A Month of Letters

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Today Mary Robinette Kowal issued her Month of Letters challenge. I’ve had the good fortune to be one of Mary’s correspondents since last November and I have to say that her points about letter writing match up exactly with my experience. I was a prolific writer of letters in my teenage years and I find that I still enjoy it. I enjoy the feeling of paper and writing by hand. My thoughts slow down for letter writing and I ponder the shape of things. Sometimes I’ve been mid-letter and discovered an insight into the subject about which I’m writing. These insights are shaken loose because handwriting a letter breaks up my usual patterns of thoughts. So, I’m going to take Mary’s challenge to mail something every day (that the post is picked up) during February. I have to add a couple of personal caveats to the challenge.

1. I’m not allowed to count packages that I mail to customers. The point is to reach out in new ways, not to pretend I’ve accomplished a challenge by simply doing what I usually do.

2. I am allowed to abandon this challenge at any point if it becomes stressful. I’m trying to add slivers of happiness to my life, not give myself yet another huge project filled with stress.

I don’t know yet who I’ll mail things to, or what I’ll send. Something small. Possibly a letter. If you want to be on the list of people to whom (might) I send things, feel free to send me your mailing address via either my personal email address, or my business address (schlockmercenary at gmail.com) If you want to join the challenge and send something to me, I can be reached at:
Sandra Tayler
PO Box 385
Orem UT 84059

No matter how this challenge turns out, I expect it will be interesting.

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The Bucket of Fish

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I am glad to see Link developing interests which take him outdoors and away from his beloved video games. I am incredibly grateful to his scout leaders who aid him in developing those interests. However the particular bent of those interests resulted in Link coming home from today’s ice fishing trip with a dozen perch in a bucket. He held the bucket up proudly for me to examine. I looked at the fish in the bottom and then one of them twitched.
“They’re not dead.” I yelped.
“Yeah.” said Link. “Perch can live a long time out of the water.”
We placed his bucket of fish outside the back door and then listened while Link regaled us with his adventures. I love listening to Link talk when he is enthusiastic. His typically short sentences lengthen out and his eyes are bright. He’d had a great time and arrived home with a sense of accomplishment. The experience of fishing had been good for him. After he went downstairs to shower, I peeked out the window at the bucket of fish. One of them twitched again.

We are carnivores here at the Tayler house. I do not think it is a bad thing for all of us to confront the fact that eating meat means that an animal had to die for our dinner. Buying prepared meat from a grocery store disconnects us from that. The bucket of fish forced us to face it. Someone was going to have to gut those fish. Looking out the window at the fish, I admit that there was a strong temptation to “forget” about them until they needed to be trashed. However I ccouldn’t think of anything more disrespectful to life than to catch fish, let them die in a bucket, and then throw them out. If Link intended to pursue fishing, then he needed to understand all of the consequences of it. He needed to be willing to prepare and eat the fish he caught. If he was not, then he needed to not go fishing.

The trouble was that not one of us is experienced with gutting fish. They are slippery and injury is a real possibility if proper technique is not used. I couldn’t teach proper technique unless I knew what it was and practiced it enough times. I was going to have to gut some fish first before I could teach Link. There is a reason that my kids have never been fishing, despite the fact that they’ve all said they’d like to go. I’ve chosen to arrange my life so that gutting fish is not something I need to do. But the bucket of fish was already present, right outside the back door. Something had to be done. YouTube demonstrated for me. Howard sharpened a knife. He arranges his life to avoid fish gutting too. I was the one unwilling to waste the bucket of fish, so I was the one who got to wield the knife. The rest was me learning through practical experience. I had Link watch. Next time he’ll need to help.

All of the kids were a little bit fascinated by this process. They were interested in the fish and the ickiness of the guts. On some level I was too. There were also several levels on which I was disturbed by the entire thing. It was the same set of feelings I had years ago when we dissected frogs in Biology class. I worried that the process might prove traumatic to one of the kids. I fended off my own disturbance and their potential trauma by keeping up a running conversation about fish, biology, respecting life, and what on earth is that weird thing that just fell into the sink. Guts are very strange.

