I wrote a post in the early hours
of yesterday morning about Thursday night's incredible experience at
Waterstones Piccadilly and about how things have changed over the last
three years for me. Sharing it now - also, if you want a recap of the
event check out this Storify of tweets from people attending, especially
the fabulous @charlieinabook!
It's 4 o'clock in the morning and, having originally collapsed into
bed as soon as I got in last night, I've now woken up and been hit by a
huge adrenaline rush and can't get back to sleep. So I will do
something that is increasingly rare for me and actually write a blog
post.
3 years
ago this week, I went to my first book event since moving down to
London. Juno Dawson and Maureen Johnson gave a fantastically
entertaining panel, I got over my near-paralysing shyness to introduce
myself to my friend Debbie in person for the first time (admittedly I
nearly didn't manage it but I had a copy of In Bloom I'd promised to
lend her - thanks Matthew Crow!), and I saw just how much fun an event
can be.
Last
night I was on the other side of the table for the first time as I
chaired a panel with two authors who I know fairly well, Non Pratt and
Lisa Williamson, and YouTube superstar and Girl Hearts Girl author Lucy
Sutcliffe, who I got to meet just before the panel. All three were
utterly fabulous and it was a complete pleasure to be able to facilitate
discussion between them.
It has got
me thinking about the last three years and how much things have
changed, though. Back in October 2013 I'd been down in London about a
month, was still fairly ambivalent about whether I'd stay in my new job
past Christmas, and hadn't actually managed to really talk to anybody
outside of work. I was painfully shy, hated my voice, had just stopped
being teetotal after a year or so of not drinking, and I'm not sure I'd
ventured far enough outside of the streets of London I knew well to even
go to any bookshops except a few branches of Waterstones and Foyles
Charing Cross Road. There were, as far as I'm aware, zero photos of me
on unlocked social media sites, except for a head shot on
Facebook/LinkedIn. I also was at the stage where I wasn't making long
term plans because, after being made redundant 15 months earlier and
then failing to get a job I thought was pretty much mine, I couldn't
face thinking ahead more than a few weeks as I was convinced there'd be
nothing good to look forward to.
I am still
really shy, to be honest (especially without confidence-boosting
Prosecco, a fact that's been brought home to me as I recently ended a
three month spell without alcohol!) And I still hate my voice. But I've
managed to work around both of these things, the first by getting to
know some truly wonderful friends and by expanding my social circle
through stuff like #DrinkYA (the next one is 6:30pm Wed 19th October, by
the way, at Clerkenwell & Social, and if you're 18+ and based near
enough to London to come you should join us!) And the second by doing
various things that built up my confidence that however much I dislike
the sound of myself talking, other people manage with it. (HUGE thanks
to Down The Rabbit Hole for helping here, having me on twice - once in a
pre-recorded section, interviewing Siobhan Curham (arranged by the
brilliant Hannah Love!) and once as a live guest with awesome author
Harriet Reuter Hapgood, and the superb co-hosts Katherine Woodfine and
Melissa Cox. And there are now just a FEW photos of me around, mainly
thanks to my constantly changing profile pic - I blame/credit David
Stevens and Abi Elphinstone for getting the tradition started there!!
Speaking
of thanks, I owe so much to so many supportive people! I am blatantly
going to miss someone out and feel awful about it when I realise, but a
partial list - obviously Non, Lucy and Lisa for being incredible
panelists! Everyone at the three publishers - David Fickling Books,
Barrington Stoke, and especially Rachel Phillipps (who originally asked
me to chair the event) and Lucy Richardson (who took over as my main
point of contact about it) at Scholastic.
Despite
Debbie's first words to me at that Juno/Maureen event being "You can't
sit there" (not the most promising of starts!), she has gone on to be an
incredibly supportive and loyal friend who's always been there for me
when I need someone. Similarly, Charlie, Julianne, Faye, Caitlin,
Daphne, Stacey and Chelle have spent a staggering amount of time over the last
two or three years supporting me, reassuring me when I'm down, and
generally being some of the best friends I could ever have dreamt of
making. (Also Daph trusted me to hold gorgeous Theia last weekend in my
most popular ever profile pic!) Thanks also to Ming, Robin, Louise, and
Karen McCombie for being there last night - along with Debbie, Charlie
and Julianne - and for talking to me about it afterwards and saying how
much they'd enjoyed it. (Breaking off into a new train of thought for a
minute to say that when I first restarted reading MG it was Karen
McCombie's Ally's World Series that really got me hooked - meeting her
last year in person was incredible, talking to her for the third or
fourth time last night I was still fighting the urge to pinch myself!)
Also thanks to Anna James and Katie Webber - two consistently excellent
chairs - who were incredibly generous with their time and advice in
giving me tips to prepare. And my family, my parents and my sister Lucy,
for their amazing support throughout my life.
(Speaking
of how things have changed over the past three years, I met Robin and
Ming for the first time at two #drinkYA events - both were unpublished
at those points. I am now reading Robin's FIFTH fabulous Murder Most
Unladylike mystery, Mistletoe and Murder, and she is established as one
of the UK's most popular MG writers, while Ming has an essay in The Good
Immigrant - crowd-funded by hundreds of people including JK Rowling,
selling brilliantly and receiving huge critical acclaim, and being used
as a pillow by Lin-Manuel Miranda. WOW!)
Going
back to where I was three years ago, since then I've grown to love my
job (most of the time!) and taught hundreds of wonderful students, I've
visited a decent amount of London's bookshops and even, incredibly,
created Teens on Moon Lane for my absolute favourite one, Tales on Moon
Lane. (Sorry, Waterstones Piccadilly, it feels ungrateful saying that
after last night and you will always have a special place in my heart,
but Tales just can't be beaten!)
I
am not only actively looking forward to things that are, in some cases,
months away, I even have a 40 things to do before I'm 40 list and have
actually managed to check 4 things off as of last night when I completed
the 'chair a panel' goal.
The
point of this blog post (other than being something to do when I'm
awake and too excited to go back to sleep!), is that things can change.
Over a comparatively short amount of time, so much in my life became
much much better, due to fabulous support and due to me working really
hard on things I struggled with. Five years ago, when I first found out I
was likely to be made redundant and lose a job I loved and had been
doing for most of my adult life, I couldn't imagine being where I am
today. Now, I can't imagine being anywhere else.
(The
other point, once again, is to say a massive THANK YOU to all the
people mentioned above. And maybe just a TINY bit to boast a little
about my first panel!!)
No comments:
Post a Comment