Whenever I think about being an author I feel like a giant fraud. Like any minute now someone is going to come tap me on the shoulder ask for my credentials and force me to admit I’m just pretending.
The packages that I arrived home to this afternoon however are forcing me to accept that this might not actually be the truth.
Two boxes with ‘Which Way is Starboard’ printed on the side and ‘author – Anna Kirtlan’ on the address label have made everything seem very, very real.
They’re he-re!It says so on the box!
I have a partly written blog on the sailing trip which I will put up, but just quickly in the meantime – here are the details of the book launch(es):
Firstly there’s a ‘lunchtime event’ at Unity Books. The word ‘event’ makes me a bit nervous. I hope they don’t expect me to sing and dance! What I will do is blah a bit, read a bit and sign stuff. If that sounds like your sort of thing, I would love to see you there!
For those of you who can’t make that, or would prefer something where there is booze, I am also having a shindig upstairs at the Evans Bay Yacht Club
There is also a trip down South planned with a launch at Oamaru’s Adventure Books during Anzac weekend – details and confirmed date to come in another blog.
So, it’s all on folks! I’m quietly terrified but very excited, will keep you posted.
One of the things I have learned from sailing is that you can’t do it to a deadline.
Yet every time we try to get ready for a trip, I find myself getting pissed off at that very fact.
Back when I was blissfully ignorant of the ways of sailing, I assumed that if you had a boat, and you wanted to take it somewhere all you needed to was untie it and go.
I am afraid I am here to report that it’s just not that damned simple.
Paddy and I have both taken this month off to take Wildflower for a trip across Tasman Bay to Nelson.
Preparation for this started last month, on Valentines Day to precise, when I spent an incredible romantic weekend cleaning the boat’s bum.
This necessitated hauling her out of the water and putting her up on blocks.
Strops ready to haul the old girl up
Heeave!
Up on blocks
Wildflower’s bumMaking sure we’re secureI was quite taken with the colour of the mallet used to hammer in the cradle legs!Securing the ‘stairs’
Once properly secured I got to spend the day with my beloved covered in barnacles and stale seaweed. Being smaller and bendier than Paddy I get all the fun jobs like lying under the boat scraping goop off its rear and painting antifoul on the bottom.
As usual I ended up getting more paint on myself than the boat. I also learned a valuable lesson. If you accidentally drop one of your headphones in a puddle of antifoul without realising then get back on with listening to your music you end up looking like you are bleeding from the ear. This necessitates a good scrubbing with solvent and gets you funny looks in the supermarket.
Bum scraping prepNothing says ‘romantic valentines day’ like scraping slime off a propellerThe ‘after’ shot
One of the main reasons for this trip is practice for the next Big One (Fiji next year). We have a lot of new systems on the boat designed to make life on Wildflower easier, safer, cheaper and potentially a little bit faster and the plan is to test them out.
This has meant the week from hell hanging, wiring, hauling and installing all the things we haven’t had the chance to while we’ve both been working full-time.
To make things a bit cheaper – Paddy is installing a couple of alternative power sources. Solar panels and wind generators (yes, plural. Paddy’s logic is if some is good more must be better. This is the logic that has also led to my aching arms after helping winch up our massive new sails). Wiring up the wind generators has been a massive, fiddly and time consuming job for Paddy, but hopefully it will be worth it. Our last wind generator blew itself to bits in Tonga so a test run is definitely in order!
Hooking up the wind generators
The next step is hauling all the stuff we don’t need off the boat and putting on the things we we do (dinghy, life raft supplies etc) which can be a bit of a frustrating process.I am definitely looking forward to not tripping over drills and toolboxes every time I need to go to the loo.
There’s a boat under all this somewhere!
And then there is the weather. One of the most important things when you want to go sailing is for the wind to blow from the right direction – in this case we are after a nice gentle Southerly. So of course, pretty much as soon as we took leave from work the weather turned 50 shades of crap. That was fine while we had lots of prep work to do, but lately (if you believe the weather forecasters) we are being faced with either too much wind or none at all. Case in point today we were supposed to be hit with a 30 knot Southerly. I didn’t see it, did you?
