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Tayler Corporation To Do List
We have seven major events scheduled in the next four months. Three of them are occurring this month. Two are occurring in July. Two are occurring in August. It is tempting to ignore the end-of-summer events until after the May events, but I can’t afford to do that because some necessary preparations need significant lead time. This morning I tried to sleep in, but instead my brain kept churning with thoughts about even preparation. I finally grabbed a notepad and started scribbling down To Do items. That was smart because I finally feel like I may be able to manage this mess. I also had a revelatory realization “Oh, that’s why I’m feeling stressed.” So behind the cut is a glimpse at the To Do list for the Tayler Corporation. The Tayler family has a completely different To Do list, and yes they do conflict in more than one place.
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Conflicting needs, parenting guilt, and brownies
Gleek thrashed in the tub water as I tried to wash her hair. The water was too hot. Sitting up was too cold. Why did she need to wash anyway? Um… maybe because it has been three days and she was grubby, filthy, sweaty. But she did not want a bath. She wanted to be downstairs with her brothers watching Kirby over the internet. Part of the reason she was upstairs bathing was she had been squabbling with those same brothers for the prior 30 minutes. It had been a cranky day. Gleeks emotional space between happy and full-out tantrum was negligible.
In the midst of conditioner application (and complaints about water-in-the-eyes), Kiki shouted from the kitchen. It was a piteous cry for help. I quickly dunked Gleek to rinse her off, then hurried to the kitchen to see what the new emergency might be. Kiki was making brownies for her school class. She was doing it all by herself, her first foray into solo baking. She had added twice the necessary water to the mix. Kiki was emotionally devastated by this disaster. I was trying to wrap my head around the problem and formulate a solution. This was when Gleek wandered in and lit-up like a little spotlight at the bowl full of chocolate batter. Kiki snarled at Gleek to back off because these were for school. Gleek devolved into tears that the bowl full of chocolatey goodness would be completely denied to her. I attempted to placate Gleek. Kiki grumped at me about the still-unsolved too-much-water problem. Then there was the influx of boys drawn like little metal filings to the magnet of the chocolate filled bowl while Kiki growled territorially about her baking efforts. We added another mix to even out the water ratio, but then there was the crisis of the oil not mixing in. Kiki was not calmed by my assurance that continued stirring would solve the problem.
In the midst of all the chaos, with the kids squabbling and the fan humming, and the dishwasher running, I had strong desire just to flee. The kitchen was awash with conflicting needs. Kiki needed me to stand over her shoulder and help her bake. Gleek needed love and reassurance. The boys needed attention. I needed to just sleep, or hide, or something. Moments like that one are fairly common. It is unsurprising that the emotional needs of one child will conflict with those of another. On my good days I can anticipate and prevent conflicts before they occur. On my tired days, I am as bad as the kids about adding to the conflict. Strange how we’ve had so much more conflict and crankiness in the week after I stopped working 10-12 hour days. It is like the kids were waiting to ambush me once the XDM project was complete.
I look at myself and all that I manage. Then I remember back to the years when 90% of my creative energy was completely engaged by my children. I’m not sure what percentage they get now, 50% maybe. Some of that is the simple result that I’ve made many of the tasks of parenting into routine habit. Those tasks used to require creative energy, but they don’t anymore. And yet I still sometimes feel guilty for spending so much energy on things that do not directly benefit the kids. Part of me believes that 90% is the correct amount to spend on kids, and that if some tasks have become routine, I should then be ramping things up and stretching my parenting in a new direction. Then another part of me argues that children are not benefited by over-parenting.
I guess it comes down to concerns about usage of time. Right this minute I am blogging, trying to wrap words around the thoughts in my head and trying to do it well. This time could be spent preparing for tomorrow. I could be doing laundry so that Gleek will have clean shorts to wear. I could be cleaning the family room so the kids have space to play. I could be planning healthy meals for tomorrow. But I don’t want to do those things. They are boring. I’ve done them thousands of times over, and if I do them instead of blogging, I’ll still have to do them yet again. And yet these maintenance tasks make such a huge difference in how our family runs. If the kitchen had been clean, everyone would have been better able to manage the brownie incidents. On the other hand, if I blog there is the chance that I will say something profound, or funny, or useful. If I do, then the words are pinned to the page and they will always be there. But then I remember that during the course of writing this blog I have told two children “just a minute.” It has been 10 minutes since I said it and I still have not responded to the query. Am I teaching them that sometimes waiting is necessary? Or am I teaching them that Mom is always busy and pre-occupied, Unavailable when they need her? Just today I dashed to Patch’s class, a couple minutes late for his Kindergarten event. I never used to be late for that sort of thing. As we walked back to the car I was only half listening to Patch’s rambling talk until I heard him state that he knows I am always late because I am working.
