Book Launch

In which Goblin transforms into Glam

I posted this invite to my book launch on Instagram last week.

On my feed, the invite to last years Pardon My French is pinned next to it. Two launches! Two books! Who even am I!

My last book launch was a wild experience. It was complicated to arrange in the lead-up. The VIP table included relatives who, variously, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t hear, couldn’t walk, couldn’t handle crowds, had breast cancer, were in their 90’s or had various disabilities and aversions. (I chose not to invite Biggles the dog, who has a neurotic meltdown at the sight of people hugging.)

The sea of grey heads at the family table were part of the somewhat overwhelming emotional energy of the thing for me. My fancy blow-dry puffed and grew and my off-the-shoulder jumpsuit got sweaty in the muggy, steamy afternoon while the ever-capable Jen and Dimi (everybody needs a Jen and a Dimi) fixed my makeup in the toilet. I drank every glass of white wine placed in my hand.

My hilarious friend Al started her MC spot by riding into the venue courtyard on my child’s bike dressed as a French man; pretending she had followed me home from Sommières. My friend Michelle, host of the wonderful Writer's Book Club podcast, wore a red, white and blue scarf and conducted a fantastic Q and A. I read a chapter and then Keith, Ivy and I booted up the family band and performed three of our French numbers. Finally I drew a series of cock-and-balls in friends books at the signing table, and we all decamped to the pub.

Cock, balls, tick!

My imposter syndrome met the pure love and support in the room, mixed with the humidity and white wine and fused my brain into a soggy ball. I could not feel my fingers. I could not hold all the things at once. It was brilliant, joyful and overwhelming, and it passed like a fever dream.

I lost my glasses, left a neat pile of belongings in the carpark outside the Pickled Poet, and woke at three with the Dehydrated Remorse Channel playing in my brain. Why did I not sign a sophisticated greeting rather than draw those cock-n-balls? Why did I not introduce this person to that one? Speak more to the relative who drove such a very long way? Be more aware of the children and how they were coping? Sing less loudly? Have a photo taken with Keith? Be more thoughtful in my thank-you speech?

The next morning, I got up early and returned to the page, adjusting my settings back from Author Mode to Goblin Mode. There I wrestled quietly with words, and I felt much more comfortable.

There is real cognitive dissonance for a writer between the states of Goblin and Glam: the work of writing and the business of it. Book publicity involves an essential struggle between the performer - give them a show! - and the introvert - please, I beg of you, give me my bed!

In order to keep writing in the face of inevitable rejection, you must build a sharp distinction between the two states. But when you distance yourself from rejection, you also distance yourself from attachment to accolades and praise. This can make a book launch an emotionally complicated affair. Memoir adds a whole other dimension: it’s one thing to empty your heart onto the page alone in your mismatched socks, but it’s another experience altogether to stand and read these thoughts to a room full of your nearest and dearest. It’s the behaviour of an utter psychopath, really. Ha ha!

I am so thrilled to be publishing another book. The adventures that Pardon My French took me on were wonderful. Messages from readers brought me untold joy, and I met incredible authors at writers’ festivals, sat on brilliant panels, and even chatted to the scruffy and charismatic Sam Neill in the Sydney studio where we were both recording our audiobooks. (Get me!)

But back at my down-at-heel hotels after recording sessions or author panels, I still propped my laptop on a pillow and tinkered away at the work-in-progress, because the graft of an unpublished manuscript is the same as the graft of a published one. It requires the same hours, the same doubt, the same messy, impossible middle where the sunk-cost of Terrible Book by Hopeless Loser is heart-breaking; and the same vitamin-shot of emotion when words come together in a beautiful, delicate bracelet with a never-before-seen pattern: when you manage to reveal yourself to yourself through those magical symbols on the page.

There’s no guarantee that any book will get a publishing deal. I have friends with amazing unsold manuscripts, and friends whose writing has caught a gust in the zeitgeist, propelling them to great heights. But the work itself has taken the same time, energy and soul. A sold manuscript will mean a launch party, an advance, the pride of friends and family. It might mean reviews or spots on festival panels. It will have some imprimatur of success, even if the book tanks and sinks. But the unsold manuscript languishes in the digital bottom drawer, after, perhaps, a few humiliating rejections and near-misses. The value or quality of either work is second to the arbitrary, mysterious hand-of-fate. What are people reading now? the business-boffins ask. What do we think they’ll be reading in two years? Does it fit our list? Do they have an audience? Has anybody done anything similar lately? No. It’s not our genre. No. It’s not the moment. No. It’s not for us.

The writing has to be kept separate from publication itself, or no writer would never make it through the process. It’s too humiliating. Seared into my hippocampus is the memory of a phone call from my agent Jane. I had pulled over to the side of the road so Jane could tell me that my book had failed to make it through acquisitions with a publisher who had spilled over with praise and plans. I listened to Jane’s supportive words - take heart! it’s not over! - as I watched the ambulance with my mother in it drive past on its way to the hospital. It was her third such trip in three weeks during an early, frightening pandemic lockdown. I wept in the car then.

But the next rejection barely touched the sides. Humiliation is useful, I learned. It is humbling. It helps to define the work and sharpen the lens. Mothering Heights, this dark comedy about motherhood and identity and pain and growth, has been gestating for years, and I’ve wrestled its shape out of my psyche over many dawn mornings. Writing this raw and vulnerable dissection of my insides taught me so much about myself. I am equal parts terrified at the thought of people reading Mothing Heights and excited at the prospect of discussing its themes.

At the brink of its launch into the world, I can conclude that writing Mothering Heights was a grand adventure, publication is the cherry on top, and the book launch is the candle on top of the cherry on top of the mad, wild cake.

Comrades, join me at the Coledale RSL in April if you can. The family band is in rehearsal for our number, Michelle from Writers Book Club is coming down again for Q and A, and local band The Stubby Holders are going to perform their first gig: 90’s pub rock to tear up the RSL dancefloor. It will be a blast. I really hope to see you there.

Recommendations: a few books on writing

The classic in the genre is Stephen King’s On Writing. There’s heaps of great tips on structure and process, interspersed with tales of his cocaine-and-blood-soaked tissues in the bin. Bon appetit!

I also love Ann Lamott’s Bird By Bird, Catherine Deveney’s Use Your Words, Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir, and for my current manuscript, both Graeme Simsion’s The Novel Project and Jessica Brody’s Save The Cat Writes a Novel were really useful.

Happy writing, comrades!

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