business

Today I went to the case lot sale at a local grocery store. This is a sale where you get low prices for buying in large quantities. It happens twice per year and I use the opportunity to stock up on non-perishables. So I filled my cart with several hundred pounds of canned goods and steered it into a check out line. The cashier was an older gentleman who kept trying to make conversation with me as I hoisted cases of cans from my cart onto the conveyer belt. Once I got everything unloaded from the cart. I went down to the other end and began loading things back in. I was about half done when I noticed a sign posted that instructed baggers not to require people to unload cases from their carts. Instead the little tags were to be removed from cases and scanned. That would have been nice to know much earlier. It also would have been nice to have a bagger at all. But at least the cashier was impressed. He kept saying “good job, young lady!” in a way that was highly annoying. But then I suspect that he wouldn’t much like being called an “older gentleman” on the internet, so I guess we’re even.

In other news, we’ve sold enough books to pay for the print run. Now we just need to sell enough to provide living expenses for six months.

Yesterday’s post about fear was the beginning of an upswing for me. Simply admitting my fear and staring right at it made it all shrink and some of it dissipate completely. The makers of monster movies know this. It is the reason that the audience never gets a good look at the monster in bright light. In bright light the audience can see that it isn’t a monster at all, but a man in a rubber suit. Or, if it is a monster, at least they can see where the teeth and claws are, thus they know how the hero needs to dodge. If you can see the whole monster, you’re no longer in a monster movie, you’re in an action movie. The movie may still be exciting, but it is no longer terrifying.

I’m not terrified anymore. Now I’m just making plans for my actions so that I win this fight against stress. And I’m newly armed with some very nice words from some very nice people who all made me feel much better about my current capabilities and for my future prospects.

Today I am prepared to line tasks up and get them done. The quantity of tasks is huge, but no longer overwhelming. However I do need to plan wisely to make space for it all. I will be spending 20-30 hours per week doing business tasks through next March. This is a significant uptick from the 5-10 hours I’ve been accustomed to. The increased hours on business tasks decreases the available hours for household tasks. This is a problem since life gets miserable pretty quickly when the house is a wreck.

The first step toward solving the problem is one of those “should have realized this sooner” things. Every day Howard and I talk over the plan for the day. Howard tells what comic scripting, drawing, or coloring he needs to do. I tell him about the family schedule and the business things I have to do. The housework almost never gets mentioned in these planning meetings. That is dumb because then no one plans to do it. So step one is to throw the day’s necessary housework into the pile of “things which need doing.” That way, as we divide up the pile, the housework gets assigned. This is a major shift for me. Somehow I’ve continued feeling like the housework is my thing even though we’ve both been working. When Howard worked at Novell and I was a stay-at-home mom, it made sense for me to do the lion’s share of the household work because I was the one that was here. But our lives have shifted and it is time for our housework habits to shift in response. Also the kids need to be doing more. At the moment their whole contribution is the make messes and complain when I ask for help cleaning.

Another step toward solving the problems is for me to clearly define spaces in the day for specific tasks. Some hours need to belong solely to the kids. Other hours are for business concerns. I think there are enough hours in the day, if I use them wisely, and if I make sure to pace myself so that I don’t wear out too soon.

Schlock Mercenary is down this morning and I feel like it is my fault. When we had to renew Tayler.com at the beginning of this month, it occured to me that we might want to check on the Schlockmercenary.com domain as well. But then I forgot about it. Somehow I assumed that either Howard or our server guy would take care of it.

No one took care of it. And because we registered the domain 7 years ago, all of our contact information had changed and so the registrar was unable to contact us. I do remember getting some paper mail talking about renewing domains, but I know that these companies try to snipe each other all the time. I figured it was all junk mail.

First thing this morning I jumped on the phone and got it all sorted out. The domain was renewed without difficulty, but it will take a couple of hours before the registrar’s system removes the hold. Of course I can’t relax until the site is actually up. Because until then I can’t feel sure that I’ve actually fixed the problem. I’m trying to think about other things, but it gets hard when the phone rings and it is a wonderful concerned Schlock fan asking if we need the loan of a credit card or help getting the domain renewed. They call because they know that Howard is out of town and may be out of touch. I’m incredibly touched that people care enough to call. I’m embarrassed that we were so publicly silly.

