Is your book a lemon? Hopefully not.
Lots of things this week. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster! Up and down, for deffo!
Started off feeling a little low about Mum but she was in such good form on Wednesday that I came home reassured. We talked about how hard it was to stay close to Dad, how it hurt not to step away. ‘Oh darling, I do hope I don’t put you through that again,’ she said. I told her she wouldn’t. To be honest, even if she does, I wouldn’t have it any other way. You do what you have to do. I have to live with myself afterwards. Bless her heart. It won’t be like Dad because she’s different, I’m not sure how it will be, there’s no point wondering. That was kind of good and kind of sad, bittersweet, I suppose.
On the other hand, by some miracle, I managed to remember that it was World Book Day earlier than three minutes prior to McMini’s departure for school on the Day in question. God bless HRT! I haven’t had a memory that good in about fifteen years! Woot!
McMini wanted to go as Dennis the Menace. OK so, by the time I remembered I was at Mum’s the day before and could do nothing about it, but at least I was able to text McOther and ask if he could nip up to town and get some black crepe paper. I had decided to pin it to McMini’s red PE shirt to make stripes. To my delight, McOther had discovered an old red jumper of mine which bit the dust when the washing machine’s thermostat broke during the ‘delicates’ wash. It boiled a drum full of expensive jumpers with vigorous enthusiasm, so vigorous that the jumper in question was a perfect fit on our 11 year old. McOther suggested using black electrical tape rather than crepe paper. I went with his suggestion, which transpired to be genius!
Home on Wednesday night, I was still alert enough to be able to add the stripes to the jumper (God bless HRT a second time). OK so I’d forgotten to suggest to McOther popped into the costume shop and bought a cheapo black curly wig but hey, you can’t win ’em all! And they realised who he was!
Then there’s the Audiobook project! Squee! Now we’re onto marketing, though. Hmm … I’ve been trying to do a series of ‘hello and welcome’ emails for people signing up to my audiobook list. There are going to be two types, those who are coming into the whole thing cold and those who already know and love K’Barth and just want it read to them. I’m thinking that’s going to take two different sets of hello protocol. However, I can see that that the one thing both sets will want to know is the process of making the books, and they might have questions for Gareth, I would if it was me. From my casual forays into the audiobook marketing of other authors it seems they approach it as a team thing, too, and also give the narrator plenty of air time.
As a result I’ve started with the stuff about the audio side, because both series of emails will need it, and to that end I’ve sent Gareth some dubiously inane questions. Mmm, I bet he’s delighted. Mwahahaahrgh! But unfortunately for him, he’s amusing and folks will enjoy reading his answers. He has agreed to do an interview, too, in an unguarded moment, so I am compiling a list of questions to ask him – hopefully not all inane.
And this is where you come in. The questions. There are some about the whole process of audio, how it’s done, planning and all that, there are the inane who’s your favourite character type questions (which I hope will be made a tiny bit easier by the fact he likes the books) and there are the personal ones, when did you know you wanted to be an actor? But I’d like to try and make sure I ask him things people would want to know. It may be that you trust me implicitly to ask interesting things or … throwing this open to the floor for a moment … you may not. You’ve heard the Unlucky Dip demo, you know he’s a bit good at this acting thing and that he’s an utter lunatic (well, of course he is, he likes my books) what would you like me to ask him, lovely readers?
Back down the rollercoaster to the bottom again, and a blurgh moment about the whole pushing the rock up hill that is trying to persuade people to read my word barf. Or, marketing, as it’s called.
This is, of course, my hormones messing with my arse again. Yes ladies, gentlemen and everyone outside, beyond and in between, it’s constipation and brain fog week. But there seems to be extra, super-duper, improved weird on top at the moment. I’ve been enjoying, if that’s the right word, a lot of dreams about poo recently. Yes, we might be entering the realm of Too Much Information but since when have I ever cared about that? Buckle up folks, we’re going in [cue rubbery slapping sound of arm length rubber gloves being pulled on]. I am dreaming about going to the bog, in the bathroom, on the loo, having an extremely satisfying dump and then discovering that I’ve made a mistake and that far from using the loo, I’ve gone on the sofa, or in someone else’s bed, or in the middle of the hearth rug in error … then I have to try and clear it up before anyone comes and finds it and is upset, or sometimes they just come in and tell me I’m disgusting. Mmm. Nice.
As you might imagine, my first thought on waking up most mornings at the moment is, ‘What the fuck was that about?’
Eeee are you saying I look like poo I’m fluff I’ll have you know?