Cooking the fish was also new territory. We don’t cook fish often, particularly not small fresh water fish with tiny bones. The result was reasonably good, but picking out all the tiny bones was a fiddly process. Link liked eating the fish. This means he will not starve to death when his scout troop goes on a multi-day fishing campout this summer.

So I learned something new today. And then I showered a lot.

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Things That Made Today Good

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1. Teaching an art project to twenty five 3rd graders. It involved throwing scraps of colored paper on their desks, handing them scissors, and telling them “have at it!” As they cut and glued I would talk about negative space, color contrasting, and over lapping shapes to create textures. The variety of things they created was really cool. More heartwarming for me was the fact that they recognized me and obviously liked having me in class.

2. Going out to lunch with Howard. Despite the fact that I was fairly low-energy, Howard kept making cheerful conversation. Some of it had nothing to do with our shared business. Also the food was happy-making food.

3. Napping.

4. It is Friday. This means that the kids and I all ignore homework for the entire afternoon and evening. We replace it with movies, video games, and staying up later than usual.

5. Taking a sledge hammer and crowbar to the final vestiges of wall in my office. It is nice to have the project ready for the next phase. It was even nicer to get to wield the sledge and crowbar. There is something really satisfying in demolition. As a bonus, I got the work done and my wrist was fine. The painful twinges from a week ago did not return.

6. Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate and Caramel

7. The weather was sunny and warm.

8. Sitting in my front room next to a potted hyacinth in bloom.

9. Someone else did the massive pile of dishes.

10. My kids, just by existing. Somehow today they just made me glad every time I saw them.

11. Scriptures and hope. Read the first, felt the second. I still have a couple of things at the forefront of all my prayers. It is my job to keep them there, but I feel strongly that the things I’m petitioning for are on the way.

12. Howard. He makes me laugh.

13. My opera wallet and new business card case. I got them a few weeks ago, but they are pretty. Holding them in my hand and feeling the slight click as they shut makes me happy. It is a little like the feeling I had as a little girl when playing dress up. I’d try on the clothes and feel like I was grown up. Now I am grown up, but holding these slightly old-fashioned things still gives me that sense of pretending to be someone I aspire to be. The right props can really make a difference.

15. The fact that one of my LTUE panel topics is something I suggested last year. This means that one of the symposium planners liked the idea enough to remember it a whole year later and put it on the schedule.

16. The fact that I arrived at the end of the day with a list of happy things.

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Life the Universe and Everything Symposium at UVU

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Life the Universe and Everything Symposium (LTUE) at UVU has released a schedule and opened registration. This is an amazing local event for people who want to be writers or who love discussing or learning about Science Fiction and Fantasy. If you’re free February 9-11 then you should register. Prices will go up on Monday.

I always love LTUE and come away feeling energized. This year I’m particularly excited. I have four panels and presentations, all of which are topics which excite me.

Thurs Noon
Collaborating With a Family Member
Howard and I collaborate to get the work done every day. There are some specific challenges involved with being both business partners and spouses. Sometimes stress and conflict from one role can spill into the other. The other panelists are also very familiar with both the benefits and challenges of working with family members. I expect us to have a fascinating discussion. (Panelists: Sandra Tayler, Karen Evans, Kevin Evans, and Michaelbrent Collings.)

Thurs 2pm
Feeling Fake: What to do about that pervasive feeling that everyone belongs in the publishing world except you
This feeling of being fake is called Imposter Syndrome and every creator I have known feels it at one time or another. We’ll talk about the causes of this feeling and some things you can do to quell it or at least not let it hurt your professional life. Again I’m with excellent co-panelists. (Panelists: Sandra Tayler, Jason Alexander, Ami Chopine, Stacy Whitman)

Saturday 11am
Little Stories Everywhere: using blogging as practice for writing fiction
I’ve been wanting the chance to talk about blogging at LTUE for years. I’m thrilled to finally get the chance. I love blogging. I love it for itself and not just as a means to an end. I’ll be talking about that and how I blog in ways that are directly relevant to the writing of fiction. A blog can be more than just a promotional tool. (Panelists: Sandra Tayler, Jessica Harmon, Peggy Edelman, Robin Weeks)

Saturday 3pm- 5pm (2 hours)
The Author’s Toolbox: Learning skills for networking, blogging, social media, and self-promotion.
I’m thrilled that this workshop made the schedule. Mary and I plan to pack the two hours full of useful information and specific skill acquisition tools. Self-promotion does not have to be awkward and uncomfortable. Instead it can flow naturally from who you are and what you do. We’re going to talk in detail about how that works. We may even outline exercises and concrete skills that you can practice on your own. Seating is limited to 140 people. Come ready to learn and be prepared to stay for both hours. (Presenters: Mary Robinette Kowal, Sandra Tayler)

For those of you not in Utah, I’ll try to keep good notes and write them up after LTUE is over. I don’t know if there will be any official recordings.

