Greetings Backers!

I'm overdue on giving you an update. Sorry about that!

TL;DR: The redraft is complete! Only editing remains. No action items for you. If you have questions or concerns about anything relating to your order please email [email protected]. I'm giving you all another chapter to read. The chapter can be accessed by clicking over to Backerkit and logging in.   Your next update will be the week of March 10- 14. Details below.

 
My February got entirely absorbed by attending and running events (LTUE and StoryCon). BUT, I still managed to finish the redraft of all of SLSC. It is now a complete book with a word count of 78,000 words. This is half again longer than the 50,000 words I first intended, but I'm so glad I got to include more thoughts. Some of those final chapters in the book feel really important to me.  My next task is to do several editorial passes in quick succession. Each one will find errors and refine the text. I'll be working with multiple different editors who have different areas of focus. 

I'll be working layout tasks in parallel to try to get the basic layout figured out and to get started on the custom designed notebook now that I know what all the activities are.  Hopefully by my next update I'll have some preliminary layout that I can show you. 

I'm going to try to work fast on both the editing and layout. I'd love to have books in my hands for an event in May, but my printer in China has a three month turn around time, so that ship might have already sailed. I'm still going to work fast because I want the book in your hands as soon as it can be. 

I'll get to work and have an update for you in a couple of weeks. 
Thank you so much for backing my project!
Sandra Tayler

Greetings Backers,

It is time for an update!

TL;DR: No action items for you. If you have questions or concerns about anything relating to your order please email [email protected]. I'm giving you all another chapter to read. The chapter can be accessed by clicking over to Backerkit and logging in.  The Motivation Problem is now available to people who have the lecture bundle. Stickers have arrived! Your next update will be the week of February 10- 14. Details below.

January is frequently a heavy month for me. Deep winter sometimes lands me in depression. I miss daylight, warmth, and flowers. This particular January had an accumulation of variously-sized hardships that piled on top of the general winter malaise. (tendinitis in one shoulder, tight finances, a car repair bill, ongoing diet restrictions, etc.) And then this past week the national news has been a barrage of anxiety-inducing headlines. Some of them are just that: headline news designed to catch my eyes but with little real-world impact. Other headlines warn of things that are going to have long-term affects on the lives of me and people I love. At the moment it is hard to tell which are which, what I should be jumping into action about, and what I should wait-and-see. The uncertainty, winter, and hardship of it all are not helping me get this book done for all of you.

Nevertheless, I have managed some persistence. The caregiving, health, and Grief chapters are done. I thought seriously about skipping the chapter I'd titled "When Things Go Sour" cutting it from the book so that I could move on to Conclusion, Introduction, and Chapter 1. I so want to be done with this re-write pass. However when I looked at the chapter, I realized there were some important things still to say. So the chapter is re-titled "When Creative Work Hurts" and I'm in the midst of talking about the impacts of emotional injury on creative work and what we can do to consciously assist in healing those injuries.

Having all the heavy chapters land in a heavy month has been both good and hard. I'm feeling the need to get these chapters right. I don't know if "right" is even possible here. I'll settle for "useful" 

I have something fun to show you. The stickers arrived!

They are heavier duty than I'd anticipated. These stickers are very solid rather than being a thin washi paper. But I think those of you who have stickers in your order will like them. I still need to put in orders for the notebooks, bookmarks, and notecards. I'm focusing on finishing SLSC first.

I've uploaded another lecture for those of you who have the Lecture Bundle. You all now have access to The Motivation Problem and should have gotten an email about it.

I have two weeks before my entire focus is completely eaten by teaching at LTUE and then running the expo hall for StoryCon. I'm planning to dig in and get as much done as possible on SLSC before that happens. Of course I'm also going to have my throat scoped to check whether the restricted diet is resolving my EOE, and I'm working to set up for launching a Schlock book Kickstarter at the end of February, and I'm in the midst of shipping out 1200 packages to the people who backed the last Schlock book Kickstarter.

So ... I need to take my own advice and be kind to myself about how much I do and don't get done in the next two weeks. No matter how it turns out, I'll give you an other update the week of February 10-14. It will likely be a very small update considering everything else, but I'll plan to give you a more detailed one after the events are over.

Thank you so much for being my supporters! When I'm in the middle of the hard and worrisome stuff, sometimes I pause and remember how you all showed up for me and believe in this book. It really helps carry me forward.
All the Best,
Sandra

Small promo:
Deadline is coming to apply for the Writing Excuses Scholarship. You have until January 31. Don't miss your chance to have expenses covered for one of these amazing retreats! writingexcuses.com/scholarships/

You can find out more about the retreats here: https://writingexcuses.com/retreats/  I'll be teaching at the Minnesota Retreat and would love to have friendly faces there. 