I could start getting despondent but what would be the point? We will get away eventually and in the meantime we will be able to get a bit of practice with the new toys out on the harbour. One of those new toys is a much longer boom. Added to give us extra sail area in the hope that we will move a bit faster in lighter conditions. Wildflower is great in Wellington conditions because she is solid and stable and build for strong winds. Give her anything less than 15 knots however and she just sits there going ‘nope, not gonna move.’ We munched through a lot of diesel in the islands.
The new boom scares me. There’s more of it to knock you on the head with and it’s too damned high. The old boom used to knock on the roof of the pilot house occasionally, so Paddy, in his wisdom, decided to raise the new one a couple of inches. This wouldn’t be a problem for most people, but I’m a sea ‘Munchkin’ dammit. I didn’t even make it to five foot (and have now accepted that 34 is too late for a growth spurt). Paddy’s ‘couple of extra inches’ mean I need a kiddie stool to help pull the sail down. In short (see what I did there?) I’m going to need the practice!
Was quite taken with the striking contrast in water colour here. The grungy, churned up water is the shallow stuff and the dark blue the deeper.
The main frustration I am finding with all of this is actually me. It’s been a while and the terminology has completely gone. I’m finding myself still at the level where ‘genoa halyard’ and ‘main sheet’ are just ‘that red rope’ or ‘the blue and white one’. Who am I kidding pretending I know anything about sailing?
‘But wait. Didn’t you just write a book about sailing?’, you might ask.
Well, yes and no. It’s more of a book about not knowing how to sail and making it up as I go along. I’m still making it up.
At the same time though, there is stuff that’s coming back. Silly things like the fierce surge of pride you get when you tie off a rope (sheet, whatever..) with a figure eight and a half hitch without thinking about it. That you can still tie a bowline or a stopper not without really trying (though my clove hitches still needed a bit of practice!)
I have also been practicing throwing a rope down my hallway and lassooing the exercycle – to avoid some of the embarrassment caused by my crap throwing skills in the past.
Those of you who actually sail will be rolling your eyes, but you honestly don’t realise quite how bumbly I am . Those of you who do know how bumbly I am are probably quietly terrified right now. In fact, just this morning a friend of mine said ‘If there was a high school award for Least Likely to Become a Sailor, I think you would have won it.’
Hopefully we will be on our way soon and in the least bumbly way possible.
And when we get back it will be straight into book stuff. Which Way is Starboard Again? The book hits the stores on April 1. There will be a launch/signing at Unity Books at midday April 15 and a party/signing at the Evans Bay Yacht Club on the evening of the 17th (details to be confirmed)
I think I’m more nervous about that than the upcoming sail!
Either way -wish me luck!
My first review – thanks Boating NZ! (Not sure about the whole ‘set off with her man’ bit, but Paddy’s pleased to be introduced as ‘an experienced sailor’!
For those of you who haven’t been following my excited Twitter and Facebook squawking – the author’s copy of Which Way is Starboard Again? has finally arrived.
In the flesh
It’s gorgeous! It has chapters and pictures and pages and an ISBN number and, and, it’s an actual book! I can’t stop staring at it and I am carting about in my handbag everywhere I go like some kind of tragic proud book mummy.
InnardsSpine
It’s publication date isn’t actually until April 1 (April Fools!) so this copy is just a part of a small run to go out to journalists and the like.
The April Fools publication date is actually kind of apt (though I can assure it won’t turn into a whoopee cushion if you buy it!)
You see it still feels like a bit of a trick. I’m holding this thing in my hands, flicking through the pages and I still can’t quite believe it’s there.
When my publisher sent me the author’s copy she said “So do you feel like a real author now?” and the honest answer is actually, “no, I don’t”.
I feel like a fake author. Like somehow this whole process of getting a book deal and getting published was actually some kind of fluke and that any day now people will realise I Don’t Actually Know What I’m Doing.
Deep down I know that’s a load of rubbish but I still feel like an utter fraud. Like someone playing pretend at being a writer.
Despite the fact I’m loud and bolshy and not exactly shy, I’m really nervous about promoting this thing. Most probably wouldn’t believe it, but I am much better at writing about myself than talking about myself. Essentially this is a book about me and my experiences, but I would much rather someone else do the talking.
