Sandra Tayler

Interrupt Driven Day

By / September 10, 2013

I planned for today to be a catch up on all the work day. Instead it was an interrupt-driven catch up on all the community and parenting stuff day. It was the kind of day where I get to the end of it having done important things all day long, but not having crossed of a single to-do item. I know I chose the right things, but that part of my brain which uses task completion as a measure is very frustrated by this sort of day.

And I’m tired, because the parent stuff is only begun, not concluded. My girls are doing well for themselves, though Kiki had an emotionally rough day. My boys both need me to follow through, track their homework, check their grades, and enforce homework time.

I also wish for the space to properly process all of the things. Because I should write an informational post on the challenges and accommodations to help my son with Auditory Processing Disorder as he faces public high school. The adjustment has been rough, partially because we’re still figuring out what resources and options are available. We’re also still identifying problem spots. At least this time I’m paying attention. Kiki’s transition into high school hit crisis level before we found some solutions. I could also write up how much I disliked having to email the 5th grade teacher to confess that my son was behind on his work because I’ve been too busy to tell him to do it. As long as I remind him, the work is cheerfully completed.

Tomorrow I need to send all of my kids to school (had kids home sick the last two days), ignore all the phone calls (except the ones from schools about kids), and finally put away the mess of things left over from Worldcon. Then I need to do all the post-convention accounting and remember what comes next fore the Jay Wake Book project. After that I need to work on layout for Longshoreman of the Apocalypse and sort my storage room. After that there are weeds, dishes, and laundry. Maybe I’ll feel caught up by Friday. If I hurry.

How You Walk Matters as Much as What You Wear

By / September 8, 2013

I spent three days helping run a booth at SLC Comic Con. There were lots of people in costumes, everything from professionally created and modeled down to made at home by a ten year old. I quickly discovered that some of the costumes impressed me while others did not. The difference did not lay in the quality of workmanship, nor whether the body shape of the person who wore the costume matched the character portrayed, though those things did have an influence. What consistently caught my eye was how a person walked while in costume. There were many people dressed as Loki who passed by my table, some of them in full kit with the horned helmet, but the core element of the Loki character is his arrogance. He honestly believes he should rule the universe, this means he must walk like he owns the floor. The very best Loki I saw was a woman shorter than myself (I’m 5’3″). She did not have the height to be imposing, yet people got out of her way. She had Loki down. Lord Vader is another character whose clothes are actually ridiculous, but when the person in the suit stalks, then ridiculous transforms into ominous.

The importance of body motion holds true even when the costume in question is that of a doctor, or sales clerk, or writer, or parent, or any other set of clothing. When you walk confidently, people assume you have authority. If you hunch a little bit and don’t meet people’s eyes, then you’re more likely to be able to pass unnoticed through a crowd. There are dozens of things you can do with your body to either draw attention or deflect it. The really cool thing is that body control is a learned skill. Though during the process of learning you will have stages of high self-conscousness, eventually the different ways of presenting yourself become like clothes that you put on when needed. At comic con my role was to be a booth support person. I was also pretty stressed by the sheer quantities of people at the event. I focused my energies on sliding through the crowds or staying in the background at the booth. Sometimes I stepped forward into a sales role where I needed to be personable and meet people’s eyes. At other events I am a presenter and author, then I dress and walk in ways that draw attention and make people more likely to listen to the things I have to say. Then I go to church and my job is to be a connected and supporting part of the congregation. Each of these roles requires different clothing and different personal presentation. If I just put on the clothes without changing the way I walk, I halve the effect.

My Day at SLC Comic Con in Tweets and Pictures

By / September 7, 2013

8am: For as long as I’m having to wait, I hope this is the breakfast burrito of champions

10am: Half the effectiveness of a costume is in how you walk when you wear it. Lord Vader looks ridiculous unless he stalks like he owns the floor

11am: My inner introvert is very glad we have booth space into which the crowd can not intrude. Comic con is packed today.

12pm: Yup. Really really glad to have the booth to shield from the crowd. Fun people watching though.

1pm: I found Waldo!

1:30pm: Cutest Dr. Who cosplay ever.