Greetings Backers,

We're a week into the new year and I owe you an update.

TL;DR: No action items for you. Thank you for filling out your surveys, if you have questions or concerns about anything relating to your order please email [email protected]. I'm giving you all another chapter to read. The chapter can be accessed by clicking over to Backerkit and logging in. Stickers have been ordered. I'm hoping to send this book off to print by the end of January. Details below.

Despite the holidays I've managed to work steadily on SLSC. I've been working on the chapters for Caregiving and Creativity, Health Challenges and Creativity, and Grief is a Creative Process, all together because the topics have a lot of potential crossover and I want to make sure I have the flow between them correct and to make sure I don't repeat information. I'm hoping to have all of them done by the end of this week. 
Once those are done all I have left are  

I'm hoping to also start in on the re-edits of the early chapters so that I can finally start handing them off to a copy editor. I would still like to have this book ready for print by the end of January. I think I can if I work hard and am consistent about it. 

SLSC Print book: In progress as listed above
SLSC ebook: This will be produced and released within about a week of when I send the physical book to the printer.
SLSC Audiobook: I will begin production on this as soon as the physical book is off to the printer and the ebook has been delivered.
Custom Designed Notebook: I will be working on this in tandem with revising and editing SLSC. I already have ideas for how to arrange some of the activities on the pages.
Notebook Ready to place an order in January
Bookmarks: Ready to print
Notecards: Ready to print
Sticker sheets: At the printer
Thank you Postcard: Needs design work.
Giveaway books: Once I have received my shipment of books I will set up a process where people can get these books for free.
Lecture bundle: 2 lectures delivered, 2 planned to drop in the next few weeks.
Consultations: Mostly complete, a few more pending.
Group Mentoring: Ongoing! We've met several times and I'm enjoying the connections we're building.
Individual Mentoring: Some ongoing, some starting with the new year.

June 15-21 the Writing Excuses (Re) Generate Retreat. I will be one of three teachers at this event. Come spend a week in the company of writers, walk forest trails, learn, create, and replenish your creative reserves.

This retreat was my favorite event of the year in 2024. I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to teach at this one in 2025. I'd love if some of you were able to join me. Get your tickets here: WX Retreat Tickets

In the more immediate future I'm running the Expo Hall for StoryCon (February 21-22 at the Salt Palace). This two-day event is unique with its huge focus on programming for Teen and Tween writers as well as programming for adult writers and teachers. If you know a teen writer, you want to bring them to this event. The Expo hall is free to the public, so if you long for school book fairs, come to this one!

If you do come to the free Expo hall, be sure to say hello. I can be found at the Exhibitor Support booth. If you come on Saturday the Salt Lake City crusaders will be doing a live steel demonstration, you can stop by a craft booth, see the amazing wares of our creative vendors, or browse Indy Alley to find new art to admire and new books to read. Read more about StoryCon here.

Helping organize and run these events is a joy for me in my life. The people are amazing as is the community that these events are building.

Looking in the nearer future, tomorrow I receive a shipment of 4000 Schlock Mercenary comic books (book 18). Half of these books need to be immediately shipped out to the Kickstarter backers who supported that project. Fortunately one of my adult kids is my warehouse manager so the bulk of the work in prepping and shipping packages will fall on them instead of on me. However many of the processes will impact our household spaces in the form of boxes of books that need to be signed and sketched.

Then in February we'll need to launch another Kickstarter to fund Schlock Mercenary book 19. For schedule and sanity reasons I would love to push this later in the year. For need-to-pay-bills reasons it has to be February.  Perhaps sometime I'll write up a big post talking about how to track and keep separate the funds necessary to produce and ship a project from the funds which pay for groceries and medical bills. 

Speaking of posts, I've written several on my blog One Cobble at a Time. Sometimes when I'm working on re-drafting a chapter for SLSC I still want to stay in a writer head space, but I need to step away from the paragraph I'm wrestling with. Lately I've been using those moments to blog.  I also have plans to be posting more things to my Patreon as well. One thing that is available for free over there is Creating in the Face of Existential Anxiety. (I've had a lot of anxiety about the changes the new year and new US presidential administration will bring and the impacts on my family and business.)  Or if you're looking for something less anxious to read, my Patreon Shop has a set of 12 short stories for $5. 