I’m used to being the person behind the notepad and camera or the person advising others how to work with those people. Now I have a publicist writing press releases for me.
I struggled with that for a bit since I do that for a living and I did have to nix the line “an inspirational tale of love, travel and overcoming the odds” (after Paddy and I spent a good while laughing). But at the end of the day I figure I’m never going to like something someone else writes about me so I might as well just go with it.
To help get over my self promotion fears I have also employed an unofficial ‘spokesMuppet’ (though I haven’t quite told the publicist about him yet…)
Paddy got me the best Christmas present ever last year (with a little bit of suggestion from myself) – a Muppet Whatnot (basically a design-your-own Muppet) a proper Jim Henson number.
Gus Transom Muppet (Gus as a nod to my asparaGus farming roots and Transom being the arse end of a boat, as well as sounding kind of fancy) is a devilishly handsome orange tropical Muppet. He has a stylish Hawaiian shirt, fabulous fuchsia hair and makes everyone around him smile.
Gus Transom Muppet
On the road
I love the fact that even people who profess to hate puppets will answer him rather than me when he speaks, looking straight into his big googly eyes. With that kind of people power I figure he’d be a great spokesMuppet for the book so I have helped him set up his own Twitter account.
@GusTheMuppet
So if you are on Twitter then feel free to follow @GusTheMuppet (or if Muppets aren’t your thing you can follow me on @SeaMunchkin). I have also set up a bit of a Facebook promo page for those on there https://www.facebook.com/whichwayisstarboardagain?
He stole it from my handbagMup reviewer
So from Gus and Me and our brand new book – happy 2015, we’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a good one!
I know they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover – but look at this cover!!!!
It took an awful lot of to-ing and fro-ing but we are finally there. The cartoon on the front was drawn by the very talented Joshua Drummond – famed for his Horrible Picture of Michael Laws and Relaxed Painting of John Key (a version of which features on the cover of the hilarious Steve Braunias’ book Madmen – pretty illustrious company I reckon!)
I must admit I am quite relieved to have gotten off more lightly than either politician in terms of artistic representation – though I now have until the book’s launch in April next year to get a waistline that matches my cartoon (or buy a corset!) .
Paddy took one look at the cover and felt the need to inform me that the Starboard marker was on the wrong side and my cartoon thighs were rather large. I, somewhat huffily, informed him that yes, that was the whole point (with me having no sense of direction) and that it was obvious I was wearing pirate trousers.
The lovely blue wash colour scheme and funky font were courtesy of Shelley Watson from Sublime Design and the inside of the book looks just as lovely.
There was a tiny point in time where the cartoon’s future was in doubt though, which was the reason behind the to-ing and fro-ing. While the publishers were pre-selling the book into stores one of the potential buyers opined that it might sell better if there was a photograph of me on the front instead (why on earth anyone would want that is beyond me!). In the end a compromise was reached where I would be allowed to keep my lovely cartoon in exchange for a more ’emotive’ tagline after the title than ‘Sailing the South Pacific’ and two photos of me on the back
The book talks a bit about mental illness and the, what could be seen by some as, bizarro decision to go sailing with anxiety disorder, so I figured by ’emotive’ they meant ‘ham up the crazy’. I’m actually okay with that, provided it isn’t too tacky, because the more we get these things out there as something that can happen to anyone and something that can be conquered the better.
So the skipper and I gleefully started throwing ideas about, including such gems from Paddy as ‘Sailing, it’s harder when you’re nuts’, ‘Losing the plot on a yacht’ and ‘Pirates, panic and Prozac’ (okay the only pirates were in fancy dress, but what’s wrong with a bit of creative license?) For some reason none of our suggestions made the grade, but the suggestions from the publishers weren’t cutting it either. It’s a fine line between fun self-deprecation and sounding tacky and twee and too many of them made me sound like some ninny having a cry on a boat, which is not the image I want to portray of people living with anxiety disorders. So in the end we settled for something more prosaic – Which Way is Starboard Again? Facing fears and overcoming challenges – Sailing the South Pacific. Not exactly sexy, but a reasonable compromise I reckon.
