Author name: Sandra Tayler

Flipped out

/ / 9 Comments

Today I flipped out. I felt it coming on at about noon. By 3 pm I was a wreck and called Howard who was at the Keep. He came right home. Then of course I felt horrible for ruining his relaxation time. At first I couldn’t identify why everything was suddenly overwhelming. Why the chaos which I’ve handled easily for three days was suddenly overwhelming. I was being reduced to tears by things which are totally normal around here and which I usually shrug off.

An example, the kids dumped clean laundry out of their laundry baskets so that they could use the baskets as boats. Usually this is annoying and I make them put it all back. Today this was infuriating and I shouted at them to put the baskets back right now. When they didn’t start moving after 10 seconds I launched into a tirade about how much I hate clean laundry on the floor and that we never never never are allowed to dump clean laundry to play with baskets. I was holding onto control with the barest tips of my fingernails. I think I scared my nephews who’ve never seen me be that way before. Then of course I want to retreat into a private space and cry and berate myself for my loss of control.

That is one example of a repeating cycle all afternoon. It made no sense that I should be so volatile and irrational about every small provocation.

Then I counted on the calendar. 10 days ago my parents were in town and we had a whirlwind couple of days. 10 days ago the schedule disruption caused me to miss a dose or two of my thyroid medication. Guess how long the delayed effect of a missed dose is.

So now I have an explanation and I just need to weather out the storm. And I need to not listen to the voices which take small incidents and blow them into major traumas. My emotional tendency right now is to latch onto an incident and fret it until it feels huge and overwhelming. I have to tell myself over and over that if it really is an issue, it will still be an issue tomorrow when my emotional stability is closer to normal. It won’t be an issue tomorrow. I know it won’t. None of the things which are driving me to tears today will be a problem tomorrow.

I really need to never be separated from my regular doses of thyroid hormones. I’m a completely different person without them. I’m inclined to cry about that, but I think instead I’ll put that into the stack of things to consider tomorrow or the next day. For today procrastination, denial, and repression are my friends. Tomorrow a more rational Sandra can look again to see if any of the mirages are real.

Flipped out Read More »

Developmental Corners again

/

Every so often I realize that my kids have changed. While I wasn’t looking they began thinking new thoughts and the new thoughts change their behaviors.

Kiki’s shift into the land of teenager has made her a lot touchier. For awhile the touchiness was emotional, but lately it has been physical. She is much more prone to come up and hug me for no reason. She gives back-rubs. She tickles her siblings. Since this is the kind of attention that Gleek thrives on, the relationship between my two girls has improved a lot.

Gleek has been calmer and happier lately. She is more secure in her relationship with Kiki. But she is also happier in her relationship with Howard. She has been turning to him a lot more lately for comfort and other things she needs. Howard in return has been snugglier with her. It makes me glad.

All the news can’t be good. Link has begun treating Patches as an annoying little brother. He has begun defending his toys and objecting when Patches wants to tag along in games. Link wants to play games that Patches can’t yet comprehend. Patches non-comprehension leads him to “ruin” the game.

Patches doesn’t seem to have turned a corner. I’m hoping that he’ll soon turn the corner so that he gets himself to the toilet on time every time. I’ve been waiting for that corner for over a year now. Sigh. I think Patches needs more positive attention from me. More snuggly story reading is probably in order.

Developmental Corners again Read More »

Friday is waning

/ / 1 Comment

Last night I pulled out my planner and wrote a list of all the things I needed to get done today. I’ve done almost all of it. I love days like this when I get it all done. I only worked for about an hour on the schlock book, but the layout guy did contact me. Now I know we’re ready to really start rolling on Monday. Between now and then I need to start scanning in all the art images that we’ll need. That will be hours of work, I’m sure. Also slated for tomorrow are fixing a toilet and fixing the gate to our backyard. So another busy day ahead.

All that I have left on my to do list today is to write 500 words of fiction. I’ve given myself this little assignment so that the fiction doesn’t get lost entirely in the glut of Schlock book and business tasks. Obviously I can write more if the inspiration strikes, but the minimum is to keep me doing it. If you want to get good at something, do it every day.

One of the things I did this afternoon was to take the kids swimming. We were there at the same time as our backyard nieghbors, so all the kids had people to play with. That was fun for them. It was also fun for me because I had someone to talk to instead of being bored.

Friday is waning Read More »

Puppy Pile

/ / 1 Comment

Having my two nephews here instead of one Kiki changes the dynamic of the family. Mostly it means lots of joyful shrieking as three boys play video games. But another change became apparent when it came time to put the kids to bed. Obviously the two nephews wanted to sleep in Link’s room. They bracket him in age. Patches shares that room, so he obviously was going to sleep in there as well. This left Gleek, the lone girl. Gleek did not want to be left out, so I simply threw some foam pads down on the floor and let them all sleep there.

Getting them all to fall asleep is something of a challenge. They want to romp, I want them to sleep. So both nights so far have involved thumping and complaining and slamming of doors and shrieks and stolen pillows, and dire threats that I WILL separate them if they don’t settle down. Eventually they do fall asleep. When they do, I sneak in and look at them all. They’re all sprawled and variously piled like an adorable litter of puppies. And like puppies, they’re ready to go again the next day.