2pm: I’ve been told the fire marshal is regulating entry to the building. No one goes in until someone leaves. Line still around block.

2pm: Some of the announcements over the loud speaker must have stories to explain why they’re necessary. So glad I’m not security at this event.

2pm: Every thirty minutes the announcer is pleading with parents not to lose their children. The rest of the time is lost person announcements.

3pm: Dealers room aisle becomes impassible at 10 min past the hour. At half past it flows slowly. Clogs up again at quarter to. #ConTrafficReport

4pm: It appears that running a booth at comic con brings out my inner tweeter. I’m noisy today.

4pm: I’ve now seen two attractive red headed men who could have rocked Captain Carrot costumes. Lost opportunity.

It appears that most of my tweets were focused around the crowds. It was crazy crowded, but there was other amazing stuff too. I’ll have to write up a more considered post when I’m not quite so tired.

A Few Thoughts from Mid-Salt Lake City Comic Con

By / September 6, 2013

We’re halfway through Salt Lake City Comic Con. It is being a good show. The crowds and energy are good. I can tell that we’re going to break even. I can tell that we’re reaching into a new market with people who have never heard of us before and might be interested. From a business standpoint it is exactly what it needs to be. I wish I wasn’t already exhausted.

Howard still hasn’t properly recovered from WorldCon and SLCC is a real marathon effort of meeting and greeting. I’m still tired from running the back end of both GenCon and WorldCon. I’m tired from planning all the logistics and from carrying all the worry to make sure things go well. He’s staying in a hotel in SLC because that is the only way for him to be rested enough to give his energy to the fans for twelve hours per day. I’m commuting from home (an hour drive each direction) because someone has to tell the kids to go to bed and to get them off to school in the morning. Next week I’ll have to figure out all the homework that has been ignored in the last few days.

Tomorrow I’ll be at SLCC from 7 am until 7pm when the dealer’s hall closes. Then I’ll stay however-long after that to help break down the booth and haul everything home. Tomorrow is my son’s 16th birthday. I probably won’t see him all day. He’s a great kid and very understanding, but I wish I could do better for him than asking him to watch his siblings while I’m gone. So today I’m at home trying to set things up so that the birthday can be happy here at home. I’m disappointed in myself that so many of the solutions involve sugar. I’ll try to fix that some other day, today I’m too tired to change bad habits.

Today I am also incredibly grateful for the kind people who have given their time as booth help. It is hard to ask people to spend grueling hours on a show floor, because I know how exhausted it makes me. Yet they come, and I’m glad.

I’m grateful for my son, who has calmly and willingly told me it is okay. We’ve planned a proper celebration for next week with his friends. He is such a good person.

I’m grateful for the all the friends and fans who stop by the booth to say hello. They are the reward, the reason that all this effort is worth something. They are glad to see us and make us glad to be there even though we are exhausted.

Onward.

This is a Day of Very Little Brain

By / September 4, 2013 / 2 Comments

Last night I joked on twitter that I wish I could stick a crow bar into the middle of this week and stretch it out by a couple of days. Howard could really use those days as recovery time. He arrived home from WorldCon at 8am this morning after several nights of very little sleep. He’s completely burned out. What he really needs is two days to just sleep and stare at the walls. Then he needs a week of quiet work to catch upon the buffer, after which he’ll be excited and ready to tackle Salt Lake City Comic Con. Instead the booth has to be set up tomorrow. I’ll be handling that part. Howard will be at home, hopefully doing the sleeping and recuperating that he needs. Thursday the show begins. Both of us are excited for the possibilities of SLCC, neither of us wants to face another show so soon.

Howard came home happy. On the drive home and most of the morning, thoughts and stories started spilling out. He’s collected things to tell me for days, but they were all jumbled up together in his head and the only way to find the important ones is for me to listen to all the things. I don’t mind. All the things are interesting, it is just that a few of them are also assignments. This is one advantage of having me stay home. I’m far more rested than Howard is, but I’m still tired and short on sleep.

…In fact the day was one of so little brain that I forgot to complete and post this entry last night. Fortunately Howard pulled together a post that was more eloquent. You probably ought to go read it instead.

