Uncategorized

When I first started running mass shipments of books, I was terrified that I would do something wrong. I could vividly picture all of the packages being returned to me to be fixed. Then all the work of the mailings would be doubled as I scrambled to try to fix it. When people started reporting that their packages arrived it was a huge relief. The fear gradually faded as I continued to send out mass mailings without having mass returns. I began to believe that my system was effective rather than slap dash. The success stopped feeling like a fluke.

This was why the phone call today threw me so far off balance. The post office called to tell me that the 850 packages I had dropped off were improperly sorted and that they could not accept them because the postage was dated yesterday and the day before. It was like being sideswiped by an old nightmare come true. I ended up hauling my wonderful shipping helpers down to the post office so that they could assist in jumping through the necessary hoops in order to get those packages sent on their way. This involved re-sorting the packages and stamping each one with a stamp bearing today’s date. I was conciliatory and apologetic through the procedure because the most important thing was getting the packages to my customers. Also I was emotionally frazzled and I always revert to conflict-avoidance in that state. So the immediate problem was solved, but I still felt unsettled. My shipping system had been challenged. I was certain that the postal workers’ requirements were driven by a need to not damage their customer service stats with “late” packages rather than any legal requirement, but I still felt the effects of the nightmare come true. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized how unreasonable the demand was. And then I felt bad for not taking a stand and confronting them about the fact that I was doing the work that they are paid to do. All the “should have saids” buzzed around in my brain and colliding with each other.

So I came home and tried to put it all out of my head with less that complete success. So then I griped on facebook, hoping that would clear it out. That didn’t work either. Then Howard called. His postal contact said that making me sort packages was completely bogus. Then that postal contact told the postal supervisor for this area, and the supervisor said that the demand was outright wrong. In director-level postal worker meetings it is constantly emphasized that workers need to bend over backward to assist in mass mailings. My system is not broken, I just attempted to use a broken post office as part of my shipping instead of the larger post office that I usually use. I nearly cried on the phone with Howard and the tension drained out of me. I was not wrong, the post office was. I knew that logically, but having that validated by someone who has power over the postal system was a huge relief.

And so now I am writing this blog entry and hoping that I can just let it go and bask in the joy of a stressful job complete. I would really like to think about something else now.

The funny thin about avoidance is that you don’t realize you’re doing it until the fact is brought to your attention. At 5 pm when Howard looked around and said “Oh, we’re doing a shipping here tomorrow.” I realized that he was looking at the kitchen mess and wondering why I was sitting down playing a video game rather than frantically prepping for the shipping. This was when I realized that I had spent most of the day doing activities that let me ignore the fact that we’re going to be shipping books tomorrow. I think I somehow sensed that launching into high gear would have me stressfully spinning my wheels to no good effect. I will hit the ground running tomorrow. I will be high energy and social. Today I have been extremely low energy and introverted.

The book shipping is tomorrow. The shipment of books for GenCon goes out on Monday. After that I am free of major events. True I’ll go to Worldcon, but with no children to tend, no panels to prepare and no table to run, that feels more like a vacation than anything else. Howard will be working, but I will not. Howard will also be working GenCon while I will not. I will be at home re-establishing routine so that the kids can settle back into school. I am so close to being able to slow down I can taste it.

I wore my brain out today, so I’ll have to save the thinky blogging for a different day. However I was pleased to receive news of a review which mentions my story in Ages of Wonder. It is only mentioned in passing as “engaging” but I am pleased to be mentioned at all.

Full review is here.

Tonight we asked the kids what they would like in a family vacation. These are the responses:

Disneyland (2 votes)
visiting friends in Seattle (3 votes)
The Dinosaur Museum (3 votes, This is local, we’ll hit it before the end of summer)
Flying in a plane (1 vote)
Going to a beach (2 votes)
a road trip with several stops (3 votes)
Staying at a hotel with waffles for breakfast (4 votes)
Washington DC (1 vote)
Grandma’s house (2 votes)

The results were far from unanimous except on the subject of hotels with waffle breakfasts, but this gives Howard and I a place to start. Next year the family vacation gets scheduled first and everything else has to bend around it. We’re thinking it will be a road trip loop that encompasses a week or two, possibly connected to an event like a convention. My personal vote would be to head eastward since I’ve been many of the places west of here.

