Author name: Sandra Tayler

Staying home from an event

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Soft footsteps padded across my bedroom carpet. Then the bed bounced as a small body rebounded off the side and under the covers. Patch wriggled his way into his favorite snuggle spot and we all drifted back to sleep for awhile.

Howard’s morning playlist sounded off at the usual time, waking all of us. Usually we turn the alarm off on Saturdays, but Howard had to give a presentation at the LDS Storymakers Writing Conference. He would be gone all day and we planned for me to join him at the awards gala in the evening. I looked forward to it. I do not get many chances to dress formally and go out. Not to mention I love the people who are there. It was so much fun staying out late the night before to visit with them all. The kids had a movie fest in my absence and I put them to bed when I got home.

Patch and I snuggled under the covers while Howard got up to shower.

“Did you have fun last night?” I asked Patch.

He smiled “Yes. We watched three Scooby Doo shows.” He then proceeded to give me a detailed description of each plot. I did not interrupt his flow of chatter. Sometimes Patch just needs to talk until his head is empty. I know the feeling. I do the same thing. I did not really listen to the plots. I was too busy watching Patch. Next Wednesday we’ll be separating for four days. Howard and I have a convention and the kids are staying with relatives. They’ll have a good time and so will we, but being away is still hard on the youngest of my kids. Patch’s eyes were alive with excitement and the gap in his front teeth gave a slight lisp to his speech. He’s not the baby he once was.

The stories wound down and we snuggled under the covers in silence for a few minutes. The house is chilly since we’ve turned off the heat and opened windows for cool spring air.

“So next week you get to stay with your cousins.” I said.

Patch’s face lit up and then his forehead crinkled. “I’m going to miss you mom.”

“I know. That part is hard. But you’re going to have fun.”

He nods, but then wraps my arms around him and snuggles closer.

“Hey buddy. Dad and I were planning on me going with him to a dinner tonight. You would get to have another fun movie night. How would you feel about that?”

Patch was silent for a moment, then answered “I’d rather have you home mom.”

“You want your normal bedtime with me here?”

“Yeah.”

I think of the beautiful dress I planned to wear. I think of the friends with whom I could visit. I think of how over-tired the kids were last night and the likely crankiness that I’ll have to deal with today. The morning following had church. Kids up late for two nights in a row guarantees Sunday morning meltdowns. I look into my boy’s blue eyes and know that being home for him and his siblings is more important. I need to give them two days of uninterrupted mom-at-home time this weekend so that we’re all ready for next week.

“Okay, I’ll stay home.”

The further I got into the day, the more sure I was that the decision was right. Sometimes the business things need to bend to the family things.

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Dumping the thoughts in my head

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My head is buzzing full of things. They’re all zipping about so quickly that I’m having trouble forming them into a coherent story. So I’ll just dump them in here at random, which will hopefully clear my head enough to let me sleep.

Today I ran down to the LDS Storymaker’s Conference in Provo so that I could participate in the recording of a Writing Excuses podcast. The episode is called “Living with the Artist” and it is me, Dawn Wells (Dan Wells‘ wife), and Kenny Pike (Aprilynne Pike‘s husband) talking about what it is like to be the spouse of a full time creative person. I’d never participated in a podcast before, but I think the recording went pretty well. I’m sure that when I get to listen to it I’ll find something I wish I could fix, but that is always the case with a finished project.

Speaking of finished projects, the digital page proofs for Resident Mad Scientist arrived today and they are beautiful. Plotter’s proofs should arrive on Monday and then the project is ready to go. We should have advance copies in our hands the middle of May, at which point we’ll open pre-orders and my life will be crazy busy again.

Howard and I ended up staying for dinner at the conference. We hadn’t intended to do so, but we stopped by to say hello to a couple of people and they urged us to take the empty seats. I’m so glad that we did. I love how much laughing I do when I hang out with local writer friends.

The kids spent the evening watching netflix movies streamed through our Wii. That system gets two thumbs up.

And now to bed.

