10.29 Dispatches: Slipped!
I send out a newsletter every month with information about what I’m up to. It’s fun and short and I’d like to try and interest more people to join. For the next few months, I’m going to post what I wrote in the newsletter the week after it’s sent out. You can have a look and see if this is something you might want to appear in your inbox every month. Scroll to the bottom to sign up.
This is going to be all about Dreams of Being a Kiwi. Look, I know that the book came out last year and too much time has passed and there are only 24 hours in a news cycle and no one has any attention spans and I can’t remember what happened last week. A friend of mine actually made it all the way through the book and said, “Hey, I like it even better than your first one. I really enjoyed it.” I was like: “Oh, you were one of the five that actually bought it and got to the end.”
The thing is, I’m really quite proud of the book, and I must admit that I barely got to the finish line on getting it out. When I did pass that finish line, I had nothing left. No energy to actually do all the work to make people aware of its existence. In short, I failed the book. I didn’t keep up my end of the bargain. The book did its part, it came into being, and I fostered it into a physical form.
Sure, I did a book launch with support from the amazing Arlene Paculan, and I was happy with it. I was pretty spent after that performance and let happen whatever was going to happen. And basically, nothing happened. And it’s entirely my fault.
Those few months of finishing up the book - the editing, design, distribution, etc. - were done during a very difficult and shaken up time in my life. I really needed something to occupy my mind to keep it from spiraling. I had the manuscript sitting there all ready to go, so I turned my brain to getting it into shape. I taught myself how to layout the design of a print book and ebook, the occupying my mind part was working. The book essentially got me through - the ability to focus on something, an ease of the mind that shifted things slightly forward. I think it’s a damn good book, the story is honest and weird and in a roundabout way, touching.
But, by the time I could hold a copy of the book in my hands, I was emotionally and physically exhausted. I slipped through a crevasse in my mind, and in turn, the book was taken with me. At the same time, it hasn’t gone anywhere, just been waiting for me to get off my ass. So, may I present to you (once again) once again my second book: Dreams of Being a Kiwi.
There is lots of fun stuff below. Check out a movie trailer for the Hollywood adaptation of the book. I make an appearance wearing a spandex suit as LifeMan. Can’t go wrong with that. There is a video of the book launch, so you can see what shenanigans we got up to. There’s even an entire season of Storytime Podcasts that are excerpts from the book. Sort of like an audiobook, but in podcast form. Finally, there are photographs and all kinds of information on where to buy the book and everything you could ever want to know about everything.
Even when you slip, eventually you gotta get up.
You’re all the best.
Paul