Of late Patch has been climbing into bed with me almost nightly. I’ve been too busy to pay it much mind other than to sometimes move him to the padded mat on the floor. Today I thought about it and remembered that this behavior is a sign of unease in him. It means he has an emotional need that is not being met. Patch is also seeking out extra hugs and snuggles. So is Gleek. Gleek is also running faster and more emotionally volatile lately. Link is more able to verbalize his needs. He has been outright wishing for more attention. Kiki seems to be doing okay, but she is far more included in the adult stuff than the other kids are. I have not had time to focus much on the kids and they can tell. They haven’t noticed the lack of outings or special trips, but they are definitely noticing that I spend large portions of each day down in my office and that I say “please wait” far more often than “sure I can help you.”

Tonight I had what amounted to an interview with both Link and Gleek. I asked them about the things that worried them or made them sad. It was like I’d pulled out the cork plugging the hole in the dam. Sadness poured out. In both cases the sadness is magnified by this being late in the day when they are tired, but there is definitely real sadness there. I listened carefully to what they would like to be different, trying to distill the true causes so I can solve them. There were lots of words and requests, but the essence of them is that the kids need more of my focused attention. They need me to be more present on a daily basis. They need me to provide more order in the house and in their schedules. They need me to spend more time as an active listener.

Today is not a good day for this particular leaf to turn over. Tomorrow is not a day that I can actively demonstrate a change to the kids. Tomorrow has to be a business day because I have Tracy and Curtis Hickman coming to sign 1000 books. During the signing I can not be focused on kids. At the end of the day I am going to be tired, but I am going to have to find the energy to give to my kids. There has to be a family home evening and there has to be a stable bedtime routine. Both of those things have been much absent lately. The rest of the week is not ideal for focusing on the kids either. Shipping weeks are always business heavy. This is exactly the problem. Almost all of my weeks have been business heavy since sometime in March. After all the shipping, I will have exactly one week to try to stabilize the kids before handing them off to my brother while I fly to Worldcon.

Once I am back, I am done with major business for awhile. Once I am back, the kids will go back to school and I can better segregate the business and parenting parts of my life. I can see that things are on the edge of being better. I tried to tell this to the kids, but I am afraid they did not believe me. Why should they? Busy Mommy is so normal now that they hardly know how to believe in anything else. Besides, they don’t want things to be better in a few weeks. They want it better now. I have to make it better for them. I have to.

I’ve spent some time thinking about opportunity in the past few months. The thing about opportunities is that they require action. Chancing upon an open door does not benefit you unless you muster up the energy to walk through the doorway and act upon what you find on the other side. The other thing about opportunities is that sometimes failure to step through the doorway means that the door will close again. Occasionally what seems like a good opportunity is not as useful as it first seemed. A free couch does not benefit you if you already have a better couch.

Our problem is that we ended up with a series of amazing opportunities all within a short span of time. We have been running ourselves ragged trying to use them all. We reached the point where we realized that we simply have to pass some of them by. It is like passing by the free couch, not because we couldn’t use it, but because we simply don’t have the means to bring it home. And yet we walk away from the opportunity full of thoughts of how wonderful that couch would be if only we could carry it. We have been sorely tempted by some of these opportunities we had to turn down because we’re already overloaded. And I regret the missed chances. Regret can be very heavy indeed.