2014 Event Wish List

By / September 2, 2013

Last year in September all I wanted was to be at home with my family. I knew it was the last year with all the kids living at home and I was weary. So since last September and now the only time I went away was for four days of the Writing Excuses retreat. The break from events was good, but now I’m ready to go back out again. I want to see my friends who live far away. So this is my convention wish list for this next year. I’m going to have to pick and choose because child care is a limited resource.

January 17-19 ConFusion in Michigan. I have a lot of friends in Michigan. I really want to go visit them. So I plan to shift all sorts of things to make this happen.

February 13-15 LTUE in Provo, UT. This is local. My attendance is almost guaranteed.

May 25-26 LDS Storymakers. I would love to be involved, but they haven’t yet sent out their speaker invitations, so no idea if I will be yet.

July 3-6 Westercon SLC, Utah. This is local. Howard is one of the guests of honor. We’ll be involved.

July 17-20 NASFIC in Detroit, Michigan. This would be another lovely excuse to visit friends. But of the events on my wishlist, this is the one most likely to be dropped.

August 14-18 WorldCon in London. I would love to go to Europe. I’ve never been. I’d like to be with Howard at a WorldCon again. Childcare is tricky because of the length and distance of the trip. Timing is tricky because the turn around to the start of school is really tight. I’m not sure what is possible.

End of September: The Writing Excuses Retreat. I had to miss half of it this year. I really want to be present next year. It is my first choice of where to spend my childcare resources.

So that’s a lot of events to wish for. I feel a bit greedy. I know I am unlikely to get them all, but there is no harm in seeing the wishes.

I must also remember that my wish to have my family always safe and cared for is far more important.

Howard Won a Hugo

By / September 2, 2013 / 3 Comments

Photo by Scott Marlatt

You can see that he was a bit excited by this. I only have bits and pieces of information about the event because it all took place in San Antonio and I was in Utah. I was tracking the progress of the Hugo Award ceremonies via Twitter while I distracted myself from being anxious by doing other things. There was supposed to be a live Ustream of the event, but twitter told me that there were technical difficulties, so I’m glad I didn’t attempt to watch that way. I’d just seen the news that someone other than Schlock Mercenary was picked for the Best Graphic Story category. I was still trying to settle that news in my mind and wondering how Howard was doing when a friend called to let me know that Writing Excuses won. Brandon, Mary, and Howard all got to go onstage. (Dan is in Germany and Jordan in Utah.)

Howard called me later for just a few minutes. He was happy and wanted me to know that he was happy, but couldn’t talk long because he had a job to do. For him the Hugo doesn’t represent a reward for something he completed, it is a responsibility to continue the work that he has only begun. His job for the evening was to carry the Hugo, to talk to people, to give out as much kindness and happiness as words could dispense. I’m pretty sure he stayed out past 3 am doing that.

I spoke with him again today for a little bit longer, but he still has a job to do. Most of the attendees have dispersed, but our booth crew is still there. His time and attention belong to them for this evening, because they are friends and because they took time out of their lives to come and help us. I hope we’ll have time to talk when he gets home, that I’ll get to hear all the stories and happy things that have happened for Howard in the past few days. I was here doing my job, which doesn’t have any particularly fun/exciting stories attached.

I look at that picture up above and I am so very glad. I am so glad that Howard is the good man that he is, that he has such amazing friends who collaborate with him, that his hard work has been recognized, that we get to continue doing all the things we are doing. The Hugo is being shipped to us, I look forward to seeing it in person. Even more, I look forward to picking up Howard from the airport and bringing him home where he can be mine again for a while.

Different Day, Different Thoughts

By / September 1, 2013

Yesterday I wasn’t sad to be missing WorldCon. Today I am. Brains are funny that way. It hit me when I was sitting in Sunday School. All summer I sat there with Kiki on one side and Howard on the other. Today they are both off having adventures, doing new things, while I did all the usual things.

But then Kiki called and she succeeded where my Dad has failed for years, she convinced me to put Skype on one of my computers. Totally worth it to see her, and to let her see her siblings and her kitty. So the evening is better than the morning.