When did I become the always-late working mom instead of being ready-and-waiting when my kids needed me? Was I too available before, or am I not available enough now? Or have the needs of my family shifted so that I was correct in both times and places? That last one is what I’d like to be true. I want to believe that I am sensing the needs and answering them. That my life is different now because the needs are different.
And this is when I remember Kiki’s brownies. The making of them was chaos. Kids were squabbling. The kitchen was a mess. And Kiki was convinced that they were ruined more than once. Like Kiki, I am in the middle of making something and it feels like I’m ruining it. But those brownies turned out delicious despite Kiki’s fears. Kiki shared them joyfully with those same siblings at whom she grouched while mixing. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been afraid that I’m ruining the family I’m trying to build. But somehow I don’t think I am. If I keep trying my best, it will all come out just fine.
Hope of America Again
I am very tired just now. I just got back from the annual Hope of America program. I was a little less stressed about it than last year, because this year I was only shepherding two kids instead of four. All the same inconveniences and annoyances were present. It was crowded and Gleek kept trying to dive through Gleek-sized holes in the crowd. If I was holding her hand, I could pull her back (much to her frustration. Could I not see the space?) If I was not holding her hand, I just had to call and try to keep her in sight as I wove through the crowd after her. I suspect that we were an annoyance to those seated around us, because for Gleek music is always participatory. She jumped. She clapped. She sang along. She declared her desire to be able to do every dance and perform every trick. (Especially the one where a girl somehow made five hula hoops look and move like bird wings. “Mom! I want five hula hoops!”) So I spent a good part of the evening like a record on repeat. “Don’t kick the seats in front of you.” “Sit down, the people behind us need to see.” “We need to calm it down a little.” “Shh! If you must sing, sing softly so the others can hear their kids.” Fortunately many of the numbers explicitly encouraged audience participation. Gleek particularly loved when the wave traveled around the stadium three or four times before petering out. After the show was over, Gleek and I climbed to the very top of the stadium. She sat there on the very highest bench and I swear her whole face glowed. She felt on top of the world. She danced all the way back to the car.
But the real reason we went to the show was for Link. He got to be part of the chorus this year. For five years Link watched other kids get to sit as part of the flag and shine lights. This was finally his turn. He was so excited that he lay out all his clothes last night. He was out of bed and dressed this morning before I’d even stumbled my way to the kitchen. My son, whom I have to scowl into mumbling along with the singing at church, was thrilled to spend hours practicing songs and the performing songs. This was his moment to shine a flashlight and wear sunglasses. He got to be cool. The press of people after the show was crazy. There are designated meeting places for parents to pick up their performing children. Teachers do their best to shepherd their students to the meeting spots, but it is a mad house. When Gleek and I arrived next to Link’s teacher, Link was not there. It was futile to go searching for him. Our best option was to wait. I could picture him lost in the crowd feeling anxious and scared. But when he turned up a few minutes later, he was grinning. He’d gone to the wrong meeting place, then found the right one. I have times when I really worry about Link. Then there are times like today when he demonstrates how much he is capable of accomplishing when the goal is something that he wants rather than something I think he ought to want.
This year’s program featured many beautiful dance numbers. I found it fascinating that every number which was not performed by a school class, was performed by a cultural minority group. There were Bolivian dances, salsa dances, sambas, traditional Mexican dances, two Native American dances, and a gospel singing group. I guess the one exception to this would be Jean’s Golden Girls which was a troupe of women aged 50 to 92. They perform every year and they are always good. 92 year old Jean always ends the performance with high kicks and the splits. It was fascinating to me to see all the school classes full of mostly white faces. And then see the dance troupes full of dark hair and brown skin. It was lovely to see these minority cultural traditions thriving in a location that is so overwhelmingly white.
I cried again. I always do, every year. How can I not cry when I see all the enthusiastic effort from all of those young performers? From the tiny kindergarteners who have to be herded into place by their teachers, to the self conscious middle schoolers who are afraid to look silly as they dance, to the chorus with their hand motions and flashlights. The event represents thousands, or perhaps even tens of thousands, of hours of preparation. The event got so big, that they now have half the schools performing one night and the other half performing on a different night. It is an amazing accomplishment and a beautiful expression of desire for a bright and beautiful future. This program is one that exposes kids to ideals they can strive for and dreams that they can reach. I know that both of my kids came home exhausted and inspired. … and singing that song about Abe Lincoln that none of us can get out of our heads. I just wish they could remember more than the chorus.
