I'M LATE, I'M LATE FOR A VERY IMPORTANT DATE ..

I know, I know, it's not poetry as Ted Hughes would  have known it, but I think it makes a very apt link between Gill's excellent and thought-provoking blog on verse, and this one because I am well.....late. Apologies everyone.
But goodness, has it been busy at Maison Mitchelmore post book launch!
There was me thinking all I had to do was write a book, sell it, see it published, then retire to my freezing garret and write another. Not so.
Before my book - TO TURN FULL CIRCLE, published by Choc Lit (in case anyone's forgotten, tee hee) - hit the shelves I was given, by my publisher, a list of reviewers who would be getting in touch. Not only would these reviewers review my book but they would also ask me to guest on their blogs. Each would be asking me different questions so as to avoid repetition and thus boor the readers rigid.
And this is where it started to get interesting.
One reviewer interviewed not me, but my heroine - Emma. Another chose to ask questions of Seth, my hero. A third was keen to know exactly what was in Matthew's mind because he didn't get a viewpoint in my book.
'Hello, Seth, good to meet you. Can you tell me where you see yourself in five years' time?'
'Gosh, Emma, but you've had a tough time of it lately. Was there ever a moment when you considered giving up the struggle?'
'Now then, Matthew, you're a cocky one. "I've known quite a few women, Emma" you were heard to say. Well, what I want to know is how many, and how experienced with women you are.'
And more questions of that ilk. And in answering them my writing took on another dimension for me. I had to delve deeper into the characters I had created, and I've found that as I write the sequel - working title NO TURNING BACK - I'm finding it is richer and deeper because of the reviewer interview experience.
So that's blogs.
Next came newspaper interviews.
My local rag sent me a list of questions by e.mail. so I answered them right away (I'm not always late!). Now then, my surname is often mis-spelled. I get Mitchellmore, Michelmore, Mitchell-Moore and many other combinations. So I typed LINDA MITCHELMORE in Times New Roman 20, and BOLD. So imagine my surprise/shock/horror to open the newspaper and find that the heading on the otherwise excellent whole page feature said, JANE'S LIFE TURNS FULL CIRCLE. Jane? Where the heck did the editor get that from?
It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good and the upshot is the editor offered to do a follow up piece the next week on the success (if there was one!) of my booksigning at The Torbay Bookshop here in Paignton. Well, dear reader, it was a success and the editor was true to his word.
A journalist from The Western Morning News came to my house to interview me and we had a lovely couple of hours talking all things writing and books. That feature appeared yesterday. But......the photo that was used in other features has appeared again....time for a new one?
Booksignings are being pencilled in on the calendar. Bookshops everywhere between Saltash and Exeter have invited me along so I make sure dates and times are correct for those. I vaguely thought I would do a local one and that would be it, but no.....it seems people like to meet the authors of the books they read. So who am I to disappoint them by not pitching up?
Which brings me to libraries. I've done one library talk before - for the RNA's anthology, LOVES ME, LOVES ME NOT - but that was in conjunction with two novelist friends, Margaret James and Sophie King so I wasn't alone. But now I have a library talk or two, or three lined up.
'Remember,' one librarian said, 'that there might be people in the audience who have heard you speak before. It might be a good idea to have something fresh to say.'
Oh dear. How many different ways can I say, 'I'm deaf, I wrote a book, it got bought, it's been published, I hope you like it, and thanks for being here'? Quite a few as it happens - and again a very useful writing tool for my fiction writing.
Ah yes, fiction writing.....all the above has made me rather later than I want to be getting on with the sequel. So, it's time to leave you now because, you see, while I'm getting more computer-savvy I'm not totally au fait with it. I wrote all this an hour ago, then I tried to add a picture of me at the booksigning with Matthew Clarke (proprieter with his wife, Sarah, of the above bookshop) but in the doing of it something fried and I lost the lot.
So....a photo may or may not appear somewhere, sometime.....