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Peace and Sunshine

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The stressy, angsty time of this-book-is-almost-done has given way to the happy period of peace which frequently comes afterward. Or at least I’m having peace. Howard is still scrambling to build the buffer back up before we head out to a convention next week. I sometimes feel guilty that I’m having cheerful peace while Howard is still living in stress land. Then I remember that for me “happy peace” still includes a day that is scheduled by the hour. I’m just scheduling house and family stuff more often than business stuff.

Today the family stuff manifested in the shape of shoes. Link has been wearing sneakers with gaping holes for almost a month. Patch and Gleek were down to one pair each. This meant considerable time spent each morning seeking for lost shoes. So I took Link shoe shopping. He is in that middle ground between child sizes and adult sizes where the pickings are pretty slim. It also gives me the opportunity to muse on the fact that men’s shoes cost twice as much as children’s shoes eve when the pairs in question are nearly identical. But Link was happy. He took great joy in throwing away his old shoes before we even left the store. He just put on the new ones as soon as I paid for them. We brought home shoes for Gleek and Patch as well. I’ve done my part to keep the economy healthy for this week.

The business stress will return. I see it off on the horizon in the shape of an XDM project deadline and pre-orders for Resident Mad Scientist. May will have crazy in it. But I’m not there yet. I’ll deal with it when I am. Also there will actually be fewer things to manage in May than there were last month. It is less crazy-inducing to manage two big things than 5 smaller things. For now I’m going to turn my back on the far off clouds and enjoy the sunshine.

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Small happiness with footnotes

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When Clark Kent ducks into a phone booth and changes clothes, he becomes someone else*. Today I put on my stylish jeans and a swishy new scarf**. Then I sashayed myself down to the kitchen for a slice of hot three-cheese semolina dipped in spaghetti sauce. I felt young, attractive, and interesting with the shabbiness of my mom clothes laying in a heap on my bedroom floor***. Even better, I had the house to myself, and so my snack was uninterrupted. Later on I danced in my kitchen just because I felt like it. These interludes in my day were short, surrounded on all sides by scrambling to get all of my work done. But like a sunbeam through a window brightens the whole room, my whole day was brighter.

*Where will Clark Kent change clothes now that cell phones have made pay phones scarce?
**Kohls is my new best friend. Janci, I should have listened to you a year ago.
***I’ll pick them up later. I swear.****
****Does Superman go back to the phone booth and retrieve his clothes after he’s done heroing? Or does he just leave poor Clark to constantly shop for suits?

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That kind of day

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Today is the kind of day where I start blogging and then discard everything I wrote because I realize that I’m telling the wrong story, or framing it in the wrong way. In fact today is the kind of day when I do that twice.

It is the kind of day which begins with Howard and I talking business as we bustle the kids off to school. Howard has to re-invent all of his work processes because his computer crashed to the blue screen of doom and the only solution was to reformat his drive and restore from back ups. Thankfully Howard is compulsive about backing up thoroughly. Then I buried myself in my office to plow through accounting work, which I was not looking forward to because it included a letter from the Utah State Tax Commission claiming that we owed them more money. (We didn’t, I explained it all over the phone to a nice man who agreed with me and shifted a mis-credited payment. $790 which stays in our pockets is a good thing.) The morning also included helping a business partner find a solution to an urgent problem and calculating funds against expenses and proposed purchases. Also, I shipped packages.

Today is the kind of day which takes a sharp left turn in the middle of it and spins off into something entirely different. Gleek was crying when I pulled up at school. I don’t think her whole day had been hard, but it ended in frustrated tears. Which almost brought me to tears because I don’t know how to fix it for her. Also I worry about next year and who her teacher will be. Gleek requires deft management or things go bad in a hurry. So today became the kind of day where I talk with school officials and neighbors, trying to piece together exactly what the budget cuts are going to do to the staffing of fourth grade. Teachers are being shifted all over the place. I’ve put in my requests and tried to make clear why my requests are not frivolous. Time will tell if I’m believed.