Puppy Pile Read More »

Busy again

/ / 3 Comments

Me doing the editing and layout for the Schlock book changes things. My summer is suddenly not so empty. I expect that the work will come in clumps. I’ll work like crazy for a few days, then I’ll have to wait while Howard and the layout guy do their bits. But I have to plan ahead for the days where I work like crazy. I think I’m going to have Taylercorp buy some frozen meals that I can use on the days when I’m exhausted by book work and can’t find the energy to make dinner. The thing is that this book work is not going to go away for quite awhile. As soon as the layout is done for this one I’ll be starting layout for the next one and ramping up to do shipping. Then shipping time is always crazy. Oh and at some point the kids will be starting school and I will not give up writing entirely.

I’ve got to pace myself. I can not always work as hard as I did the past two days. I need to allot each of my important things spaces in my day. It is probably time to dust off my planner that has been languishing since school got out. I need a place to collect all of the tasks and make sure everything gets done.

Weirdly, being busy exhilarates me. After a long stretch of it, I long for empty days, but I’ve just finished a 7 week stretch of empty days. I’m ready to have stuff to do.

Busy again Read More »

Vulture swatting

/ / 4 Comments

Seven hours of work on the Schlock book today. I was so focused that I did not notice the time pass. I did pause to order pizza for the kids. Tayler Corp will pay for that expense because I was doing a business critical task across dinner time. But I finished making notes to hand to the layout guy. Hopefully this will let us set pagination in stone and we can start filling up the white spaces.

Tomorrow I need to go through the book again and copy edit. I also need to go through and make notes about things that I think Howard should have to comment upon.

I don’t know how quickly our layout guy will be able to implement my notes. Hopefully he’ll have some time before he gets completely busy with Comic Con stuff.

Right now I’m all worn out. I could just got to sleep. Instead I need to put 3 of my kids and 2 of my brother’s kids to bed. Did I mention that I started my day by driving 90 minutes, trading Kiki for two nephews, and driving back? This explains the state of my kitchen and my house. It is not fair that I can work so hard, get so much done, and still feel discouraged at the end of the day. Hopefully a night’s rest will solve the discouragement and tomorrow I’ll have cycles to tame the chaos a little.

Vulture swatting Read More »

Yay New Project!

/ / 13 Comments

When we released The Blackness Between in November of last year, our stated plan was to get the next book out by June of this year. It didn’t happen. The next book is twice as big as the previous books and it is full of old artwork that Howard hates to look at. This book project has lurked like a vulture. It just sits and waits blackly. Where ever you go you’re always peripherally aware that the thing is there. Waiting. Then when you do really look at it, the first thought is always “That thing is huge!” The size of the project has been paralyzing for Howard. That’s why we missed the June release date. Now we’re aiming for October. But this time it is a little different. I’m going to take care of the vulture.

Last week Howard asked me to pull out the files of his old artwork so we could see what to put in the empty spaces between strips. Yesterday I dug it out and sorted through it. I loved looking at all the old artwork. Yes it is artistically awful, but it brought back so many happy memories that I loved it all. I kept looking at things and thinking “Oh this HAS to go in.” I took the pile and the excitement to Howard and he hated it all. If he had his way none of that stuff would ever make it into the book. Instead he’d draw all-new marginalia. But there is a lot of space to fill and the thought of drawing so many new pictures depressed him. He asked me to put the file aside so that he could work on the buffer.

I thought this over for a day or so. I realized that I love the idea of this project. I love the chance to organize the strips and put in the margin art. Then all I have to do is ask Howard to write a few notes. I don’t even care if the notes say “I hate this art, but Sandra made me put it in because she thinks you’ll want to see it.” So I have wrested the layout project from Howard’s unresisting hands. I’m so glad that I’ll get to influence what goes in. Like the picture of Schlock which Howard didn’t like, so he gave Schlock a talk bubble saying “I look awful. Keep trying toon boy.” Or the very first character sketches of Schlock, Tagon, Kevyn, and Brad.

This book when it is finished, will always make Howard want to apologize for the art. What he can’t see is how much people love getting a glimpse into the origins of things. People WANT to see the bad art. They want to see the awful prototype for the F’Sherl Ganni which never saw the light of day. They want to know the story of why Sentient Elephants wear earrings and body paint. If you’re a Schlock fan, please comment and back me up on this. I think I’m in for some arguments about what gets to stay in the book.

Mostly though, I’m just excited to have a fun project that allows me to directly contribute to the Schlockiverse.

Yay New Project! Read More »

Wasps

/ / 8 Comments

In this area wasps are something of a plague. Every year we have to eliminate multiple nests from our deck railing and even more from our wooden fences. We put out traps and catch them by the dozens, but this has no visible dent on the population as a whole. For some reason the wasps particularly like our red maple tree. In July and August you can watch as dozens of them hover around the tree.

This year there are no wasps. I have not seen a single nest on our property and I’ve only seen two flying around that I can recall. This is such a drastic change from the norm that I have spent some time wondering about it. I’d heard that there was a horrible bee virus sweeping across the country. The virus apparently kills whole hives. I wonder if this same virus kills off the wasps too.

The wasps were a nuisance to me. I didn’t like them. But the abrupt disappearance of all of them is a disruption in the local ecology and I wonder what the further repercussions will be.

Wasps Read More »