I've had a handful of events and interviews over the last couple of weeks, all of which went far better than I feared. I'm not a natural performer by any stretch of the imagination, but I found myself really enjoying these.
First of all, an interview with the new Bloody Scotland podcast, which can be found wherever you get your podcasts etc.
Bloody Scotland has been flying the flag for Scottish crime fiction for a number of years, and I was initially unsure why I'd been asked to talk to them. The Unrecovered might be many things (a new Scottish classic according to some discerning readers; a load of boring rubbish according to other, less discerning readers...) but it's definitely not a crime novel. However, there's certainly a mystery element to the story, one based in myth, legend and landscape rather than human action, and there's a reasonable amount of blood. It feels like Bloody Scotland are expanding their remit to cover this kind of fiction as well, and talking with Bob McDevitt and Lin Anderson (a celebrated crime author herself) made for a really interesting chat. As I reminded him, Bob used to work with my mum in the now-defunct branch of Waterstones at the east end of Princes Street in Edinburgh, all the way back in the 1990s. The world of writing and publishing, especially in Scotland, is exceptionally small ...
Next was an event with the Far From the Madding Crowd bookshop in Linlithgow, which took place at the beautiful St Peter's Church on the High Street.
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| The sermon about to begin... |
There was a good crowd of around 20 people and it was chaired by Sally, the manager. This was a really rewarding conversation, especially as I got to delve into my process a bit, and the questions at the end were great. There's nothing better than when an astute reader notices something in your novel that has escaped your own attention - it makes the whole process feel incredibly mysterious, and that you've been accessing levels you didn't consciously understand when writing it. And the setting for this event was just gorgeous, one of the most beautiful little churches I've ever seen.
Finally, a bigger event in East Linton hosted by Night Owl Books, and chaired by the manager Rebecca.
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| The crowd begins to gather... |
Well over 30 people came to this, and it never ceases to amaze me that people would be willing to give up their time to come and hear me ramble on about my book. Again, the converstation was wide-ranging, I got to really dig into aspects of the novel and the whole journey to publication, and the questions at the end were great. I signed loads of books afterwards, including from someone who had already read the novel twice (!) and who said it was inspiring them to write their own fiction. That is high praise indeed, and really humbling. This was a great event, and Rebecca is to be commended for running these so well.
I don't have anything else lined up events-wise at the moment. I was hoping to get offered something from the Edinburgh International Book Festival, but given their funding woes I think I might have to wait for next year. In any case, I've surprised myself by enjoying these, once the initial nerves are overcome. In the run-up to the book launch in February I would idly daydream about changing my name and getting a job in the Hebrides on a fishing trawler rather than go through the nightmare terror of a public speaking event, but once they're underway they can be incredibly rewarding. It turns out I might be a secret egomaniac, and I quite like having a captive audience forced to listen to me wax lyrical about my own work. Who would have thought?