Today is also the kind of day where I sit down with Gleek and we weed three flowerbeds together. She seemed to enjoy the quiet together time and even expressed that pulling weeds was a good solution to angry feelings. I agreed. Gardening is calming for me as well. At the end of the work, Gleek was hot. Then today became the kind of day where we break out the swimsuits, turn on the sprinklers, and invite neighbor kids from four different houses to come and splash. I stood outside for more than an hour catching a toddler at the bottom of the slide and regulating trampoline turns. The crowd of children grouped and regrouped as games were created and abandoned. I listened to the words of the four-and-under crowd, amazed once again that persons so small could express such complicated thoughts with limited vocabulary. I watched them all and loved them all. It was the kind of day where I am grateful once again for the neighbors that I have.

I left the yard to create dinner, which started with a bag of Spanish Rice mix, but expanded into a Mexican food sampler with black beans, refried beans, and grilled chicken. Then it became the kind of day when I spoon small amounts of new foods onto the kids plates and insist that they try everything. I also said they had to pick three things to eat completely. Gleek and Patch both eschewed the refried beans. Link left a pile of grilled chicken. Kiki abandoned the black beans. Good thing I provided variety. Fortunately I also made the last of the Easter eggs into deviled eggs. (Did I mention that we only got around to coloring eggs yesterday? Easter tradition was delayed by book.) The kids filled up on the eggs mostly.

At the end, today became the kind of day where we pile everyone in the car to go buy gelato (Italian ice cream) from Mia Terra. We sat at the high counter and told a round robin story which petered out into absurdity. But no quarrels were had and at home the kids read until lights out.

Next it will be the kind of day where I fall asleep hoping for tomorrow to be just as good, but perhaps a little emptier.

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Spring Flowers

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The bulbs arrived on a day that I was busy. In fact the whole week was not ideal for planting bulbs. I was a little grouchy with myself for ordering them. This is exactly why I’d ordered them by mail several months before. I knew I would never make time to go buy bulbs and plant them, but if they were already there, I would find time to prevent them from dying. So I took my trowel and went out in the chilly wind.

I scraped holes in the dirt, trying not to disturb the few remaining annual flowers which had survived the first frosts. I placed the bulbs in groups of five, which gardening books tell me is an aesthetically pleasing way to group flowers. I even mixed tulips with daffodils to add variety. The smooth, tear-drop tulips looked so elegant next to the messier daffodil bulbs. A layer of dirt and then crocus bulbs went over the top before I filled the hole completely. Planting bulbs is an expression of faith that spring will come. I need that when all the greenery is shriveling up to hide for the winter. I want to shrivel and hide too. Instead I hid bulbs in the ground to wait for spring.

Winter was long, cold, and dark. But I survived all the storms both internal and external. The sun grew warmer and the world began to be green again. My expression of faith is rewarded, for now I have flowers.
Spring Flowers

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Talking about my book(s)

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My work presents me with a confusion of language. When I talk about being done with a book to my writer friends, they naturally assume that I am discussing the book I am writing. What I’m really talking about is the layout work that I’m doing for a Schlock Mercenary book. Then I find myself saying “Oh I’m not talking about my book. It is Howard’s book that is done.” Only Howard’s books are my books too. I have as much hand in them as he does even though my name only appears in small print on the credits page while his name graces the cover.

This confusion of how to describe work is far from unique to me. I’m sure agents, editors, copy editors, and layout designers have been dealing with this for far longer than I have. All of these people have a right to feel some ownership over the finished product that is a book. It takes the love and effort of many people to bring a book to market where it will hopefully find the love and support of many readers as well.

Even more confusing is when a friend comes up to ask “How is your book doing?” My mind always stutters for a minute while I try to figure out which book the person might be inquiring about. There is the children’s picture book (selling slowly,) the essay book (still in first draft,) Resident Mad Scientist (just off to the printer,) XDM (selling strongly,) or one of the other five Schlock Books in print (selling well and some in second printing.) I don’t have one book. I have many books. I wonder if authors with many books in print have this same problem. I suspect that they do.

