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I did not post on Wednesday. This is because I was in a heavy avoidance mode. I’d done all the book shipping preparation that was possible, but I was still tense and nervous that things would not go well. I had to give my brain things to do other than fret. So I read and surfed the internet and generally avoided everyone and everything that could remind me about all the worries in the back of my brain. A head stuffed full of repressed worries does not make for a good night’s sleep. I spent the entire night packing books in my dreams.

Thursday was the first day of shipping. The file boxes full of invoices and postage were finally put to use. Those file boxes loom large in my brain the more stuffed they get. By the time I am done sorting invoices and printing labels, I’ve put in about 50 hours of focused effort. Then I start printing postage. The boxes I carried to the Keep yesterday contained 60 hours of my effort and over ten thousand dollars worth of postage. It is very cathartic and tension reducing for me to look at those same boxes now that they are empty. The invoices and postage are now packages. Most of those packages I will never see or hear from again.

The first shipping day always begins slowly. I start with the single book packages first to let the helpers get a feel for how the process works. It does not take long before the volunteers are rearranging their packing stations and optimizing everything for efficiency and accuracy. I love to see that. At first I work right alongside everyone else. There is usually a pile of “special handling” packages that require too much explanation. It is one thing to explain a process that will work for a whole pile of invoices. It is something else to explain that this package gets an extra book because the person sent a separate payment, but asked that the books get shipped together. All the packages in “special handling” have stories attached and it is much easier for me to do them because I already know the stories.

By noon the special handling pile was gone. This was good because we began accumulating volunteers. That’s when I step back and stop doing any of the packing. Instead I started walking around and supervising. I checked all the processes, but everyone was working well and working smart. There was only one time I had to ask someone to change the way they were packing, not because it had caused a problem, but because it could potentially cause a problem. Everyone was very thorough. They kept finding problems and bringing them to me. I collected labels with no matching invoices, addressed packages with no zip codes, a big pile of packages with no postage because I’d miscounted how much to print, and a second pile of packages needing postage because I’d mis-estimated how many books would fit into a flat rate mailer.

At first the supervising left me ample time to sit down or snack on a bagel. But then more volunteers arrived and we finished all the big lists. I found myself with twice as many workers and they were all finishing lists faster because the lists were shorter. For the last three hours of the shipping I did not have a spare minute to think. There was always someone in need of a new list, or with a question, or lacking supplies. Then suddenly my boxes were empty. People came asking for the next assignment and I had none left to give. This was good, because I had reached frazzlement. I could hardly think coherently anymore. Fortunately the pizza arrived about then. I’d hardly eaten all day and I was famished.

I went home relieved, but not completely relaxed. I had that pile of problem packages to sort out. They threatened to disturb a second night’s sleep, but I squelched them with pie and a good book. Three hours of work this morning and I’d found solutions for all of the problem packages. Three helpers came back to the keep today. I’m really glad that they did come despite my frazzled assurances the night before that there wasn’t much left to do. I would not have been able to get those problem packages done and ready before the man with the mail truck showed up. He arrived just as we had finished and were all wondering what else there was to do. So we loaded the mail truck and it was all done.

There will be shipping tasks next week. Some new orders have come in. Some of those packages will find their way back to me. Then I’ll have to sort them out. Some postal worker will find a way to mangle books and we’ll need to send out replacements. I’ll still have work to do. But there is so much less. I don’t quite feel done yet. The book release party is tomorrow, I still have to run that. But I’m hoping that next week and the week after will bring more time for family and holiday and doing-nothing-in-particular.

I do not believe it. We had more packages to ship, more books to ship, everyone had to pay attention to which sketch went into which package, and it was still all finished today. It does not seem possible. I lay it all at the feet of the amazing volunteers who all pitched in so cheerfully. I would hand peopled complicated lists with multiple items and they would just go make it work. Every time I turned around someone was done and asking for more work or a new person had shown up to help. Not only that, but the people just accumulated. I think that only one person had to leave for another commitment. Everyone else just showed up and stayed until the job was done. At the end we had about 17 people working all at once. We took over the whole store.

We had the same very nice mail person who picked up for us the last two times we did shipping. I was glad to see him again. He came twice. He’ll come a third time tomorrow to pick up the last load of tubs. Tomorrow I’ll be back at Dragon’s Keep for a couple hours to take care off odds and ends. There are some clean up chores to do and extra shipping supplies to haul home. But suddenly I have space in my day tomorrow. Saturday is the party.