In addition to my events, there are lots of other amazing panels and presentations. E-publishing is featured in discussions and how-to presentations, Writing Excuses will be recording, Topics such as cultural sensitivity, creating dynamic characters, analyzing symbolism in extant works, promoting on Amazon.com, and laying out pages of graphic novels will all be discussed. Click here to see the full schedule. LTUE is a fantastic event. I’m hopeful that the move to UVU will allow it to grow and thrive so that some of you who do live far away will be able to plan ahead and make pilgrimages here for another year.

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Crisis, Stress, and Being a Frog

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When Howard and I were first married, we moved into a new home. It didn’t take us long to meet the neighbors. We quickly became friends with a family in crisis. They needed our help and we gladly gave it. But over the course of four years that same family was always in crisis. Not the same crisis, it was a revolving parade of feuds with neighbors, tight money, rebellious teenager, and quarrels with coworkers. While it was possible that they were just being slammed with a series of bad luck, I slowly realized that no amount of help from me would move them out of the constant crisis zone in which they lived. Somehow the patterns of their lives created the crises through which they swam like fish in water. I began to believe that they simply didn’t know how to live without crisis. If it was removed, they gasped and flailed like a fish out of water until the flailing landed them in crisis again. I sometimes hoped that they could learn a different way of living. I’m not sure that they ever did. I moved away and lost contact in that pre-facebook era.

My life this week has been crazy. Nothing has been a big crisis, just a hundred small things, most of which popped up unexpectedly despite my efforts to plan ahead. The sad thing is that this crazy week was normal. Most of my weeks are filled to overflowing with a hundred small tasks. I try to simplify and reduce, yet still end up feeling overwhelmed. When I visit with my friends, I have an ever evolving list of things I am managing. I get really tired. Often. I have to wonder how I am creating this insanity for myself. I say I want calmness and quiet, but my decisions keep landing me back in busy-land. On energetic days I love busy-land. On tired days, I don’t know how I do it and I have to believe in miracles. If I want to come up and breath calmer air rather than swimming in stress. However in order to do that I have to transform myself like a tadpole transforms into a frog. In theory being a frog is better, but transformation is always scary and frequently frightening.

The good news is that it feels like we’re poised for a period of calm. The things I managed this week were structural things which should make the rest of the year easier. I hope. Perhaps I don’t need to transform. Perhaps I’m already a frog and I’ve just been swimming up from the bottom of a deep lake after a winter’s hibernation. Surely I’ll surface soon.

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Homework Time

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On Sunday I wrote some lovely words about not wanting to count the months until the end of the school year, but instead trying to savor them.
Four months, two weeks. And I really hope that most of them are more savor-able than this evening has been.

Trying to help four kids with homework simultaneously is destined to end in frazzle. This is particularly true when part of my brain will not shut up, but is instead providing a running commentary, complete with grade sheet, about how I am handling each bit of parenting that I do. Today’s grades are not stellar.

Nothing has gone wrong. The kids are cheerful. They are cheerful little cats whom I must herd. Well, except for the moments when they are stressed little cats hissing and spitting at their various homework sheets. Our house could be a wonderful and peaceful place if only I would stop trying to make them do the things that they are supposed to be doing.

The other voice that I wish would shut up is the one who evaluates all my decisions against the theories of homeschooling and unschooling which would abhor the very structure of homework itself. Of course if I switched to those unstructured methodologies, I would have a ranty voice saying I was failing to teach discipline. The voices in my head will not let me win today. I think I shall bury them under ice cream. I’m pretty sure I can savor that.

