Irises as Spanish Dancers

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My Spanish dancers are blooming. Okay, they’re Irises, but every time I see them I think of the swirling skirts of Spanish dancers.

Even holding still the petals seem full of motion.

I also love the way that the petals sparkle when you get up close to them in the sunlight.

This year’s crop is thick. I’m going to have to transplant some in the fall so that they have space to grow tall and glorious again next year.

All too soon these beautiful blooms will be gone, but for now I can sit close and enjoy the fragrance.

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Favorite Colors

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I’ve been thinking about colors lately. Part of this is driven by the fact that I still have kids in elementary school. In the lower grades knowing your favorite color is of paramount importance. Every “about me” survey will ask about favorite colors. Kids will ask each other as well. Knowing a person’s favorite color tells you something about them. When I was in elementary school I struggled with this question, because I didn’t have one. I liked all the colors. Any time I faced one of those surveys I would write “rainbow” or “all of them.” It came as a great surprise to me to reach adulthood and discover in myself a marked preference for the color green. I don’t know when it started, I don’t know why, but green became my favorite color during the years when my kids were babies and toddlers. That was also the period of time when spring solidified its place as my favorite season. Perhaps the two things were linked. Green is a lovely and soothing color. It blends well with lots of things. Once I discovered my preference for it, I was comfortable. I expected to prefer it for the rest of my life, just part of growing up.

Of course we never stop growing up. Adulthood is not a stopping place, it is a long passageway. There are emotional stages and growth to be gone through as long as we are alive. Of late I’ve discovered that I am drawn to the color orange. I’m also drawn to brilliant persimmon, teal green, sea blue, and deep lavender. Any color that is soft but vibrant. (Not florescent colors. Those hurt my eyes.) I want to surround myself with bright colors. I want to wear them. At first I was concerned by this trend. Perhaps seeking bright colors meant that I was seeking attention, that I wanted people to notice me. But I don’t think it is about forcing people to notice. I think it is more to tell myself to be brave, to stop hiding. I spent several years where most of my thoughts and actions were dictated by suppressed fear and anxiety. Many of my thoughts and actions still are, but I’m starting to untangle it. I’m starting to learn how to dismiss fear. I can be a person who loves and wears bright colors even though it means they may sometimes clash with things around me.

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Preparation and Follow Up

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In the category of preparation:
Preorders for Sharp End of the Stick open on Monday. Before that can happen I have work to do. I spent a portion of today setting up our online store. I also need to set up some rules and logistics so that we can run a social media contest. At least three lucky Schlock fans will be able to get copies of SEOS a month before anyone else. These advance copies ought to go somewhere that they’ll be loved.

The other thing that is happening next week is my departure for Nebula weekend. I’ve got some sewing to do in advance. Howard needs some alterations for his steampunk costume. He departs for World Steam Expo only a few days after I get back from Nebula Weekend. I do not want to count on having brain cells available for sewing in those three days, so it needs to be done now. I’ve also got a couple of things I want to alter before taking them with me to Nebula Weekend.

In the category of follow up:
I went to a writer’s conference last weekend. While there, I met several lovely agents and editors. I need to package up some queries and send them off to these lovely people. My book has zero chance of selling if I never send it anywhere. I’ve also made some notes about things to update on my website. Even more importantly, I released Cobble Stones in a manner that was more like sliding it under the door than giving it a fanfare. I should do an actual marketing push for the book, which means contacting some of the nice book bloggers I met at the writer’s conference. Also, I should write new things.

My office is 85% complete (the remaining 15% is organization and shelving), but our family room is still a jumbled mess. It contains furniture and things which I evicted from my office for construction and have decided will not be going back. Some of it needs to be hauled to a thrift store the rest needs to be sorted and given new homes somewhere else in the house. Hopefully I’ll be able to vacuum the family room sometime before Sunday.

We’re three weeks out from the end of school. There are all sorts of trailing educational ends which need to be tied up before the school doors close for the summer. Kiki has to finish her AP art portfolio. Link needs to bring up his grades. Gleek and Patch have projects and performances nearing completion. My brain tracks all of this, even the things that the kids ought to be tracking for themselves.

By this time next week I hope to have it all done.

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Diagnosis Again

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“Link is a patient of mine, his diagnosis is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder…” The handwritten note continues with details of medication, but the words are blurred by the tears in my eyes. It is so small this piece of paper, handwritten on a prescription pad. I wipe away the tears with an angry swipe of my hand. Nothing the paper says is news. Link was diagnosed years ago and has taken medication ever since. The only reason I hold this paper is because Link’s current IEP team mentioned that his official diagnosis is not documented in their paperwork. They have a two-inch thick binder full of papers about Link –skill test results, IQ test results, language test results, nine years worth of specialized educational plans, psychological reports–but none of them include this diagnosis. I’m told that if I add this little paper to their stack, it may open up additional support options for Link. So I called the Doctor’s office and he mailed me the paper. It changes nothing. I can’t explain why seeing it written down should make everything feel more real. It just does.