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Palace Beautiful

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palace beautiful

I first heard about Palace Beautiful when I met the author, Sarah DeFord Williams. It was one of those friend of a friend on the internet introductions. The things she wrote intrigued me and so when the chance came to meet her in person, I jumped at it. I discovered she was even better in person and had the good fortune to visit with her regularly. That is how I came to have an Advanced Reader Copy of Palace Beautiful. I read it and loved it. The book is not without flaws, but I can’t tell you what they are, because I don’t remember. Even while I was reading the book I was too engaged to analyze, which is kind of rare for me.

I handed the book over to Gleek, who is squarely in the middle of the intended audience. She read the book, loved it, built her own Palace Beautiful hiding place, and began to incorporate various aspects of the book into her life. Books really speak to Gleek. They give voice to her feelings and allow her to view herself in new ways. She saw herself in the characters of Palace Beautiful. Even more, she took things from the book and used them. She used the fanciful names for colors. She asked to be taught how to crochet granny squares. She even wrote her own origin fable to try to capture who she is and where she came from.

Because Gleek is young, these interests faded as life moved on. But just a few weeks ago, she read the book again. The book and the characters spoke to her again. She picked up the interests again. I am pleased about the timing of this re-read. The Palace Beautiful Launch Party takes place tomorrow at The King’s English bookstore in Salt Lake City. I’ll be taking Gleek to buy her very own hard cover copy of the book, and to introduce her to my friend Sarah. Sometimes a book or a person comes into our lives at exactly the right moment. Thus it was that Sarah Williams and Palace Beautiful came to Gleek, and I.

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Temporary Laurel Resting

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I sent a package today. Me shipping something is a common occurance, but this package was special. It contained color proofs and digital files for Resident Mad Scientist. This means the count down clock is ticking toward the day when two pallets of books arrive in my driveway. I’ll get a schedule from the printer once they review the files. At that point I can schedule the opening of pre-orders and the likely dates for the shipping party and release party.

It feels really good to have the project finished. I’ll be resting on my laurels and doing family stuff through the weekend. On Monday I’ll pitch the wilted laurels and get back to work. We have five conventions in the next six months. I have to plan so that the merchandise and art displays all arrive in the right places on schedule. It will also be time to start work on Emperor Pius Dei as well as an XDM adventure module. There will also be assorted family events. Believe it or not, this actually represents a slow down from last year. Listing it out like that brings home the necessity of making sure each day has a balance of work and rest. It is the only way to be happy in the life we have chosen.

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Getting Excited for Penguicon

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In a little more than two weeks Howard and I are Michigan bound to attend Penguicon. I’m looking forward to the trip, both as a chance to visit with online friends and to get away from my regular round of things to do. It will be exhausting, conventions always are, but the company is going to be excellent.

Going to Penguicon with Howard will be an interesting closing-of-the-circle for me. We went together in 2004 when Howard was only a part-time cartoonist. At the time I was in the habit of describing Howard as a sieve I sent out into the world to net good friends for us. He would bring back the good ones and introduce them to me. The system felt very secure. I was safe and I still got to meet cool new people. The flaws of the system were made apparent at Penguicon. We arrived and Howard carefully introduced me to his local friends in the early hours of the convention, but everyone he knew was either on the convention committee or part of programming. Once the convention was in full swing they were all very busy. I ended up adrift and discovered that I had no idea how to meet people and make conversation without Howard standing beside me. The temptation to hide in my hotel room and cry was nearly over-powering. Somehow I found the courage to confess to Howard how lost I felt. He rescued me and a kind local woman guided me through the rest of that day. I got into the swing of things and had a great time. But I came home determined to acquire the skills I lacked.

I have changed a lot in the past six years. Already I know that Penguicon is going to be a very different experience. I will have my own circle of friends rather than gaining entrance to Howard’s circle by being his wife. The fact that most of the people in my circle are also part of Howard’s circle is pleasant, but not necessary. I’ve also gained a lot of expertise. This time around I’ll be on programming for some of the panels and I’ll be running a table to sell books that I helped create. It will be a good time.

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