A Launch, a Load of Self-Promotion, and a Hedgehog

Yes, it's been a week and a half, and I completely forgot to update my blog concerning the outcome of my book launch, which is doubly bad because I have this URL listed in the front of the book as my website and I hate the thought of people thinking, "oooh, blog" and then finding it stagnant.  Not that they would, necessarily, be thinking, "oooh, blog" but they might, and I would hate for them to be disappointed.  


In any case, the launch went very well.  There was a steady stream of people, and by the end my face hurt from smiling, so I think that would generally indicate success.  Afterwards I went home to collapse on the couch with Kezia while we consumed pizza and Strongbow and watched An Education (great film by the way, based on a memoir) and had a lovely evening.  Since then I've been wrestling with the beast known as Self-Promotion, which does not come naturally at all.  I've known people who were simply genius at it, but I am not one of them.  In a way, the online promotion part is easier.  Those people don't know you.  And Very Old Friends, who've watched you slave over the novels for years and even perhaps read manuscripts...those aren't bad either.  It's the hometown promotion that's the hardest, I find.  Suddenly you're approaching people who, though they don't really know you, per se, have seen you about town and known of you since you were a midget.  I can assure you, I was thoroughly unimpressive as a midget.  Yes, I had fabulous adventures in my head, but who was to know?  I certainly didn't tell them.  Cancer threw me a little more into the public eye, but who wants to be known for being disease-ridden?  Anyway, approaching people who know you in the aforementioned vague way, and saying, essentially, "Hi, I've written a book.  Please buy it," can feel rather odd.  However, I have been gritting my teeth and getting it done, though generally in a less blunt fashion.  The online promotion has slowly been coming along as well, though it's a lot to learn.  There is, in the end, so much that could be done for promotion, with all the resources available, that I find I have to make myself stop, to set it aside and go back to the writing.  After all, the writing is what really counts.  Without it, there would be nothing to promote, not to mention that without it I would turn into a sodden mass.  We write for the same reason we breathe: because without it we would not survive.  Numbers and sales seem petty things then.


I have acquired a new friend recently.  His name is Ferdinand, or Ferdy for short, and he is an African Pygmy Hedgehog, an anniversary gift from my husband.

A Returned Sense of Purpose

Returning to real life after the PNWA Conference is always a bit squiffy for me. (Yes, I am aware that "squiffy" is not a word.  But it should be.)  Four days of concentrated writing, the society of other writers, writing workshops, featured speakers on writing...it's lovely.  Writers are their own kind of weird, and I think that's the thing that helps me the most every year.  It's a companionable weirdness, a solidarity, and it encourages me that I'm not alone in this obsession with words and stories.  Writers may be famously introverted and depressed, but those things considered they are very encouraging people.  I never feel any sense of competition.  Everybody wants everybody else to succeed, because if they succeed it means you can too.  Also, it's one of very few places where you can mention having arguments with your characters or reading the dictionary for fun without being branded a psycho.


So once again I've returned to the real world, but I hope I've carried a piece of that atmosphere back with me, and through contact with writer friends met there I will keep hold of it throughout the year to come.  The biggest thing I came away with this year was a new sense of determination and discipline in my writing.  This is what I've wanted since I was a little girl.  Only I can make it happen.  Also, in going through old manuscripts the other day I realized that I am currently working on my sixth novel.  What matter that the first four I wouldn't dream of showing to anyone?  Those were practice, and I never have to write that terrible "first novel" again.  Hurrah!