Infants have incompletely formed brains. There are many things that they are incapable of comprehending until their brains develop further. The remainder of childhood is one long biological trade-off, alternating body growth and brain development in a careful dance to optimize the probability of survival. This means that children experience periodic bursts of new comprehension. Suddenly they see the world in new ways and have to re-evaluate everything based on their new comprehension of it. This is why a five-year-old who has never drawn on the walls before suddenly begins to treat the entire house as a huge canvas. The teenage years are hugely important brain development time. Teens are nearing adult comprehension and begin to look forward toward fending for themselves. They desperately need to have an identity and a goal. Link is fourteen, his childhood comprehension of himself is no longer adequate. He has outgrown many of the childhood tools he used to manage his cognitive differences, but has yet to acquire comparable adult tools. He was left with an awareness of being different and little vocabulary for explaining why. He struggled. His struggles drew the attention of myself, his teacher, Howard, and the school psychologist. It was time for a new round of testing. We needed to assess what changes brain development has made and then based on that information we needed to create a plan. We’re mid-testing now. I don’t know what the plan is going to look like except that a huge part of it is sitting down with Link, showing him the test results, and explaining to him what they mean. Link is old enough to be included in the planning. This is part of the process of turning his life over to him.

Link is not the only child for whom I have a prescription pad diagnosis. I have participated in counseling and management of issues for all of my four children, for children of neighbors and friends, for relatives, even for acquaintances. I’ve helped people with ADHD, Autism, Aspergers, Bipolar Disorder, Multiple Personality Disorder, PTSD, Psychotic episodes, Anxiety, and Depression. Psychology fascinates me and I study it everywhere. I’ve learned enough vocabulary that people ask me about my credentials. I have none, only experience. Yet I am not an expert by any means. And even those who are experts are regularly baffled by the intricacies of human minds and needs. So I study my son. I read the reports until my brain is tired. I gather a team of credentialed experts to help him. Or rather, they gather themselves because, once again, exactly the right people are in place to help with this process. The elementary school psychologist who sat me down all those years ago and told me I might want to consider ADHD is now working at the junior high school. Once again she is here to help Howard, Link, and I as we gather information and plan for what comes next.

Most of what comes next is exactly what we’ve already been doing; small adjustments in classrooms and at home. The necessary changes are so small that it is hard to believe that they are necessary. We make the changes so that Link can learn without floundering. This time one of the small necessary things is including Link in the process so that he will understand himself better. He will be informed and thus able to act upon information rather than stewing in fear and ignorance. I take the prescription paper and I put it on the stack of things to deliver to the school psychologist. Perhaps this declaration of diagnosis will help open a door which Link will need to walk through. My feelings about it are for me to work through without troubling Link.

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Presentation List

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The following is a list of presentations that I love to give. Some of them I’ve already done several times in different forms. A couple are things I have not yet had the chance to do. If your organization would like me to present, please contact me sandra.tayler at gmail.com. Please be aware that I’m local in Orem, UT. In order to schedule an event more than an hour away, I’ll need several months advance notice and travel expenses paid.

Blogs are More Than Marketing: Learning to put your heart into your writing both online and in your fiction.
This presentation focuses on using blogging to practice writing fiction and creative nonfiction. I’ll provide various examples of what a blog can be, speak about the emotional learning stages involved in maintaining a blog, and discuss how to handle it when people are mean on the internet. I’ll speak about all of this from my 8 years experience of blogging almost daily and from the collected experience of other writers that I know.

Writing Realistic Children
A toddler is not an accessory for your protagonist. This presentation will spend some time talking about stages of human development to discuss things that are typical for children at various ages. But mostly it will talk about the priorities and individualities of children and how those priorities should affect your plot.

Finances for Creative People 201
We’ll cover basic business structure, taxes, and incorporation. More importantly we’ll talk about the ways that running a creative business will affect your daily life and family. Some time will also be spent talking about how to transition from traditional employment to a creative career, how to make a business plan, and how to know when to call it quits. I’ll use illustrative anecdotes from 15 years experience of running a creative business and a family side by side.

Finances for Creative People 101
This presentation covers basic budgeting and money management strategies. Attention will be paid to common pitfalls and simple things people can do to make financial management less frightening. Managing money is a skill that anyone can learn, even those who are “bad at math.”

Anxiety, Depression, and Insecurity: Staying Mentally Healthy While Pursuing a Creative Career
I struggle with anxiety. Howard manages his depression. We both suffer from attacks of insecurity. Using our experiences and extensive research into psychology this presentation will focus on concrete things that a creative person can do to stay healthy. I’ll also discuss how to know when you’ve crossed the line into a clinical condition which needs medical intervention.

