipping day 1

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

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.