If you spend a long period of time working with large numbers, then smaller ones seem insignificant. This is an occupational hazard for me. I run a business where I’m routinely writing checks over a thousand dollars. (The books cost over$13,000 to print and postage is going to cost about that much to ship them.) This means that when I do the family budget and purchasing, I frequently find myself thinking “well it’s only $20.” But I still need to track those $20 purchases. In fact I need to track $1 purchases because money adds up. It adds up very quickly when you aren’t paying attention.

Howard has now signed and sketched over 1070 books. This means there are “only” 200 books left to do. I remember when we released Under New Management and the thought of sketching 300 books was daunting. Beyond that Howard needs to sign an additional 600 Tub of Happiness, over 200 Blackness Between, and just under 200 Under New Management. That’s tomorrow’s task. Then on Thursday we begin the shipping. There will be over 1600 packages and 2200 individual books.

I remember when sending out 50 Christmas cards sounded like a lot.

I’m not certain what it is about having a fire in the fireplace, but it make me mellow and contemplative. This is a very nice change after the high-stress business of the past week. Howard is more mellow and relaxed too. He’s taking a break from all the drawing today. This is really good. It means he’ll be ready for the home stretch on Monday.

Howard and I sat on a couch facing the cracking fire. “It’s really a miracle you know.” Howard said. It was a somewhat cryptic remark, but I knew exactly what he meant. It is a miracle that this life that we love manages to allow us to pay the bills. It is a miracle that despite our major reduction of income, our life has been happier and more full of wonderful things than it was before. It continues to amaze me that we can give Howard’s cartoons away for free on the internet and people still show up to buy books. It amazes me the wonderful kind words people send us that encourage us and make us believe that what we do is worth doing. Our life these days is like a house of cards that we carefully build one piece at a time. Sometimes I’m afraid to breathe for fear it will all come crashing down. Each moment the house stays standing feels like a miracle. But then when I look closer, I realize that many of the cards are glued together. Neither Howard nor I put the glue there, someone else came along after we were done. The glue is provided by the fans who come and love the house so much that they write emails, or forum posts, or tell their friends, or buy books, or simply laugh. Without those fans providing all that glue, this house would have fallen down long ago. And so I guess our life is not so much a miracle as a gift. It is gift given to us every day by the people who love Schlock Mercenary. I am awed and honored to receive the gift.

I am having a quiet afternoon at home. This feels wrong when I know that Howard is down at Dragon’s Keep drawing until his arm falls off. But it is necessary. When Howard arrives home tonight and falls over with exhaustion, I must be alert and energetic enough to catch him before he hits the floor. The house needs to be in order and the kids need to be calm, because nothing is worse than dragging yourself home exhausted to find chaos. The calm and order can not happen unless I am here having a quiet afternoon.

I spent the morning wrangling my way through customs forms and printing international postage. It wasn’t hard, but it did require hours of careful concentration. But it is done. The request for postal pick-up has been made. I think I am ready. Next week the drawing will be all done and it will be my turn to work past the point of exhaustion while Howard recuperates and acts as support personnel.

Yesterday I likened book mailing to a marathon. We have now reached the phase where we’re exhausted and achy. Every step hurts and we wonder why we thought this was a good idea. The knowledge of how far there is left to run looms large. But if we just keep putting one foot in front of the other, eventually it will be mostly behind us and we’ll get that second wind to carry us through to completion. 3/4 of the sketch editions are signed and stamped. Hopefully before the end of today half of them will have sketches as well. I’m almost done prepping postage and labels. Come Monday I’ll have a pile more to do because lots more orders came in this week and they’ll need to be sorted and prepped.

A Schlock Mercenary book release is much like running a marathon. There are months and months of advance preparation, book layout, printing, shipping arrangements. Then there are the pre-race jitters. Howard and I both had sleepless nights fretting over unpleasant scenarios. The arrival of the books is like the starters gun. Yesterday we ran flat out as fast as we could, trying to get everything done. Today we’re settling down to a sane pace because we can’t sprint our way through the next week and a half. We have to pick a pace we can maintain and just keep going until it is done.

Our garage smells of printer’s ink and binding glue. This is a happy smell. It is the smell of success. Yesterday, after all the books were moved in and the truck drove away, I stood at my kitchen counter and looked down at the book in my hand. A tension that I have been carrying inside me for two months unwound. I’d grown so used to it, that the release was a surprise. I now have everything I need to make good on the promises I made when I accepted money for books that didn’t exist yet.

There will problems with the mailing. There always are. But now they are all problems I have tools to solve, problems I have solved before. And most of the packages will just go to their recipients with no problems at all.