Helping stressed kids
Patch stormed into the house and stomped his way into his room. Then the crying began. I excused myself from the kitchen table where I was having a business meeting with a couple of (fortunately very understanding) friends. Patch sobbed out his tale of woe: My neighbor had sliced the hot dog rather than poking it with a fork, thereby ruining it. Then she completely refused to make another hot dog for him. Patch’s emotional reaction to this event was so huge that it required tag-team parenting, fifteen minutes, starting a movie, and a correctly prepared hot dog to calm him down. Usually Patch is a pretty easy-going kid. It is only occasionally that he winds himself up like this. Except that he’s done it several times in the last week. And he has been crawling into bed with us. And he’s been pretty rigid about what food is acceptable. These are all signs of stress. Patch is not the only one. Link has been acting about six years younger than his age. Gleek has gotten screaming mad and stomped to her room several times in the last week as well. She even buried herself under her covers and fell asleep in the middle of the day.
It is tempting for me to attribute all of this to my lack of nurturing attention in the past month. I’m certain that my stress level has been a factor, but it is not the only one. Another major factor is the daylight savings time switch, which makes putting kids to bed on time increasingly difficult. So they’ve been short on sleep, packed with junk food, and lacking in regular adult attention. Not surprising that they’re acting out a bit.
After Patch’s meltdown and the end of my meeting, I decided that the major imperative for the rest of the day was for me to be available to intervene in child conflicts, and to get everyone (including me) to bed on time. In order to get kids to sleep by 8:30, I have to start snack time no later than 7:30. This is because snack time involves me reading aloud while the kids eat. Then there is individual reading time. This reading time helps the kids slow down enough to feel tired. But this was also Monday, which means we have an hour or more of family time prior to snack. To make space for that, dinner had to be pushed earlier. So I started cooking dinner at 4:30. It was served by 5:30. Family Home Evening started at 6 and ran until 7:30. Snack and reading ran until 8. Gleek and Patch were both asleep by 8:30. Link and Kiki stayed up later. It was important for Link to be allowed to stay up and do something fun after the little kids had gone to bed. He needs to be reminded why he likes being one of the bigger kids. So we played Phase 10 for awhile. Pre-bedtime games may need to be a staple for us this summer as Link begins his transition from child to teenager.
So today was a good family day. Now I need to figure out how to not lose ground on the new family initiatives while also getting some work done.
Success and criticism
“I did it myself!” Patch announced.
I looked down at him. He was wearing his Sunday dress shirt and the buttons were already buttoned. Maneuvering those tiny buttons into the tiny holes is a major accomplishment for six-year-old fingers. Another major accomplishment is making sure that the buttons and holes are aligned correctly. Patch had managed the first, but not the second. His shirt hung crookedly on his front. I looked down into his bright blue eyes. He was so pleased with his accomplishment. I had no heart to criticize, to steal the joy of his triumph and replace it with embarrassment. I hugged him tight and told him what a great job he had done. Then I let him wear his crooked shirt to church. He never noticed the mistake. Next Sunday when I hand him his shirt, I’ll casually drop the hint that buttons and holes are easier to line up if he starts from the bottom instead of the top. He’ll be set up to succeed again, rather than doubting his capabilities because of the prior week’s failure. Sometimes it is far more important to let people bask in the joy of a difficult task accomplished, than to tell them how to do it better next time.
Retrospective
One of the interesting things about keeping a regular blog is that I can play the “one year ago today” game. It gives me a fragmentary look at how my life has changed over the year. Today I decided to take things a little further and I year hopped all the way back to the beginning. Five years ago this month I started this blog. That was back before most people knew what the word “blog” meant. In internet terms my blog is ancient. My life has changed drastically since then.
One year ago today, I was enjoying a visit from my younger sister and her two kids. I was preparing Hold on to Your Horses for print, and frequently terrified that I was going to do something wrong. I was also sorting out how to manage working from home without compromising on the amount of attention I gave to my kids. (I ended up compromising the amount of attention I gave to household chores and resource management instead.) I also stopped writing fiction for a year.
Two years ago today, I had not yet taken on the layout and design work for books. I was helping two kids with a particularly rough school year, one child with difficult learning challenges, and the fourth child with potty training. I’d just sold my first story and recently written Hold on to Your Horses. I was very focused on house and kids.
