May seems to have filled up with what my mind insists on calling Real Author Stuff. Namely, interview blogposts, a newsletter highlight, live & recorded reading events, and a book club visit. I’ll give you the details in a moment, first I’d like to squeal quietly at you, if that’s ok.
*me squealing*
I am loving it, in case you were wondering. Each one of these things is a shiny brass weight in the ‘Yes, you are an author’ half of the scales and a pigeon feather in the ‘haha, good joke, yes?’ half. Which is nice. I’ve mentioned in passing before that getting to this point involved a few set-backs. In summary, they included having and then losing an agent (book1), having two publishing offers (for book2), one of which I accepted but that then fell through, dozens and dozens of full requests (books 1-4), several phonecalls and similar near misses (books 2-4), some blatant prejudice, some amazing encouragement… and then This Is Our Undoing (book3 btw) found its true home with Luna. Add in the chronic illness palaver and it’s been an occasionally challenging process.
So being asked to take part in Real Author Stuff is … it’s magical frankly. I am stopping to smell the roses.
Sadly, aforementioned chronic illness doesn’t entirely agree.
This is one of the things with living with disabling illnesses – that everything, and I mean really, literally everything has a health cost. Gardening for half an hour? That’s a spoon or two please (for an explanation of the concept of spoons and being a spoonie, read this). Walking down to the chemist to get prescriptions? Worrying about a poorly cat? Cooking tea? A few spoons should cover it. Doing a live reading/author chat in the evening? SO MANY SPOONS.
Spoonie life is a juggling act, a walking on eggshells existence.
It is a constant bartering of ‘I really want to do that on Thursday, so I can’t risk doing this today’, or ‘I’m doing this on Wednesday, so Thursday and Friday are written off.’ And that’s fine. I’m lucky that with planning and recovery time, I can generally do things. (I mean, it’s not really fine, but *shrug* that’s life, you get on with it.) However, it’s been brought into sharp relief with the advent of Real Author Stuff, because I love being asked to do things, and I love doing them, and want to do more (please) so I am … undergoing a shift, I guess. Which includes taking writerly things more seriously. It has always been effectively a ‘hobby’, so in the spoons bartering it’s been hard to justify paying too much for it, when my ‘payments’ (days of ill health while I recover) affects my family as well as me. But writing isn’t a hobby now. I’m an author, I’m allowed to give Real Author Stuff value. Which is both a very complicated equation still, and also contrarily incredibly liberating.
On the other hand, I’m still allowed to protect my health, even with Real Author Stuff. And one of the absolute greatest things about publishing with Luna Press is how unconditionally supportive Francesca has been. Honestly, I cannot put into words how bolstering it is to know that my publisher has my back and that in my health bartering, I do not have to add in the stress (goodbye spoons) of worrying about annoying my publisher if I cannot do something.
This blog has turned into … something more complicated than a ‘YAY LOOK AT ALL THESE EVENTS I’M DOING’ blog. But then, living with disability is complicated, and I don’t want to smooth over the nuances and difficulties of that. Yes, it makes for a messier ‘YAY’, but also it makes the good stuff that much more precious. I am smelling the roses, gently.
…And here are some of said roses…
Publishing Scotland’s newsletter Books From Scotland includes an extract from This Is Our Undoing … it contains bears and the very beginnings of All The Trouble. Read it here.
The book blogger Janet Emson – From First Page To Last – published a wee Q&A where I talk about why I wrote This Is Our Undoing, why I love graphs and what I owe Oscar Wilde. Read it here.
I did my first ever live reading & chat with Yvonne Battle-Felton and an eclectic, fascinating mix of other debut authors. My reading is around the 1:20 mark, watch it here, admire my fairy lights & see if you can spot the cat.
…More to come soon, thank you for reading. Wishing you all the spoons you need. This is a slightly psychedelic photo of me (not me) smelling (drinking from) the roses (geraniums).
