Post launch

Now the cycle begins again

I had a wonderful launch event at the Wētā Cave. I kept it to a small group of friends and decided not to invite press or take promotional selfies for social media. I think there is a clear divide between treating the event as a private celebration with friends, verses the handshake understanding of cross promotion that comes with inviting industry colleagues. Many of those colleagues are dear friends too, but you get my point.

It allowed me to relax and enjoy myself, switch off a little and just hang with folk who had come to support me, as opposed to being in ‘promotion mode’ which is a very different headspace, a predatory high-alert focused on grabbing every possible celebrity at the right moment in order to haul them up to the Taking Wonderland backdrop for a photo.

Now with the launch behind me, the focus moves to the more mundane, which is getting copies boxed up and sent to a local distributor who supplies the New Zealand bookstores; executing a promotion campaign; and, most importantly, getting the third book underway.

I am aware that some writers have to take a break at this point. The thought of setting off on another marathon; of confronting three hundred blank pages; of relegating every other aspect of life to a secondary position; of scaling the myriad other trials and tribulations that loom like cliffs in front of us, might appear daunting. Taking a break seems a very reasonable response to all this.

I have a different driver. At my age, 72 years, time seems to hurtle by at an alarming rate. I don’t WANT to take a break because I’m anxious to get the trilogy finished before I keel over. Not wishing to be unnecessarily alarmist, but the thought of leaving this story unfinished gives the undertaking a certain urgency.

When I was in my twenties I read the Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake, and was transfixed by that extraordinary world with its exotic characters and some of the most visually stimulating and stunning prose I have ever read.

I was confused by the third book, confused and a little disappointed, until I read his biography, written by his wife. I won’t elaborate here, some of you will already be familiar with this story, and perhaps others will now be tantalised enough to investigate further, but I do not want to leave behind my own unfinished version of Titus Awakes.

But I am taking the next few days off to go to the Womad festival in Taranaki, three days of incredible world music taking place on four different stages in the spectacular botanic gardens that sit in the shadow of the imposing Mount Taranaki.