According to Monsieur Google, this kind of poo dream – or at least the doing poo in the wrong place by mistake – is a sign of insecurity; fear that you’re about to stuff something up. Hmm … from me? Say it isn’t so! There’s a surprise. Mwahahahargh! Yes, my subconscious, tell me something I don’t know.
Back up to the crest of the hill, a local author group I go to met this week. One has just finished a new book and it was so lovely to see her enthusiasm, and how utterly in love with her story and characters she was! And it made me feel a lot more normal, because I feel the same when I’ve completed a new book. She writes hers in one binge because she can’t bear the suspense otherwise. Sounds like a really good way of doing it. Ahhh if only I could! I can’t bear the suspense either but it takes me years. We also had a brilliant discussion about how you write spin off novellas to a series without spoilers. A knotty conundrum which is, currently, doing my head in! So, so fucking difficult. Why have I done this to myself?
What is especially lovely about hanging out with other authors, or just other creative people to be honest, is that the more of them I meet, the more I realise that all my creative foibles are actually completely standard. We are all as nuts as each other. Not just authors, musicians, artists, eyebombers … yep. All nuts.
Which is reassuring.
Also this week, I wrote something. Always nice. Not much but I’ve been slightly slacking on that front – more than slightly cf earlier bit back there about the knotty conundrum of spoilers – it’s good to have got going again.
Simpery nonce mode on … I probably should have brushed my hair and just rocked the Louis XIV curly wig look without shame.
On the down side, I tried to do some author pictures – the one with the marrow is now pushing 20 years old, but no fucker seems to be able to take a decent photo of me, and it seems I can’t either.
Eyessssss
Hmm … a partial success. I think the one of my scarily glowy eyes from mum and dad in-law’s bathroom looks better … sigh. Maybe I should just use that one and pretend I’m out of Dune. I’ve been riding the worm with Sting! Snortle. That didn’t quite come out the way I meant but I’ve left it anyway. Oh and by the way, there are occasions where I am not wearing that maroon jumper … it just seems to be the thing I have on, by happenstance, in nearly every photo. I do take it off, in the bath and in bed and the like and … I mean, you can see I did for the other pic. But sorry, I digress …
The strangest thing about the poo-filled You-Are-Insecure-Oh-Yes-You-Are dreams is that, right now, I’m feeling about as confident in the quality of my stuff as I’ve ever been. There’s nothing like listening to someone else read your books aloud, and do it really well, to feel that it’s not a bad story really … well … once you’ve got past the horror of realising you can write a lot better now than you did then! Handing over the alts for Book Two was almost physically painful, but I feel much more level headed about Three and Four – mainly because they’re rather better written.
The whole artistic insecurity thing annoys me when it hits because it feels a bit faux. Because when all is said and done, the creative thing is just something you do (you general you). And your sensible, pragmatic head knows it’s good enough and that’s all you need. But your flaky art head will never be quite certain and wants other people to like it. And you tell it to shut up and get on with life. That’s just … being creative. So on one level, yes, I’m totally confident that the writing I do is … the best I can do at that time … on the other I’m kind of … will people like it? But with maximum melodrama. You know the kind of thing, sobbing tearful voice … They have to like it! Sob! They have to! I will kill myself with this plastic fork if they don’t!
Ho hum …
Moving on …
This week the first book in my series, Few Are Chosen, was free on Kobo, it still is, and yesterday, US Amazon price matched and quite a few people downloaded my book. It even got one of those orange best seller tags, in the free book charts to be sure but I’ll take that. It got a couple of number two rankings (no not number two … maybe that’s what the dreams were about) a number four and a number 197 over all (not to mention a 15 with prawn crackers and 3 with lychees … sorry). I usually ignore my rankings, except when they do that! Mwahahahrgh! Screen shots were taken. I’m such a sad sack. I think it’s gone back to paid now, but that was jolly while it lasted and who knows, some of them may even read it, and if they do, a fair few will go on to read the others.
Talking of which … who wants to hear a sample from Few Are Chosen? If you do, there are two for your delectation:
Sample 1
Chapter 1: well, that seems like a sensible place to start, you know just go give you a feel, click here or where it says ‘sample 1’.
Sample 2
Chapter 37: where our heroine is walking home late at night and discoveres she is being followed. This is one Gareth enjoyed doing and I think that comes over. It’s the point where, as a listener, I went from thinking, blimey, this is good to, shut the smecking door! This is fucking marvellous! AND, I can share it without spoiling anything else much, because it’s kind of a little story in itself. To listen to that one, click here or where it says ‘sample 2’.
Also I’ve set up a page about the audiobooks here, I’ll add stuff … you know … as and when they become available. Hopefully it will be useful.