Thank you for being patient with a lot more promo-type stuff than I usually put into my updates. This year has to be one where I do some hustling to secure income, while (of course) preserving time and energy for the creative work I want to be doing.  Hopefully next time I update I'll have sample layouts or pictures of stickers to show you. Which will keep the update more focused on the project you backed. 

Thank you so much for being my backers! Your next update will be the week of January 27-31. 

All the best,
Sandra

Greetings Backers,

At my house this is the last rush toward our celebration of the Christmas holiday, but I wanted to pause for a moment and give you all an update.

TL;DR: No action items for you. Thank you for filling out your surveys, if you have questions or concerns about anything relating to your order please email [email protected]. I'm giving you all another chapter to read. Both the video and chapter can be accessed by clicking over to Backerkit and logging in. Details below.

When last I wrote an update I was in the space between Thanksgiving and  a convention (Dragonsteel Nexus). As expected, the convention had a bit impact on my ability to work on SLSC. (But I survived the food adventure of needing to pack along everything I ate for three days!) You can see the impact in my daily writing tracker.

On the days where I make progress on SLSC I get to color in the square for the day. I had a really great two month run until I hit Thanksgiving. The convention was December 5-7, which is the middle of that blank week. I'm getting my rhythm back now, but I feel the loss of those two weeks of work (spent on different work) as the end of the year comes rushing at me.

The end of the year is always a moment where I feel the weight of everything I haven't gotten done that I meant to do. I usually spend quite a bit of time collating all my blog posts and journal entries into book form. I then use a print on demand service to print the book. I have annual books going back to 2004 when I first started my blog. Here are the books from the past four years.

I want to make a book for 2024, and I will. But it will be a much slimmer volume since so much of my writing energy was diverted into SLSC and into freelance work. That trend will continue because between now and the end of the year I'm going to throw every available creative minute into getting SLSC done. But those minutes are only going to be available around scheduled family celebrations. 

In early January I will have to assess where I'm at in relation to the project. 

Despite all the distractions, I finished Believing in Your Work. I'm now in progress on Your Access Needs, Health Challenges, and Caregiving and Creativity.   That only leaves the following to re-draft:

I'm so close to being done, yet somehow I'm not there yet and days keep slipping away from me, spent on other things. (yes the other things are important, but this is also. The juggle is complicated and so are emotions.)

Status of deliverables:

SLSC Print book: In progress as listed above
SLSC ebook: This will be produced and released within about a week of when I send the physical book to the printer.
SLSC Audiobook: I will begin production on this as soon as the physical book is off to the printer and the ebook has been delivered.
Custom Designed Notebook: I will be working on this in tandem with revising and editing SLSC. I already have ideas for how to arrange some of the activities on the pages.
Notebook Ready to place an order in January
Bookmarks: Ready to print
Notecards: Ready to print
Sticker sheets: Ready to print
Thank you Postcard: I'll design these soon.
Giveaway books: Once I have received my shipment of books I will set up a process where people can get these books for free.
Lecture bundle: I am late on this, details below.
Consultations: Mostly complete, a few more pending.
Group Mentoring: Ongoing! We've met several times and I'm enjoying the connections we're building.
Individual Mentoring: Some ongoing, some starting with the new year.

I really wanted to have at least one of these ready to go before I posted this update. I set aside time and recorded a lecture on Monday. Unfortunately I jumped the gun a bit. I got about halfway through my slides when I realized that my written lecture notes did not match the slides in front of me. I had to try to adjust on the fly to fill the gaps. I'm afraid the result was not coherent or cohesive. To make matters worse I'd chosen my hairclip poorly and by about halfway through my 45 minute recording I realized it was sliding down my hair, making me look increasingly disheveled. I could have paused to replace it, but then I would have an edit in the middle of the presentation where my hair changes. Distracting.

So I'm calling that my practice run. I'm going to spend more time with my slides and notes. Make sure I'm confident they're in alignment. I will more firmly secure my hair. Then I'll record again. Hopefully before Christmas, but I'm running out of days, my parents are in town, I haven't wrapped any gifts, and my tree still doesn't have any ornaments on it. 
The on-the-fly priorities analysis and adjustment is real. I keep looking at how much time has passed and feeling like surely I could have arranged something better. 

In the end I have to trust that past me was making good choices. That in the times she chose rest, she really needed rest. Then I look at where I'm at now and make decisions about how to move forward. 

I hope that if you have a holiday this month it is filled with joy and comfort for you. I'll be back with another update for you the week of January 6-10

All the best,
Sandra