I’ve found it quite funny that, with all the editing and different eyes on the manuscript, the only real compromises were the cover (you can probably tell the blurb on the back wasn’t written by me!). The editing process was a fascinating one, picking up things I would never have thought of – but that’s the subject of another blog because I am too distracted by the pretty cover right now!
So the upshot is, the book has gone to print and there’s no going back now. I have been instructed by my editor not to look at it anymore until it is a physical book because every time I do I decide that it’s twee, pretentious crap and I really don’t like it. Apparently this is quite normal and happens to most authors.
I’ll be promoting it next year and it will be in bookstores in April/May as well as available as an e-book. As soon as there is a way to buy or pre-order it I will let you all know.
Thanks so much to Josh, Shelley, Caroline and the rest of the team at Bateman for making my baby look so beautiful and thanks so much to all of you for coming on this journey with me so far – I guess we’ll all see what comes out of it soon – fingers crossed!
Ladies and gentlemen I present to you a rare and elusive book update…. (Best said in a dramatic whisper – extra points if you can do a David Attenborough impression).
My house looks like a bomb has hit it, I’ve been living off microwave meals and my garden is full of weeds, but Which Way is Starboard Again? the book is several steps closer to existence.
After deathly silence for what felt like forever the edited version of my manuscript suddenly turned up in my inbox. To my surprise it hadn’t been cut to pieces, instead the editors wanted extra information…. in approximately 10 days.
Cue late nights, messy house and mountains of paper with scribbles on them.
Ollie did his best to help, acting as a paperweight and laptop warmer though.
Assistant editor
I’m really pleased with what they’ve done with it. They’ve tightened it up so it flows much better and picked up on a few things I wouldn’t have thought of. The whole process has been really quite fascinating.
It’s been a bit of a process for me too. The re-read brought out all sorts of neuroses. I utterly convinced myself that the book was shallow, full of clichés, wasn’t that funny and just tried too hard. Then I got worried about the content. We only dipped our toes in the various cultures and various places before we moved on to the next, what if it was too once-over-lightly? What if I got the wrong end of the stick. I admired the people we met in the islands so very much the last thing I wanted to do was write something that might upset them. There were several times when I was sorely tempted to screw the whole thing up and bury it in the garden.
The other thing I’m a bit nervous about is that some of the extra material they were after was about living with mental illness. I agonised about whether to mention it in the book at all but then realised that sailing offshore with an anxiety disorder is actually something to be pretty proud of and that letting other people living with same condition know stuff like that is possible is actually pretty important.
It’s a hard balance when you are trying to write a sailing yarn that makes people laugh – I hope I’ve managed it alright.
So poor old Paddy has had to put up with me second-guessing myself – What if it’s self-indulgent? What if people hate it? He’s been a trooper though and a real help. I know I’d be much more of a mess without him.
Long suffering technical advisor
The publishers have been great, answering all my silly questions straight away and letting me know what’s going to happen next. I have even seen a mock-up of the cover and, while its far too early to share, I can assure you it’s going to be AWESOME!
Now the only thing I have left to do is write the acknowledgements, then the eds add my changes and it goes to a type-setter. If all goes well I may even be seeing a physical copy sometime in December. The plan is to have everything printed by February and in the shops in March or April.
Ladies and gentlemen I present to you a rare and elusive book update…. (Best said in a dramatic whisper – extra points if you can do a David Attenborough impression).
My house looks like a bomb has hit it, I’ve been living off microwave meals and my garden is full of weeds, but Which Way is Starboard Again? the book is several steps closer to existence.
After deathly silence for what felt like forever the edited version of my manuscript suddenly turned up in my inbox. To my surprise it hadn’t been cut to pieces, instead the editors wanted extra information…. in approximately 10 days.
Cue late nights, messy house and mountains of paper with scribbles on them.
Ollie did his best to help, acting as a paperweight and laptop warmer though.
Assistant editor
I’m really pleased with what they’ve done with it. They’ve tightened it up so it flows much better and picked up on a few things I wouldn’t have thought of. The whole process has been really quite fascinating.