Three years ago today, we were in the midst of preparing for our first ever Schlock book shipping. I was trying to wrap my head around the logistics of shipping thousands of books at once. I was also chasing a toddler and preschooler constantly. Keeping them safely occupied was a daily challenge. But I didn’t mind the chaos, because we’d just had the first evidence that Howard being a cartoonist could actually pay our bills.
Four years ago today, I was very much focused on making do with very few resources. We were living month to month. We never had more than three months’ worth of bills stashed away, and frequently it was far less than that. Howard was scrambling to take corporate cartooning contracts to make ends meet. I spent lots of time gardening, canning, and figuring out how to entertain/educate the kids without spending any money. I spent most Saturday mornings combing through garage sales trying to find bargains on things that we needed and things that could be stashed away for Christmas.
Five years ago today, I had not even started this blog yet. I started it about a week later. Howard was still working long hours for Novell, then coming home to work even more hours on Schlock Mercenary. He was also traveling for Novell once or twice each month. I managed the kids and the house solo much of the time. I had an infant, a preschooler, a kindergartener, and a third-grader. I did not know that we only had four months before Howard would leave Novell forever.
Five years can make quite a difference.
Clearing the backlog
For the past five weeks I have had to be extremely focused. All of my energy and brain space had to be devoted to getting the XDM project completed on time while not completely neglecting the children. I did not stop thinking other thoughts, but when they occurred, I would shove them away. I can’t think about that right now. For me “shove away” is not the same thing as “dismiss” or “forget.” I’ve spent years training my brain to save ideas for me so that I can use them later. This is the stash from which I draw my blog entries and stories. So for the past five weeks I shoved my ideas away; rather like a child who cleans the room by shoving things in the closet and under the bed. Repeated iterations of this eventually fill the closet. Then things are shoved against the walls or into corners. The edges fill up and the space in the middle gets smaller and smaller.
Yesterday I shipped off the XDM files to the printer. I was done. I finally had time to think about things other than preparing for printing. Hmm. Didn’t there used to be more space than this inside my head? My brain was half full of idea fragments. But they had all been compacted together so tightly that I could not see any of them clearly. My first thought was to wade into the mess and muck it out. I do this by writing what I call a “brain dump” entry. That is when I just write the thoughts in my brain as they surface. Each one pours out my fingers and into the blog. Then I can just let them go. Sometimes braindumps are the ideal way to sort my thoughts, but they are not pretty. Rather than giving each idea full reign of a blog entry where I really explore it, I just shove a bunch of them into a single entry so that I can let them go. I feel like most of my entries of the past few weeks have been of this variety. I finally had time and space to really compose an entry, and I wanted it to be a good one.
So I poked at the jumbled mess of ideas. I was certain that in there somewhere were a dozen possible blog entries. But each time I tried to grab hold of an idea, all I could catch was a fragment. And if I did not grab fast, the fragment would disappear again into the mess. I realized that I had to wait for the ideas to emerge. I had to lurk, like a hunter, trusting that if I was quiet that the ideas would separate themselves from the mess and float across the middle of my brain. Then I could catch them. I catch them by quickly scribbling notes. Pinning them to the page allows me to see them and figure out where they belong. The difficult part is that waiting for thoughts can be boring. I’m bored. Let’s go read. Let’s turn on music. Let’s watch a show. I wonder if there is email. But if I follow the bored voice, I will scare the ideas back into hiding. Not only that, I will be adding to the mess of ideas already there. So I have to let myself be bored. I do the dishes, and fold laundry, and wipe counters, all with nothing but my own thoughts to entertain me. And as sure as carbonation bubbles form and rise to the surface of the soda, the ideas coalesce and percolate out where I can see them. You have time to think about me now. Then I catch them on paper.
After a morning of quiet tasks and catching thoughts, I now have notes for four blog entries of which this was one. I’ve also identified stray business tasks I need to take care of next week and written them down so I will not forget them again. I’ve even made some plans about writing and revising. As a side bonus, my house is cleaner too.
My day in list form
Today:
Kids off to school
Drop XDM cover off at Alphagraphics for a test print. This is the second attempted test print for the XDM cover, we’re having boxes appear around some of the images. Probably a problem introduced by the export process.
Gather all XDM proofreading notes
Enter all proofreading notes into InDesign file for book
Wait for computer to slowly export book to high resolution pdf
Wait while computer and printer to slowly communicate and print the pdf.
Accept delivery of XDM dummy book. So Pretty!
Wait while Howard flips through XDM print out.
Howard finds errors.
Field phone call from Alphagraphics. The Under New Management file they have for test printing is corrupt. They need a new one.
Welcome Patch home from school and usher him off to a birthday party.