Structuring Life to Support Creativity
The way that you schedule your days can squash your creativity if you are not careful. I’ll discuss using biorhythms to your advantage, how physical spaces can affect you psychologically, and why you really do need to have time to play video games or watch movies. These concepts will be illustrated with anecdotes from the lives of artists and writers.

Cover Design Basics
This class focuses on giving writers a grasp on some basic cover design principles so that they can decide if designing their own covers is something that they really want to do.

Schmoozing 101
This class covers introductions, how to begin and end conversations, smooth delivery of pitches, how to seem interesting, how to prop up a flagging conversation, and how to read simple body language.

Successful Collaboration
I’ll discuss the important elements of a successful collaboration and the particular challenges that occur when collaborators are friends or family members.

Using Books to Help Kids Who are ADHD, Autistic, or Learning Disabled.
This will begin with a presentation, but will focus on a discussion of specific challenges and solutions. Best in groups smaller than thirty.

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Thoughts on Avengers — Spoiler Free Version

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“What was your favorite part?” Howard asked Patch.
“Do I have to pick just one?” Patch answered with a concerned look on his face.
No son, you do not.
We spent a good hour this afternoon just talking about all our favorite bits. I’m not a fan of the Avengers comic, nor was I particularly attached to any of the Avenger characters prior to seeing the recent spate of Marvel films. This movie made me fall a little bit in love with all of them. I’m looking forward to seeing it again so that I can hear those funny lines in the non-action-y scenes when Patch and Gleek wiggled, asked for more treats, or otherwise unfocused my attention. During the action-y bits we were all enthralled.

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Storymakers Day 2, the Whitney Awards, Retiring a Dress, and the Day After

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Howard is out of his element at the Storymakers conference. It is an event full of women, many of whom read and write stories that are essentially romantic. I’m not precisely in my element, but in many ways it is a better fit for me than the average Science Fiction convention. On the whole these are readers of Austen, not Niven, though there are definitely individual exceptions. Not that “fitting” matters because we always find wonderful people at these events. I guess the difference is that I’ve walked away from Storymakers with a long list of follow-up items–people to contact, things to do–where Howard is spending today switching gears. Tomorrow I’ll be following up and he’ll be moving on. Although that may have more to do with me being the business manager and him being the artist. Perhaps the whole perception is entirely imaginary, a result of me being very tired.

The extreme fatigue hit me right after I finished my last teaching hour. The cover design class went very well. We covered the important material and were able to give intelligent answers to all the questions. I’d love to co-teach with Crystal again anytime. I’d love to teach that class again. In fact I have a whole list of classes that I want to be able to teach. I’m going to blog that list (possibly tomorrow) so that I can reference it as necessary. Often I’m invited to participate in programming only to draw a complete memory blank when they ask what I’d like to teach. If I file the list intelligently, in an easy-to-find location, then perhaps it will someday be useful to someone who is considering inviting me to an event. If nothing else, making the list will convince the back part of my brain that we really are allowed to think about something else now. On the same theory, I’ve made a list of things-to-blog. In making that list, I realized that I still have thoughts left over from our trip to Moab. It has been an exceedingly brain-busy three weeks.

At the end of the Storymakers conference, I attended the Whitney Award banquet with my mom. Howard volunteered to go home and be with the kids so that we could stay. I wore my orange dress, the one I last wore to the Hugo award ceremony in August. I was a little worried about wearing the dress, the night of the Hugos was not my best night. I knew that wearing the dress might trigger somatic memory, particularly since I was wearing it to another award ceremony. I did not want another panic attack like the one at the Hugos, but I needed to wear the dress again. I needed to see if I could disconnect the panic from the dress. The Whitneys were a good practice event because they are much less emotionally fraught for me than the Hugos, we were not eligible for any of the awards. Also, I had a change of clothes in my car, so in the very worst case I could duck out and change. The trouble with the dress is that it fits tightly across my ribs. It does not actually constrict my breathing, I can fill my lungs completely, but it feels like it constricts. Constrictive clothing can magnify or trigger a panic attack. Additionally, the fabric of the dress does not breathe at all and so in a warm room I can easily feel over heated. Over heating can magnify or trigger a panic attack. It turns out that this lovely dress is at least partially at fault for my Hugo experience. I put on the dress and was fine. I walked down to dinner and felt completely relaxed. I sat down to dinner and I had to arrange my thoughts carefully and breathe cautiously for about 30 minutes while my body toyed with the first edges of a panic attack. I prevailed. I wore the dress all evening, had a lovely dinner conversation, hugged all my friends in the post-ceremony mingling, and went home feeling triumphant. However it is time for me to retire that dress. The things I love about it do not outweigh the drawbacks. Fortunately I have something much more comfortable that I can wear to the Nebula award dinner.

