Sandstone Press

Around the country in five dates

Posted by Simon Varwell on 27th March 2010

The whole idea of being “on tour” is an alien one to me, but that’s effectively what I’ve just experienced.  The week before last was my Glasgow book reading, the last in a five date, four city, dash around Scotland to promote “Up The Creek Without A Mullet”.

Perhaps for you the idea of a tour conjures up images of groupies, sordid drug-fuelled after-show parties, and a crew of hundreds.  Mine, inevitably, was a far cry from the mega-experience you might expect U2 or Coldplay to lay on; consisting as it did of a few dates from eager (and sometimes press-ganged) bookshops timed to fit in with work trips.  In fact, if it wasn’t for my peripatetic day job, there wouldn’t even have been a tour. 

The tour also differed from the rock star stereotype in (among a million and one aspects) the spread over time - the first date was the launch in Inverness, and it was a couple of weeks later that the second date saw me meet the Highland Literary Salon, while subsequent readings in Edinburgh, Stirling and Glasgow were spread across March.  In between, life and work went on as normal (that is, ridiculously busily), with not a single tour bus bust-up or television thrown through luxury hotel window.

My time in student politics (I retired from politics at the age of twenty-two) means that public speaking comes readily to me.  Too readily, some would wearily say.  But I still found the events nerve-wracking.  I was speaking often to friends, who less easily suspend belief; I was presenting my book, the result of years of… well, stupidity, to unknown public scrutiny; I was having to turn from writer of a book to deliverer of a performance - a mix of stand-up comedy, literary lecture and sales pitch; and above all there was the agonising moments before each event when I wondered whether anyone would actually turn up.

The Glasgow event, held in the wonderful Biblocafe on Woodlands Road, was a case in point.  I had at best two or three confirmed attendees beforehand, but in the end it was standing room only and I had a great time.  As I did at all the events, in fact.

More to the point, everyone who came along seemed to enjoy themselves too - including those I’d not personally bribed to be there.  For instance, there were lots of laughs at the funny bits.  Mind you, I did die on my feet once or twice when folk didn’t laugh when they should have, but that was a whole lot less disconcerting than the moments when they did laugh when they shouldn’t have.  But that’s the fun of doing book readings - normally you’re not there to see a reader’s reaction, but here I was getting it en masse, instantly.

All this is very past tense: hopefully there’ll be other dates.  Not least the Aberdeen date which was postponed due to stock problems at the bookshop; and I’m hoping to do other places further afield before the year is out.  Dates will of course appear on my website.

But in the meantime, I now need to relinquish the controls a little and let the book sail a while on the course I’ve intentionally or otherwise set it on.  That at least will give me some time to focus on writing the sequel.

More on which in my next blog entry.