Flip through XDM print out. Find more errors.
Enter fixes into InDesign file.
Wait for computer to slowly export the book to high res pdf.
Wait for computer and printer to slowly communicate and print the new pdf.
Decide to buy lunch.
Discover that van will not start.
Use Howard’s car to drive for food.
Welcome kids home from school.
Eat food.
Call Auto repair shop and towing company
Wait for computer to slowly export the UNM file for test printing.
Assist in loading van onto tow truck.
Wave goodbye to van and at least $150 for towing and diagnostics
Burn the UNM pdf to a CD.
Use Howard’s car to take the CD to Alphagraphics.
Pick up UNM and XDM cover test prints.
Discover that we have not yet solved the XDM cover issue.
Discover that the UNM cover still requires some fixes.
Fix UNM cover.
Wait for computer to slowly export the cover to a high res pdf file so I can do another test print.
Show Howard the cover test prints
Discover another problem with the UNM cover. This time it is Howard’s fix.
Howard and I hatch a plan to fix the XDM cover.
Write a blog while waiting for a big file to load in photoshop.
Up ahead:
Fixing the XDM cover (hopefully)
Feeding people dinner
putting kids to bed.
I’d hoped to ship files this afternoon. It is going to be mid-day tomorrow at the earliest. Once I get all the test prints approved, I still have to package the InDesign files and burn them to CD. This will mean even more waiting while my computer processes things. Whee.
The process of Printing
We’ve now shepherded 6 books through the printing process and we’re halfway through a seventh. By this time it is all very familiar to us, although each project presents its own variations. I thought it might be to write out how the process works for us, both as a record, and because others might be interested in knowing how this works. The process will vary depending upon the printer, but this is how things work with Oceanic Graphic Printing.
1. The bid Like many things, printing begins with a bid. This is when we approach a printer with approximate specs for a project and they give us an approximate cost. A good printer will process bids for free. Getting a bid has become very routine for the Schlock books. We essentially say “The same as the last time, only with 96 pages.” This is because we’ve already sorted out exactly what papers and processes to use. Getting a bid on the XDM project was more complicated. We had to select paper and a binding, both of which required several rounds of emails to get answers to questions. Our printer even sent paper samples for us to evaluate.
2. Printing agreement Once we accept a bid, comes the printing agreement. This is the contract that includes all the specifics about the specs of the book and about the payment schedule. At this point our printer will create and ship a “dummy” book. This is an unprinted book with the exact same specs as our project. Having the dummy book is especially nice for us because it allows us to weigh the book and plan for shipping.
3. Shipping files Next we ship files to the production address, and a check to the accounting address. By “files” I mean an electronic copy of the full InDesign files along with all of the necessary images and data. We also have to send a print out of the entire book and cover for comparison purposes.
4. Digital proofs A week or two later we will receive digital proofs. These are pages done with the actual printer on the actual paper. This is our chance to check for color errors. With the Hold on to Your Horses printing, we had to do lots of color correction in the images because the yellows all showed up a sickly lime green on the digital proofs. For that project we had to do a second round of digital proofs (for extra money) to make sure we got it right. Digital proofs have to be sent back, so they can be used for color comparison. For the XDM project, color is not an issue, but we were a little worried about how the grayscaling and printing would look on the more textured paper. Because we have a long-term relationship with our printer, they actually let us do a quick proof test before we shipped the full files. With black-and-white on texture paper, it was actually called a wet proof rather than a digital proof. We have to approve the proofs before the process can proceed.
5. Plotter’s proofs A week or two after approval of the digital proofs, we receive a set of Plotter’s Proofs. This set of proofs is printed in low resolution on cheap paper. However, the pages are all cut and stapled into the sections that they will be bound into in the book. This is a chance to make sure that the pagination is correct. It is also the last chance to spot any errors. Once the plotter’s proofs are approved, the book goes into production.
6. Advance copies It takes 3-4 weeks for all the books to be printed. As soon as they are done, a pre-selected number of them are shipped to us via express mail. The remainder of the books will travel by ship and take an additional month to arrive. We can select any number of advance copies, but we have to pay the shipping costs, so we tend to keep the number low.
7. Books arrive Part of our printing agreement is that the printer gets the books through customs and arranges for them to be shipped directly to our door. We always make sure to clarify that we do not have a loading dock, and therefor the delivery truck will need a liftgate to lower the pallets of books down to our driveway. This is imperative because our book shipments are weighed in tons.
Once the books have all arrived then we have to ship them out to customers, but that is a whole different set of challenges. I wrote about it last year. Adventures in shipping phase 1.