My mother reports that she thoroughly enjoyed the Storymakers conference. She has dozens of ideas about how to improve her book and an invitation to submit directly to one of the editors who also attended. I’m so glad that she was able to come. I get to have her for three more days before she returns home to care for my grandma, who will be released from the hospital soon. This is mom’s last vacation for awhile because grandma will need lots of loving attention as she continues to mend. Once again I wish I could be more help. I live so far away from them. But at the least I can give my mom this vacation she has earned.

Tomorrow, after I scramble to catch up on all my work, I’m headed to The Avengers with my kids. I’ve heard it is quite good. Howard has already seen it twice. Today I rest.

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Storymakers Conference Day 1

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Fragments of thoughts bounce around in my brain, but they are slippery – like fish. Just as I think I’ve got a grip on one that might be the beginning of a coherent blog post, my hands close on nothing and I’m left with a blankness which I’m sure was filled with brilliance only a minute ago. (Obviously my thought fish are brightly colored koi.) I shall stop trying to catch them and instead just follow where they swim.

I’ve spent the day at Storymakers Conference. I taught a class solo, using only my voice to convey information about managing finances. Only when the class was over did I realize that we’d been using powerpoint lighting instead of the bright light which was available. In hindsight I’m glad. The dimmer light was more soothing and perhaps made the contemplation of accounting feel less daunting. At some point accounting stopped daunting me. I wonder when that happened.

I was nervous before the presentation, but not during it. Once the words begin to flow, I’m solid and know exactly what to say. Sometimes it ends up being things that I didn’t put into my speaker notes. But the best moment of any presentation is when I say something and I see one of the faces in front of me change. In that moment I know that whatever my words were, they were exactly what they needed to be. A lecture on accounting is short on emotional bonding moments, but hopefully filled with usefulness.

As I walked the halls of the conference, I saw dozens of familiar faces. As I scanned badges I saw dozens of familiar names. This year I’m making an extra effort to attach the names and faces to each other. I’m trying to imprint them into my tired brain so that I’ll be able to recall them when I meet these people again in a context sans name badges. There are so many marvelous people. I want to sit down and talk with all of them for hours. I suppose this is why I spent a large portion of my day sitting in the green room. People filtered in and out and I got to have quick conversations with many of them.

The mass signing was a dismaying event at first, a room packed with tables and people. Gradually they sorted themselves into seated authors and standing attendees. Though often authors would jump up and stand in line to get their books signed. My spot in the room was unfortunately poorly suited for people watching, but I had excellent neighbors. One attendee sought me out with Cobble Stones in hand for me to sign. Another viewed Hold on to Your Horses with such awe, that it revived in me my own love of the book and made me want to finally finish writing the follow up book. More thoughts on that are necessary. I’ve also emerged from today’s conversations with three places to query and a reminder that a friend really would like me to write an article for the magazine where he works. I was also able to gift copies of Cobble Stones to a pair of book bloggers, and they lit up with delight at the gift. Being able to end the day with concrete evidence that my presence improved someone else’s day, that’s a good thing.

And all the thoughts have darted into hiding. Time to sleep now. Another conference day is ahead of me tomorrow.

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Cobble Stones, Storymakers Conference, and a Book Signing in Washington D.C.

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One of my March projects was pulling together a sampler book of blog entries. I’ve now got my advance copies and can be reasonably confident that what I’ve got is ready to sell.

If you want to pre-order your copy of Cobble Stones, just click through to our store. I’m taking pre-orders. The books will ship by May 30. I’ll also have the book available in electronic formats, hopefully in a week or two, but that is one of the tasks which fell by the wayside during my office remodel and surprise trip to see Grandma in the hospital.

My advance copies are slated to be on sale at LDS Storymakers this Friday and Saturday. You’ll find them in the conference store sitting right next to Hold on to Your Horses and a pile of Schlock Mercenary books. Even if you’re not registered for the conference, please feel free to drop by for the mass signing from 5-6:30 pm on Friday May 4, in the Provo Marriott hotel (101 West 100 North, Provo) I expect the signing to be chaotic, but it will be packed with interesting authors whose books are worth reading. Howard and I will both be there.

In two weeks Cobble Stones and I will go on the road. We’ll be attending the Nebula Weekend in Washington D.C. and participating in a mass signing there as well. Friday, May 18, 2012 from 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City (located at 2799 Jefferson Davis Highway (Route 1), Arlington, Virginia). This signing will be full of authors such as Connie Willis and Joe Haldeman, well worth your time to stop by. I expect to spend most of my time people watching the fans standing in line for other people. Though I’ll have my sister Nancy Fulda for company. I will have copies of Cobble Stones and Hold on to Your Horses available for sale.

Make your plans and come say hello.

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