It’s been a bit of a process for me too. The re-read brought out all sorts of neuroses. I utterly convinced myself that the book was shallow, full of clichés, wasn’t that funny and just tried too hard. Then I got worried about the content. We only dipped our toes in the various cultures and various places before we moved on to the next, what if it was too once-over-lightly? What if I got the wrong end of the stick. I admired the people we met in the islands so very much the last thing I wanted to do was write something that might upset them. There were several times when I was sorely tempted to screw the whole thing up and bury it in the garden.
The other thing I’m a bit nervous about is that some of the extra material they were after was about living with mental illness. I agonised about whether to mention it in the book at all but then realised that sailing offshore with an anxiety disorder is actually something to be pretty proud of and that letting other people living with same condition know stuff like that is possible is actually pretty important.
It’s a hard balance when you are trying to write a sailing yarn that makes people laugh – I hope I’ve managed it alright.
So poor old Paddy has had to put up with me second-guessing myself – What if it’s self-indulgent? What if people hate it? He’s been a trooper though and a real help. I know I’d be much more of a mess without him.
Long suffering technical advisor
The publishers have been great, answering all my silly questions straight away and letting me know what’s going to happen next. I have even seen a mock-up of the cover and, while its far too early to share, I can assure you it’s going to be AWESOME!
Now the only thing I have left to do is write the acknowledgements, then the eds add my changes and it goes to a type-setter. If all goes well I may even be seeing a physical copy sometime in December. The plan is to have everything printed by February and in the shops in March or April.
which I think is just perfect for her and Paddy, but it is another Petty song
that’s haunting me right now.
The first question I get from people I haven’t seen for a while is ‘so when is the book coming out?’
If I had my way the answer would be tomorrow.
Unfortunately, the answer is still – next year.
Getting a book published involves large amounts of agonising waiting. There’s the wait after you pop your baby in the post and send it to various publishers. Did they get it? (that is normally answered by the first rejection letter) Did they read it? (also answered by the rejection letters) Do they think it’s a stupid idea? – I was lucky in this respect. A lot of people warned me not to expect to hear anything back from the publishers, not even a rejection. But those I did send material to all got back to me in some form or another and gave me reasons and helpful advice (none of which, thankfully, was ‘it’s a stupid idea’).
If you are fortunate enough to find someone willing to take a punt on you (thank you David Bateman Publishing!) then there is even more waiting in store.
It’s a hard wait too, because you have adrenalin coursing through you. You’ve run hysterically around the office, squealing and waving your arms in the air like Kermit the frog. You’ve told all your family and friends. Your dream has come true, you are going to be an author – and you want it to happen now, now, now!!!
However – while your book may be the center of your universe, at this stage it is only on the periphery of your publisher’s. As one of my publishers politely told me on our first meeting “I have about seven books in different stages of development on the go at the moment. The one closest to being published is the one I love the most. When yours gets to that stage, you’ll be hearing from me every day”.
While that gave me a bit of a reality check and stopped me freaking out over long periods of silence, it didn’t make the waiting any easier.
The first really nerve-wracking wait was the wait to iron out the contract – as far as my paranoid brain was concerned until my signature and the publisher’s signature were on that piece of paper there was every chance they could change their minds.
It’s real!
After everything was signed and sealed it wasn’t so bad. There were still things I could do – arrange photographs, send them in. Then it was back to waiting.
Patience is a virtue I struggle to posses however – so about a month ago I dropped the publishers an email (trying not to sound too needy) just to get an idea of where everything was at.
They were kind and humoured me – giving me late June – early July as my next milestone. That’s when editing will start in earnest. They’ll go through the book decide if they want any changes made and whether they want me to add anything. I’m a little bit nervous about that, but also intrigued as to how the whole process works. Then we start thinking about things like the cover and hopefully by Novemberish there should be an actual, physical book to hold.
It takes about nine months to get a book out into the wild (not counting the time it takes to write it) – and then you have to think about the best time to release it.
This bit I found kind of fascinating because it’s something I’d never really thought of. Christmas is the time that jumps immediately to mind, but for a newcomer into the market it’s not actually that practical. Yes there are more people out there buying books, but there are also more books out there. At Christmas time you are competing with cook books and All Black biographies – even a relatively well-known writer risks getting buried.
