| It’s been another busy week of book promo, with two live-stream online interviews and two which were recorded in September debuting on YouTube. But I’m blaming Charli Mills for the title and narcissistic content of this post: you’ll have to read – or scroll – to the end to find out why. While I enjoy these video conversations, I do get nervous to the extent of wondering why I put myself forward. But when I get a positive review from someone who finds a strong personal connection with the novel, as I did this morning, I feel extra motivated to do my utmost to introduce Matty to more potential readers. |  |
I often have to brace myself to watch an interview replay. It’s rather like returning to an early draft of a novel I’ve been relieved to put away. There’ll be places I’ve waffled, been unclear or given a lousy answer to a reasonable question. There’ll be points that make me cringe but surprising moments that make me proud. Did I say/write that? Did I express myself, however fumblingly, with passion?
Unlike a novel draft, I can’t go back and edit an interview on someone else’s channel. In a way, I’m glad. It helps me approach each interview, despite the anxiety, with a sense of playfulness, striving, not for good, but for good enough. So long as I manage to say something about my novel, and don’t waste the interviewer’s time, I count it as success. And feel grateful that I can talk to someone fifty miles from my home in the middle of England on one day, and someone in New York the next. With no jetlag.
While practice won’t make perfect in my case, I believe it will help me improve. Or is that an excuse to showcase the videos in chronological order beginning with the online launch event at the end of May? (No, I don’t expect you to watch and/or listen to all six hours.)
Unlike a novel draft, I can’t go back and edit an interview on someone else’s channel. In a way, I’m glad. It helps me approach each interview, despite the anxiety, with a sense of playfulness, striving, not for good, but for good enough. So long as I manage to say something about my novel, and don’t waste the interviewer’s time, I count it as success. And feel grateful that I can talk to someone fifty miles from my home in the middle of England on one day, and someone in New York the next. With no jetlag.
While practice won’t make perfect in my case, I believe it will help me improve. Or is that an excuse to showcase the videos in chronological order beginning with the online launch event at the end of May? (No, I don’t expect you to watch and/or listen to all six hours.)
My first video conversation with someone who had read the book was very special. Tracey is such a skilled and encouraging interviewer:
Fun chatting on a hot day in September with another local author as part of the Middleway Words online festival. (Apologies the link takes you to YouTube and please ignore the technical hitch at the start):
Another author tête-à-tête simply because we enjoyed each other’s novels:
Ever heard the phrase laughing your head off? Looks like I’m doing that literally in this conversation with trauma therapists David Buckler and Aneesh de Vos from Community Connections:
From a three-way conversation to five: it was fun joining my publisher and three other Inspired Quill authors via this online World Mental Health Day event:
We discussed mental health and a good deal more – including writers’ block and my enjoyment of editing – in this conversation with author and book coach and fellow Polari Prize nominee, Stuart Wakefield. (Pity I couldn't stop myself going on about the square root of minus one!):
This week’s first live interview was with Kiren from Tamworth Book Club, streaming on Facebook and also part of her broadcast on Tamworth radio. We talked about my surprise at finding Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home was funny and how my fiction is sparked by a little bit of everything:
Finally, my most recent interview was for Matt Nappo’s Minddog TV. We discussed going back to being a beginner in later life; how serious mental health issues can be understood in terms of what’s happened to a person; and that, unlike physical health care, treatment has barely improved in the past eighty years since Matty was incarcerated.
There have been some lovely thoughtful blogger reviews of Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, but I particularly wanted to highlight this one, partly because the reader found a personal connection and partly because she went to the trouble of sharing her favourite quotes. Check the review to see if you agree with her choices.
So now to my excuse for the splurge of me talking to someone via my webcam: film fest is the prompt for this week’s flash fiction challenge. If you’re thinking a festival of film for Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home is somewhat grandiose, I agree, but the deadline’s next Tuesday which is too soon for Matty’s sequel.
 | As it happens, in that story, featuring Matty approaching her 100th birthday, her belief she’s a star of stage and screen blossoms into something not far removed from a film fest. Unfortunately, demons lurk on the cutting room floor. Here’s a taster in the usual 99 words: |
Matty’s virtual film fest
Their flu sweeps England like their dastardly Armada. Matty must emerge from retirement to help raise morale. Her recitals would banish fear and despondency, but cinemas and theatres are closed.
The new maid suggests a solution. In a screen that is also a camera, and no bigger than a book. They can film without film and project without a projector, beaming directly to each separate device. In her ninety-nine years, Matty has never heard the like.
The girl directs. Matty performs.
No-one edits. Will evil seep out somehow to infect the audience watching blithely from the confines of home?
Their flu sweeps England like their dastardly Armada. Matty must emerge from retirement to help raise morale. Her recitals would banish fear and despondency, but cinemas and theatres are closed.
The new maid suggests a solution. In a screen that is also a camera, and no bigger than a book. They can film without film and project without a projector, beaming directly to each separate device. In her ninety-nine years, Matty has never heard the like.
The girl directs. Matty performs.
No-one edits. Will evil seep out somehow to infect the audience watching blithely from the confines of home?
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