Opportunity only knocks once, or so goes the old adage. But I’ve realized that is a misleading statement. It is true that if I don’t take this free couch someone else will take it and my chance is gone. But this is not the only free couch in the world. Free couches are listed regularly on craigslist or freecycle. This missed couch does not mean that I will never have a couch. In fact I can be doing things that make acquiring a free couch highly likely and in ways that provide for the couch to be carried to my home. We can make opportunities. Howard and I have the opportunities we have now because of all the work that went before. This is part of the regret for missed chances because in my imagination I also miss all the other chances that might have resulted from this missed chance. And so I become the girl counting chickens before they hatch. The truth is that missing one opportunity is not the end of anything. I can reach out for a similar opportunity again on a different schedule. This chance is not my only chance. I have to believe that.

I’ve been looking forward to the next Writer’s Night Out ever since we had the last one a month ago. But somehow I got to this afternoon and either my social energy was used up or I was tired. I went anyway and I am glad I did. I enjoy my online communities, but there is no substitute for the ramble of an in-person conversation. I want to wax more eloquent, but I am very tired now.

Okay, Howard says it better than I did, so I’m cutting and pasting his call to action here:

You there, Schlock reader! Odds are good that if you want an autographed copy of XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery you’ve already ordered it, or plan to get yours at GenCon. Thank you!

I know that for many of the rest of you a role-play supplement just isn’t “your thing.” That’s fine. I don’t want to sell you stuff you don’t want, don’t need, or won’t like. But you can still help us…

Between now and Saturday we need you to identify friends who role-play (easy indicators: do they have dice in their cubicle? Do they make jokes about gaining levels at work?) and send them this link. That’s not the store link. That’s a link to a glowing review from one of the writers at Role Playing Pro. But it’s not the only one! There’s another one here!

Tracy, Curtis, and I have been trying to tell people how fantastic this book is, but I don’t expect anybody to take our word for it. Today, though, we have some solid feedback from the target market, and it would appear that this book is every bit the “must-have” supplement we’ve been saying it is.

Pre-orders close on Saturday. Monday I’m sitting down with Tracy and Curtis and we’re signing all the pre-ordered books. The next time the three of us will be together will be at GenCon, and then who knows?

So, the call to action. Find friends who role-play, and send them those book-review links. They don’t have to be Schlock readers. They can be players of any table-top RPG — D&D, Shadowrun, GURPS, World of Darkness, Paranoia , Final Redoubt — anything. This book will help them. Samuel and John said so.

The first reviews for XDM X-Treme Dungeon Mastery went live this morning over at Roleplayingpro.com. The guys over there decided to do a double review, one from the GMs perspective and one from a player’s perspective. Both reviews make me want to dance for happiness because they tell me that the book is right on target for what we hoped to accomplish. It made the reviewers both laugh and think.

The timing on this could not be more perfect. We have three more days of the special pre-order period. This means that all of the books ordered before Saturday night will be autographed by Tracy Hickman, Curtis Hickman, and Howard Tayler. So far the trio are going to have to sign about 500 books, but we’d love to make them do more. After the pre-order, books will still be available in our store, but they won’t be signed. Books will also be available at GenCon and we hope to have them in gaming stores this Fall. So if you know a Roleplaying Gamer, please point them at the reviews linked below. Thanks!

The GM Review

The Player Review

This morning began with a list of things to do. There were business things, and house things, and family things, and Sandra things. Many of the things on the list were important, but none of them were particularly urgent. This resulted in a sort of paralysis because choosing one thing to do delayed the other things which were of equal urgency. There was potential for this to be an extremely unproductive day. That would be bad news because delaying important things transforms them into urgent important things and then life is all stressy. I’m ready for a break from stressy. So I grabbed my timer clock and set it for one hour. For one hour I did only house things. I did not let business things distract me and I was excused from worrying about them. In that one hour I cooked breakfast, cleaned up the kitchen, and started the laundry. Then I re-set the timer and spent an hour on business things. Sometimes finishing up a task took a little more than an hour, but the key is that I had a solid break point. At each break, I stopped to reconsider what should come next to make today properly balanced. A well balanced day is like a well balanced diet, it has all the major food groups including a little bit of treat. The timer reminded me to switch off. The result has been a very good day where I finished up lots of odds and ends that have been left dangling for a long time. I need to remember that timers are my friends.