Other than that – the next biggest book-selling days are Mothers Day and Fathers Day. Not exactly days I would have thought of, but it kind of makes sense. You don’t really buy books for Easter or New Year, everyone’s birthdays are on different days and books are often the perfect gift for Mum or Dad.
So we are aiming for Mothers Day next year – which means this time next year you could be holding a copy of Which Way is Starboard Again? (or whatever the book ends up being called) in your hot little hands. The aim is to have the book in shops by March and get promoting after that – so I apologise if I am insufferable for few months round about then.
But for now, it’s back to waiting. I’m not complaining – this has already been an amazing ride. I still can’t believe it is actually happening – but I do wish it would happen a little faster!
February began with Paddy using Jif to clean anti-foul out of my ear and ended with me cutting paint from his hair. March started with a giant crane and finished with paint stains on my favourite jeans.
Lord only knows what April will bring…
SplatteredSailing is glamorous
Wildflower has been out of the water for the past couple of months, but it’s been a little more than her usual yearly paint and scrape. This time it has involved shortening her by around 45 feet and cutting a great big hole in the deck/living room roof.
Several years of wear and tear had meant the poor girl’s mast was not as well-supported as it needed to be. The mast step (a big chunk of metal at the bottom of the mast) needed reinforcing to stop it from flexing and it was time for new spreaders as they were beginning to corrode.
(For non-nautical folk: The mast is held up with stainless steel wires – but for these to work properly they have to be held away – the aluminum struts that do this are called spreaders and apparently they are kind of important.)
Paddy’s definition of the work that needed to be done was a little simpler – he told me that over a long period of time money had been leaking out of the boat, which meant she needed to be taken out of the water to have more money poured in.
The spreaders, while allegedly small pieces of aluminium, were actually made out of concentrated cash – and liquid money also needed to be painted on the boat, sanded off and reapplied, he said.
(Note: Sanding liquid money off is not only expensive but really hard work!)
Poor Wildflower looked a little stunted compared to the other boats and as a fellow shorty I felt her pain. Unlike her though, even with the aid of an industrial strength crane, I’m not going to get any taller.
Up on blocks (the mast in the background belongs to the boat beside Wildflower)Wildflower’s mast
Working on Wildflower has meant spending more time at Evan’s Bay yacht club and it has been great catching up with familiar faces and meeting new folk as they come through. The stories at the club bar have been highly entertaining too – with one of my favourites being about a seagull invasion.
A chap we met told us about a pair of gulls that had decided the bow of his boat looked like a pretty good place to make a nest. For two days in a row he managed to shoo them off, but he had to leave for a few days. On returning he discovered a two-story bird condo complete with several large eggs and two determined birds attacking him every time he got too close. In the end he decided it would be in everyone’s best interests to allow them to stay and eventually got kind of attached to the squatters – watching as the parents exercised their hatchlings by chasing them up and down the decks. Often he would be watching telly only to be interrupted by big goofy babies pecking at the boat’s windows (though they did learn the folly of that after interrupting his favourite shows one too many times.)
Paddy didn’t have any seagull squatters but he did have a dirty great hole in his roof where the mast used to be – so for the past couple of months he has been living with me.
We did the math and worked out this is actually the longest time we’ve lived together on land in the past five years. We were both a little apprehensive at first but – aside from my cat developing a rather unhealthy attachment to him – it has worked out remarkably well.
Home sweet homeChecking out the hole in the roofStruggling with life on the land
Paddy was fortunate enough to have a partner in crime when it came to chopping holes in his baby. His good friend Gregor the welder, who had helped put together most of Wildflower’s metal work ( including the pilot house I had so many reasons to be grateful for during our trip), was back on the case – cutting holes and helping put bracing underneath the deck and a thicker piece of metal at the bottom of the mast.
A few days (and a few beers) later Wildflower was super safe and solid and I had even more reason to be grateful to Greg.
