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