The Things that Keep Me Busy

By / August 31, 2013 / 1 Comment

The past few days have felt tumultuous, but they weren’t. This disparity between external and internal experience of events is not my favorite. It means something in my brain is out of alignment. What I finally saw in the past few days is that this is the result of all my jobs expanding just a little bit, so that it is just barely not possible for me to do them all. Truthfully I haven’t been able to do any of them well in a long time, at least not up to my standards for “doing them well.” I admit those standards are high. I expect a lot of me. I’m far more forgiving with everyone else. But in the past few days it finally clicked that the reason I’m failing at all my things is because there are simply too many things.

“I wish we could hire _______.” Howard has said it more than once after coming home from GenCon where we have an amazing crew. This was the first year where he and I looked at each other and thought maybe we could. Business expansion is scary. I’m going to have to do a bunch of research and crunch some numbers to make sure we do not over extend ourselves. (I’ll add those things to the ever revolving list of too many things to do.) But there was a moment when I pictured handing off some of my jobs and I felt such relief at the thought. I might have time to pull the waist high weeds in the front garden, or to reshelve that pile of books, or to vacuum once in a while. I might be able to think ahead enough to plan meals.

Granted, some of those things will come back when convention season is over. Except I’ve seen the release schedule we’ve got planned for next year. Things are closer together. I’m not sure the old patterns will hold.

It was setting up the point of sale system which tipped me over. It was the critically important thing that I’ve been meaning to do since February. It sat on my task list. I looked at it every day for six months and there was always something else more urgent. At the last minute, in a tearing panic, I pulled it together. Then I had to scramble to fix it because in my panic I’d set it up wrong. Nothing like having my system in Texas while I’m in Utah and relaying critical troubleshooting information via text message to people who have never worked with the system before and neither have I. We’re learning how it works while we use it, and I’ll be writing a post talking about the system we’re using, because it really is a good system and the customer support has been stellar. The way this fell out is a far cry from the careful research and testing I’d planned to do.

In the meantime, Link is learning how to tackle high school level homework and teacher communication. Gleek’s choir class has her singing again and sitting down at the piano to pick out tunes. Patch hops into my car cheerfully after school and chatters to me about his day. Kiki has landed her first paying illustration job (probably, contract pending), has made friends, and discovered that the high quality of her high school art classes have prepared her well for college. In light of these things the weeds and vacuuming are less important. Yet I only see this perspective in glimpses right now. Mostly my eyes are on the task list. So many things to do before Salt Lake City Comic Con next week.

I assembled a hand truck today. It was one of the many things to do for SLCC. I thought I’d ordered a nice mid-sized hand truck that converted to a cart. It is rather bigger and more sturdy than that. Good thing I can store it in the storage units with our inventory. When I was most of the way done, Link said wistfully “next time can I help? I like putting things together. At which I immediately handed over the wrenches, because I didn’t like assembling this thing at all. Fortunately I’ll never have to do it again. I meant to stack all the boxes of things for SLCC, but the assembly took longer than anticipated, so that rolls over onto Monday.

Like last year, I’m not sad to be missing Worldcon. There are people I’d love to see, but the timing is just wrong. I need to be here. However I’m hoping to attend ConFusion in January and if I have to miss that, I will be very sad. It has been a long time since I’ve gone to a convention to be among my writer friends.

And now it is late. I should sleep.

Conventions and Preparations

By / August 27, 2013

On the drive to take Howard to the airport I feel relief, not because Howard is leaving, that part isn’t my favorite, but because all the convention preparations are complete. Driving to the airport means that all the things are done, or they are forever not done, either way I don’t have to think about them. Over the next few days I’m in a business pause, the space between convention preparation and convention clean up. I like those pauses. They give me time to catch my breath and reorganize all the pockets of chaos that end up all over our house because I shove things out of the way to get work done.

This morning Howard left for the airport, but this week is not a pause for me. I’ll be spending this week preparing for Salt Lake City Comic Con. The first setup day begins on the day after Howard returns from WorldCon. My job is to be on top of things because Howard needs to crash for two days before he has to be focused for SLCC. I miss my pause.