The boys hard at work
One of the great and glamorous jobs I always get is scraping the gunk from Wildflower’s bottom. Being smaller and slightly bendier than Paddy means I can get into spaces that he can’t, which means I get the fabulous job of lying on my back scraping fishy smelling weed from the bottom of the boat. I also get to paint anti-foul on the places Paddy can’t reach (to stop more fishy smelling stuff growing on Wildflower’s bum) which is how I ended up with an earful of the stuff.
I must admit it can be somewhat unnerving lying under 18 tonnes of ship. I know it’s ridiculous and that Wildflower is safe and secure – but that doesn’t stop Anxiety Girl from thinking, what if there’s an earthquake? Would I be able to get out in time? It was a regular internal battle at first, but one I was able to win, and after the first week of boat work I didn’t even notice anymore.
I have also been spending a fair bit of time polishing rust spots out of Wildflower’s paintwork – and I’m actually pretty impressed there is polish strong enough to remove rust from steel. It’s a repetitive job, but the view from the top of the boat is pretty good – and blasting David Bowie on my i-Pod makes the time fly.
People ask why I do it when I could be spending my weekends in a much less goop-encrusted fashion, but the way I figure – I want Wildflower to look after me so it’s only fair that I help look after her. I feel much more confident about going to sea in a boat I know is safe, solid and free of rust.
Wildflower’s dangly bitsRustyRust removal with a view
On pulling her out of the water we also discovered that Wildflower’s propeller had a terrible case of acne. I was in the middle of sanding sea-goop from the blades when I noticed there were more craters than usual. On closer inspection it turned out the prop had a severe case of electrolysis (really bad corrosion that happens under water).
I’d heard the dreaded E word muttered a lot in connection with steel boats but had never seen it with my own eyes. It’s usually caused when two different types disagree with each other underwater – but in this case there was no real explanation for it – other than money had leaked out.
We sent it back to the manufacturer – who also had no explanation for it – applied a liberal coat of liquid dosh, and it now has a perfect complexion again.
Prop acneMore prop zitsShiny and new
The sit rep at the moment is that most of the painting, scraping and polishing has been done, the spreaders and mast step are shiny and new and – thanks to the intervention of a giant crane – Wildflower has her height back. All going well we should be back in the water – and to relative normality – in the next week or so.
Wildflower’s mast rises again
PS – for those of you wondering what is happening with the book – it’s still really going ahead. Both the publisher and I have signed the contract and the next step is to work with them editing the copy. It’s still a long wait I’m afraid – with a publication date of March next year – though I should have an actual book to start promoting by the end of this year. It still doesn’t seem real yet but I’m sure it will eventually! – I shall keep you all posted with progress.
To use a Paddyism, I am the queen of Catastrophising. Give me any situation and I will find the worst, most ridiculous outcome and start worrying about it. If a building creaks in the wind it is going to fall down, if I’m driving down the road I’m going to flatten a pedestrian. When we were sailing every splash I heard was Paddy falling overboard, every groan was the boat sinking and every light on the horizon was a freighter coming straight for us.
Anxiety Girl – able to leap to the worst possible conclusion in a single bound! (from the Anxiety Girl facebook group
So you can imagine the kind of ridiculousness that was going through my head when I sent my full manuscript to the publisher, got a “thanks” back, then heard nothing for a couple of weeks.
The logical part of me was saying – “pull yourself together, they must be extremely busy at this time of year and you are not the only writer they have on their books”.
Anxiety Girl on the other hand was screaming at the top of her lungs “They’ve changed their minds, they hate it, you’ve gotten your hopes up, told all your friends and family and now it’s not going to happen. Who were you to think you could be a proper writer anyway?”
It didn’t matter that several emails before I sent the whole manuscript through the publisher had teed up a time and date to meet me and talk about things, as far as I was concerned the silence was deafening.
It was like being a teenager in your first relationship. While back then it was notes passed in class and phone-dates and now it’s emails and text messages, the premise is still the same.
Why haven’t I heard from them? Was it something I said/wrote? Is there somebody else? What if they don’t love me anymore?
I was constantly checking my emails and texts, wondering if I should email or whether that would seem too needy – in short, I was pathetic.