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Office Project in Process

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I’ve been nattering on about my office and I finally have some visuals to share.
This is the view from my desk chair facing the opposite side of the room.

You can see the serious lack of organization on the bookshelves and the fact that there simply were not enough shelves for the quantities of books. All of that stuff went into boxes. Then the shelves were moved out of the way. It revealed a bare and boring wall.

That’s okay though. Because the next step was to make the wall go away.

From the chaos of debris, you can infer exactly how much fun my kids had helping me destroy the wall. I recommend wall removal as a family activity, but only if you really want the wall gone. For the first time I can actually see what my enlarged office is going to look like. That back wall is going to be covered in wall-mounted bookshelves. It will be my library. In front of it will be a couch. But first we have to figure out how to remove the remainders of the wall and find someone to help us do framing and drywall work.

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Snippets From This Week

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A week or so ago I was talking to a friend of mine who was expecting her first child. I mentioned how I loved the baby years, but that I was quite happy to be done with them. Lots of people told me “enjoy it now, you’ll miss it.” My response was usually “I’m going to enjoy missing this.” And it is true. I do have some nostalgia for those baby and toddler years, but the nostalgia is light and pleasant. I have no actual desire to go back and re-live those years. Our conversation turned to talking about my current crazy schedule. As I spoke, I realized that as crazy as things are right now, they are also really good. I’ve got two teenagers and two grade school kids. The days I’m currently living are the ones that I am really going to miss someday.

I thought of it again this evening as I wrote out note cards to post on my fridge detailing the schedules for my teenagers. The new semester begins on Tuesday. Link’s schedule is no longer filled with his favorite kinds of classes. I’m going to have to pay more attention to make sure that unpleasant work gets done. Kiki will also have new classes. Patch is working his way through challenges, but we aren’t clear yet. Gleek is soaring, but there are at least four more major projects to go. I caught myself counting the months until the school year is over. Then I stopped. I don’t want to rush through this. I’ve only got a limited amount of time left with all of them living at home.
In that spirit, here are some snippets of things which happened in the past week which I was almost too busy to note.

Every night when Kiki goes to bed, the cat goes with her. In fact there is a regular ritual involving a saucer of milk and smear of butter, followed by a trip outside. Sometimes Kiki and the cat play a little chase game where Kiki peeks around the edge of the stairs until the cat dashes up at her. Other times Kiki wiggles her hand under a blanket and there is pouncing. These games produce giggles and admonitions from me to not wake up the younger kids. All these little rituals from brushing to snoozing, add to the general level of happiness around here.

When Link is bored, he sorts through his things. He makes a pile of things he does not want anymore. Most of them end up in the hands of his younger siblings. I’ve watched this process with delight and bemusement. I used to have to argue with Link over getting rid of things. They were all his treasures. It was all I could do to convince him to let go of candy wrappers. This past week he emptied out his big drawer of treasures. He finally got rid of those twisted pieces of metal that he picked up while walking home from school the year he was in third grade. Also in the pile was his treasured “Cappy” hamtaro. This was the toy so beloved by five-year-old Link that when it was lost we had to resort to ebay for a replacement. He loved it, treasured it, would not share it. Now Cappy has lost his magic and Link is ready to move on. I would feel more sorry for Cappy, except that Patch grabbed him. There are a few more years of play ahead. Link is growing tall, looking to the future, and letting childhood go. It makes me both glad and sad.

We made more progress on my office remodel this week. Because of my hurting wrist, I’ve not been able to take an active role. Instead Kiki and Link have done most of the work. Together they dismantled the shelves, helped load up for a trip to the dump, and then swept up the mess. Both of them found great satisfaction in the work. After the deconstruction, Kiki did not want to be done working. Instead she helped me box up all of the books so that they would be safe for the remainder of construction. Now my office wall is bare and ready for the next stage of the project.

The beginning of the new year brings class reassignment at church. All the kids are bumped to the next class up. The new year also means reassignment for the church teachers. Some teachers are released from teaching duty, other people are asked to take it on. This shuffling is necessary, but can be disruptive for the kids. Last year the switch was particularly difficult for Gleek. So I was pleased and delighted to realize that both Gleek’s teachers and Patch’s teachers have been moved up with their classes. My children will experience no disruption, which I view as a great blessing just now. We can continue to have church as a place of peace and save the challenges for school.