Howard leaves for Comic Con International in San Diego on Monday. This gives us three days to do all the necessary preparations to make the convention work. We have to pack everything that needs to go to the convention. We have to prepare things here at home so that I can manage without him. We have to prepare accounting things so we are ready to handle sales and tax in a different state. The list goes on. This show is huge and stressy. Hopefully it will break even for us.

Add to that some monetary stress and a long-overdue next Schlock book.

Add to that a family reunion in 3 weeks which I have to plan.

Add to that at least two somewhat dysfunctional computers. (Howard is trying a fix on his right now. If the fix doesn’t work, then he needs a new machine. Setting up a new machine for him will cost us thousands of dollars and at least a week of buffer and we’ll be even further behind on the next book.)

Add to that a new writers group, which is happy, but still new and different.

Add to that a couple of personal writing goals which I’ve missed, revised, then missed again.

Add to that laundry and dishes and clutter all over the house.

Add to that 4 children who need food and stories and love and attention.

No wonder my back muscles have turned into knots.

Me doing the editing and layout for the Schlock book changes things. My summer is suddenly not so empty. I expect that the work will come in clumps. I’ll work like crazy for a few days, then I’ll have to wait while Howard and the layout guy do their bits. But I have to plan ahead for the days where I work like crazy. I think I’m going to have Taylercorp buy some frozen meals that I can use on the days when I’m exhausted by book work and can’t find the energy to make dinner. The thing is that this book work is not going to go away for quite awhile. As soon as the layout is done for this one I’ll be starting layout for the next one and ramping up to do shipping. Then shipping time is always crazy. Oh and at some point the kids will be starting school and I will not give up writing entirely.

I’ve got to pace myself. I can not always work as hard as I did the past two days. I need to allot each of my important things spaces in my day. It is probably time to dust off my planner that has been languishing since school got out. I need a place to collect all of the tasks and make sure everything gets done.

Weirdly, being busy exhilarates me. After a long stretch of it, I long for empty days, but I’ve just finished a 7 week stretch of empty days. I’m ready to have stuff to do.

Did another 4 hours of work on the Schlock book.

Did 4 hours of accounting (Quarterly reports eat time the way wood chippers eat branches. I’ve still got more to do.)

In the spaces (ha!) I took care of children.

Tired now.

Seven hours of work on the Schlock book today. I was so focused that I did not notice the time pass. I did pause to order pizza for the kids. Tayler Corp will pay for that expense because I was doing a business critical task across dinner time. But I finished making notes to hand to the layout guy. Hopefully this will let us set pagination in stone and we can start filling up the white spaces.

Tomorrow I need to go through the book again and copy edit. I also need to go through and make notes about things that I think Howard should have to comment upon.

I don’t know how quickly our layout guy will be able to implement my notes. Hopefully he’ll have some time before he gets completely busy with Comic Con stuff.

Right now I’m all worn out. I could just got to sleep. Instead I need to put 3 of my kids and 2 of my brother’s kids to bed. Did I mention that I started my day by driving 90 minutes, trading Kiki for two nephews, and driving back? This explains the state of my kitchen and my house. It is not fair that I can work so hard, get so much done, and still feel discouraged at the end of the day. Hopefully a night’s rest will solve the discouragement and tomorrow I’ll have cycles to tame the chaos a little.

When we released The Blackness Between in November of last year, our stated plan was to get the next book out by June of this year. It didn’t happen. The next book is twice as big as the previous books and it is full of old artwork that Howard hates to look at. This book project has lurked like a vulture. It just sits and waits blackly. Where ever you go you’re always peripherally aware that the thing is there. Waiting. Then when you do really look at it, the first thought is always “That thing is huge!” The size of the project has been paralyzing for Howard. That’s why we missed the June release date. Now we’re aiming for October. But this time it is a little different. I’m going to take care of the vulture.

Last week Howard asked me to pull out the files of his old artwork so we could see what to put in the empty spaces between strips. Yesterday I dug it out and sorted through it. I loved looking at all the old artwork. Yes it is artistically awful, but it brought back so many happy memories that I loved it all. I kept looking at things and thinking “Oh this HAS to go in.” I took the pile and the excitement to Howard and he hated it all. If he had his way none of that stuff would ever make it into the book. Instead he’d draw all-new marginalia. But there is a lot of space to fill and the thought of drawing so many new pictures depressed him. He asked me to put the file aside so that he could work on the buffer.