There was a little bit of reason behind my paranoia though – publishing in New Zealand is hard. I was constantly reading articles about authors getting dropped for not being enough of a commercial prospect. Getting a foot in the door is no small thing and I wasn’t really certain how far my size six orange sandal was wedged in there.
I wasn’t until I was so close I could smell it that I realised how much I wanted this book to actually happen.
Even though I hadn’t heard anything and was still convinced it was going to fall through, I had worked out a professional-type wardrobe to wear to the meeting, which was set to happen tomorrow.
Today at lunch time I decided to distract myself by getting wrapping paper and the remaining Christmas cards I needed. After dealing with the queues in Whitcoulls I decided to go to a nearby food court for a comfort curry (the diet starts after Christmas okay?!) and when I finished I did my usual obsessive phone-check. There was a text sitting on there “Hi Anna, I’m downstairs now”.
Holy crap! I’d gotten the date wrong! (it turns out we’d had a bit of an email miss-communication). I shot back a reply and ran like a crazy person, arriving disheveled and juggling wrapping paper. So much for my organised, professional first impression! We were meant to have lunch but I was full of illicit curry and couldn’t face anything else, so I fessed up. Luckily she had a sense of humor – she ate, I drank coffee and tried to regain my composure.
The long and the short of it is, she was lovely and I still have a book deal. The draft contract should arrive by the end of the week.
I also learned that I’m not alone in my neurosis. Apparently another author had recently commented that they hadn’t heard anything for a while. It was explained diplomatically to me like this “I usually have several books at different stages of development on the go, the one that is closest to being printed is the one I love the most. When you get to that stage, you will hear from me every day.”
I’m cool with that. And I’m also pleased to know I’m not the only worrywart out there.
I also learned that getting a book published is a long, slow process and that I will need to get used to long periods of silence. Apparently it takes about nine months from go to whoa (so it really is like my baby) and then they need to work out what time of the year to release it for maximum sales. I would automatically think Christmas, but of course that’s what everyone else thinks and the market gets swamped, so we are potentially looking at September next year or March 2015.
I also need to make sure it is a time that I am available because I am going to have to do TV, radio and newspaper interviews. Something I’d never really thought of and am quite terrified about. I’m the person who helps other people work with the media – I don’t get in front of the camera! I’m certain I’ll freak out and forget all my own advice!
So that’s where we are at the moment. The family, friends, workmates and complete strangers who have had to put up with me wittering on about whether or not the publishers have changed their minds can breathe a sigh of relief.
It’s really, truly, actually going to happen and Anxiety Girl can just pipe down!
Apologies in advance for what I suspect will devolve into an excited squeal of a blog.
It’s just that I kind of GOT A BOOK DEAL!!!
It’s official, Which Way is Starboard Again? the book is actually going to happen.
I have been grinning like an idiot since I got the call on Friday and still can’t quite believe it.
The wonderful people at David Bateman Publishing will be working with me on the book as part of their travel series. They describe it as ‘travel tales with a twist’ – so I guess that means I’m twisted enough to make the grade!
If you have a snoop around their website you will see that Bateman is a real grown-up publisher that puts out some really cool stuff http://www.batemanpublishing.co.nz/ – which I guess will make me a real grown-up author – quite frankly I am still pinching myself!
After reading countless articles on the demise of publishing in New Zealand and having my hopes of leveraging off the America’s Cup dashed I had pretty much resigned myself to self-publishing. I was determined to get the book out there one way or another and self-publishing certainly doesn’t have the stigma it once did, but having a professional publisher pick it up is amazingly validating.
It means someone is prepared to take a punt on people wanting to read about me bumbling my way around the South Pacific, and I appreciate that more than words can say!
Since my only experience in publishing has been with newspapers and magazines this will be a whole new adventure for me – one that I plan to drag you all on too.
Writing a book has pretty much all I have ever wanted to do since I first picked up a pen and started chewing on it, so this really is the most amazing feeling in the world!
Paddy of course will be my technical advisor to help turn descriptions like “and then he pulled on that rope over there” into something a little more nautically accurate and we both really look forward to sharing our stories with you – even the embarrassing ones!
I will keep you all up to date on how things progress and promise to spam you horribly as soon as I have something to spam you with.