Gleek was assigned her first real research project this month. There was a long list of specific types of sources that she needed to have before assembling the project. I’ve been quite impressed with her. She’s been working a little bit every day and the project has not been onerous at all. Tomorrow we’ll assemble the final project and all will be well. I love that she has learned “a little bit every day” so young. I feel like I only learned it about four years ago.

Life of late has featured lots of sibling squabbling over video game turns. In particular, Patch and Gleek have been squabbling over whose turn it is to play minecraft. Sorting out each conflict is tiring and/or annoying, but the shapes of the conflict are comfortingly normal. These are not the sounds of huge emotional traumas which I must agonize over and resolve. It is mere sibling bickering, part of the music of family.

Life is good even though it is crazy, busy, and often hard.

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Various Small Updates

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For those who might be wondering. My son came home from school the next day with all of his school work finished. Ditto for Thursday. Today he brought home some unfinished work. So the one hard day did not solve everything, but the pattern seems to indicate that this structure is right for helping my son face the things he needs to learn instead of avoiding via distraction.

Unfortunately spending so much energy on Tuesday afternoon meant I got nothing Done Wednesday. Add in a child diagnosed with strep throat, and my schedule was in pieces. I pulled it back together yesterday. Today was spent far away from my schedule as my parents were in town. Tomorrow is a house-focused day. Next week I have to put on my Graphic Designer hat a lot. Things need done. I’m hoping that I can get through next week without anyone staying home from school sick.

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Requiring Kids to Do Hard Things

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The time you face something harder than you’ve ever done before is the time when you either crumble in despair or discover that you are stronger than you thought you could be.

The thing no one ever told me before I became a parent is that sometimes I would have to be the one who was inflicting the hard things on my own children. I faced it first when my two month old baby girl had to be vaccinated. I helped hold her down, looked into her eyes, and let the nurse stick a needle in her leg. That was not the end. Dozens of vaccinations followed and they only got harder as the children got big enough to resist. They would not have believed it, but helping with those vaccinations was every bit as hard for me as it was for them. They calmed down and were done. I stewed for days with a mix of fear, guilt, and relief. I’ve only got two 12 year booster shots to go. I rejoice at the thought.

Vaccinations are a clear case of “we must do this for your health and safety.” They are also accompanied by either a doctor or a nurse to help bolster my flagging spine. Then there are days like yesterday when I have to stand over my 8 year old son and require him to finish the work he did not do in school. It took three and a half hours to finish 18 math problems and five sentences. Less than thirty minutes was actual work, the rest was distraction and tears. When you include the two hours of classroom time he did not use, it was five hours spent on thirty minutes of work. I stood over him and tried to determine whether I was watching Can’t or Don’t Want To. In the end it was some of both. When my son stopped fighting me, we were able to identify the blockages and devised some very simple strategies which he can use next time to boost himself over. I rehearsed the strategies with him three or four times, “When you get to a word problem, skip it and complete everything else, then come back.” He rolled his eyes at me. I watched his face, unable to know whether he would actually remember. My children have amazing memories, but they do not always focus on the things I know would help them. Please let him remember, because I can not bear another afternoon like yesterday. If he comes home with his school work done, then I can know that yesterday’s hard challenges were beneficial. If he doesn’t complete his work, I have to consider whether to stay the course or to adjust my expectations.

I say I can’t bear another afternoon like yesterday. I can. I will. If I know it is right, I can deal with a lot. I can do it even if it leaves me exhausted and weepy for the rest of the evening. My fatigue is less important than doing right by my son. The part I don’t know is what kills me. Until he either steps up and becomes strong in the face of adversity, or crumples under the pressure, I can’t know whether I’m helping or hurting. During all those hours I alternately cajoled, scolded, encouraged, slathered on guilt, and extended praise to my son. Through it all I loved him. All of my words were tools focused on getting him to sit up, take control, and try. The work got done. I can only hope that he also learned lessons which can be applied to new work. The lessons were the point, not the work. If the lessons weren’t learned, we’ll have to do it all over again. The thought makes me weary.

Weary though I be, this is nowhere near the hardest thing I have ever done. I can do this.

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