Fast

[NB - this was written on Mon 9th August, while on holiday]

FAST

I was thinking just now about the whole publishing ting - unsurprisingly it’s not out of my thoughts much these days - and I realised, it’s less than a week since my book was launched. And I’m already moving on - seeing it in the past. Which technically it is - the launch date anyway - but the publication of my book is still - or ought to be - an ongoing process.

This tells you something about me. I’m always in a mad rush, trying to squish a million things into one small space, whether it be clutter in a cupboard or life in a weekend.

That makes me sound like the kind of person who might abseil down a tower block, drink 20 pints in a weekend or travel the world at the drop of a hat. I don’t do big stuff like that. I do smallish stuff, and I never travel far, and I always make sure I have a safety net. But I do it BIG. Or maybe I just do it fast. Or slightly mad. But also slightly sane.

The thing about me is that I have ideas. I’’ve written before about my crazy-bonkers ideas and how most of them never get anywhere. But occasionally I’ll take something forward. There’s some critical point, which is never easy to identify at the time or even afterwards, but at this point it stops being a crazy dream and starts being The Thing That I Am Currently Obsessed With And Will Move Tower Blocks To Achieve.

At first I thought this self publication thing was an unworkable idea, the kind of thing you dream of but never do. But it wasn’t until it became the kind of thing you dream of that it became likely. For a while I toyed with the idea of sticking it on Lulu. No offence, Lulu, your books are great for what they are and they serve a purpose and all that, but… their covers bend and curl. I’ll never get past that.

As long as the self-publication dream was a matter of cheap expediency, it was never attractive enough to bother with. But as soon as I thought a little bigger, the nugget became buried in some crucial part of my brain. What if I put a bit of time, money and effort into it? What if I made something I could truly be proud of? The answer came, Sod Off. Don’t be daft. You haven’t got the money or the time. Or the energy. Or the confidence. But the idea stayed hanging in some dreamy bit of consciousness and refused to go away.

As recently as six weeks ago I thought it was just another crazy scheme and would never become reality, or if it did it would be a bit shit.But then the illustrator painted the beautiful picture, and the designer wove it into something wonderful, and I managed to do a final edit that I was happy with, and then…

The thing is, I’m stuck. I’m trapped in a bubble of time. I have been for ages. It hasn’t happened yet, this bubble. It’s over there somewhere. In the future. And I’m stuck there. And I can’t escape. My whole life has been about getting somewhere else. Making plans. Preparing. And I never arrive. So now my book has been launched - only days ago - and I’m already elsewhere. Done that. Time to move on.

And then I realise… oh. I’m actually still here. And it’s quite a nice place to be.

Maybe I’ll stick around.