I thought this over for a day or so. I realized that I love the idea of this project. I love the chance to organize the strips and put in the margin art. Then all I have to do is ask Howard to write a few notes. I don’t even care if the notes say “I hate this art, but Sandra made me put it in because she thinks you’ll want to see it.” So I have wrested the layout project from Howard’s unresisting hands. I’m so glad that I’ll get to influence what goes in. Like the picture of Schlock which Howard didn’t like, so he gave Schlock a talk bubble saying “I look awful. Keep trying toon boy.” Or the very first character sketches of Schlock, Tagon, Kevyn, and Brad.

This book when it is finished, will always make Howard want to apologize for the art. What he can’t see is how much people love getting a glimpse into the origins of things. People WANT to see the bad art. They want to see the awful prototype for the F’Sherl Ganni which never saw the light of day. They want to know the story of why Sentient Elephants wear earrings and body paint. If you’re a Schlock fan, please comment and back me up on this. I think I’m in for some arguments about what gets to stay in the book.

Mostly though, I’m just excited to have a fun project that allows me to directly contribute to the Schlockiverse.

I had some thoughts while mowing the lawn. Some of them relate to my recent attendance at a writer’s workshop, others are things that bumped into each other and made connections.

When you’re trying to promote yourself or your work it is very important to be remembered. This is tricky because human brains are designed to sift information and dump all of the unimportant stuff. This is why you can arrive at work and not remember the drive at all. The drive was unimportant so it got dumped. However, if you have to slam on your breaks and swerve to miss a bicyclist, you will remember the entire drive because that swerve becomes the hook on which the entire memory hangs. If you want people to remember you, then you need to find hooks on which to hang the memory.

Sometimes you can use a hook that is already in place. I am frequently able to do this, particularly with people who have met Howard before. All I have to say is “I’m Howard’s wife” and they instantly have a place to hang the memory of me. You can do this even without a famous husband if you can tie into an interest the person already has. For example if you start a conversation about costuming with a costumed person at a con, then costuming can serve as a hook for the memory of you. All those conversations that start with “Oh you’re from Gettysburg? Do you know…” those are efforts to find pre-existing hooks and connections.

Often there isn’t a hook ready and waiting for you. Then you have to set your own hook. The best and surest way to do this is to have multiple contacts over a space of time. People meet you at a con once and forget you, but if you’re at the same con the next year then you can draw upon that previous meeting as a hook. The key is for you to remember enough about the first contact that you can draw it out of their deep stored memory. “I met you here last year” may not be sufficient to trigger a memory, but “I was the one who asked you the question about the frog” probably would be. Inviting people out to lunch is a great way to get remembered because the restaurant and the food can become a hook. This was why I was so frustrated with the workshop. I was not able to get near enough to any of the guests to set a hook and hang a memory. I couldn’t invite them to dinner or even just chat long enough to find a pre-existing hook. In the end I have to be content that our mutual attendance at the workshop will serve as a hook if I ever get a chance to meet any of them again.

It is important to realize that while being remembered is critical to self promoting, you can be remembered negatively. You don’t want to be remembered as “that annoying guy” unless your ability to be annoying is what you’re trying to promote. You will not be remembered by everyone at every meeting. It is possible to make a first impression so vivid that it will never be forgotten, but that is more likely to happen if the first impression is vividly negative. You want to be memorable, not desperate. Remember your multiple contacts can take place in the course of a con or a day or even an hour if you manage it right.

This morning we had a clearance sale on closeout Schlock merchandise. Mostly I was tired of having it cluttering the basement, but I couldn’t bring myself to just throw it out. I’m glad I didn’t. I’ve gotten multiple emails from people who are excited to have it and thrilled at the low prices because now they can actually afford it. This makes me happy.

Naturally the endeavor has not been without headaches. I am mystified by the ebay combined shipping calculator. Sometimes it is right on the dot. Other times in charges almost twice what the actual shipping costs are. I ended up checking all the orders and issuing refunds when people were overcharged. Also my enthusiasm for answering emails and filling orders left the rest of the house neglected. This wouldn’t be such a big problem, except that I spent most of yesterday doing accounting so it was all neglected then too. I really need to tear myself away from the electronics and go pay attention to house and kids. Otherwise I will have overtaxed the goodwill of the other people living in my house.