REVELATIONS AND REVELRY

I think my brain may explode. I’ve had to retreat away from the rest of my family to write this because I cannot cope with dinner being prepared (husband), Grease being watched (eldest daughter) and Bob the Builder being ‘read’ to me (youngest daughter, who can’t read) whilst I write this, I NEED to concentrate, I’m too easily distracted today. Plus my house is a mess and I don’t want to look at it any more. I’m hoping by the time I go back out there my husband will have cleared up, sorted the washing out, tidied, vacuumed, done my ironing, bathed the girls, checked their uniform is available for tomorrow and made dinner. Ha bloody ha.

There’s just three more sleeps to go until my launch party and I am so fiendishly excited that it’s perfectly possible I won’t sleep a wink between now and then. And if I didn’t then I stand a chance of completing all the things that I need to before Launch Party Day. Unbelievably, I still lack a complete list of everyone who is coming. This is only important so that I know numbers. And this is only important so that there’s enough wine available. I also need a two hour long playlist full of suitable background music. This will be frustrating because I don’t really do background music, if I’m playing music it’s so that I can listen to it. I’m currently thinking that I might be playing a lot of the Lucinda Belle Orchestra; she is my newest favourite artist. Happily though, my outfit is sorted. I have fears that my dress is too short, but if it is then it’s just going to have to be. My heels are acceptably high without being vertiginous and that’s really all there is to it. My youngest daughter has decided upon a pink dress and cardboard crown for the party, and my eldest daughter has declared that she will wear jeans. I have declared that she will not. I’m so looking forward to seeing everyone there! As I wrote on Facebook, it does feel a lot like preparing for my wedding day in terms of logistics/preparations/guests. But I hope it isn’t like my wedding day because a) I was very drunk that day and b) I didn’t get to talk to everyone who came, which is my aim for Wednesday.

I’ve changed my name on Twitter by the way. If you follow me already you’ll have seen, but for those who don’t/haven’t, I have gone from @SH_Writes to @SoVerySarah. It isn’t an ideal time to change my name but I was getting uncomfortable about broadcasting the fact that I’m a writer. There’s a lot of negativity on Twitter towards people who ruthlessly self-promote and I was worried that I would fall into that category simply by virtue of advertising the fact that I write. I don’t want people to think I’m tweeting at them just because they are fellow authors or agents or publishers. If I do ‘talk’ to someone it’s because I find them interesting or funny. There’s a girl on there for example, @emilyniawatson, who nearly makes me cry with laughter sometimes. Her sense of humour is so dry. But anyway, I thought being SoVerySarah suited me better because I am SoVerySarah, and so I shall keep that name.

After I posted my blog on Friday a couple of exciting things happened. The first was that my book got a mention on one of our local but big-ish radio stations, Wave 105, courtesy of the very lovely Simon Clark. Unfortunately he managed to time his mention as I was out doing a school run so I missed it. Bad Sarah. Then later that evening as I was approx. one bottle of champagne down he messaged me to say that I was also in the Hampshire Chronicle Arts Supplement, which again, I had managed to miss. Bad Sarah. Luckily Simon said he would keep a copy for me – goodness only knows what he thinks of me and my appalling disorganisation…..I’ll find out on Wednesday because he’s coming to the launch party.

Speaking of Launch Party Day, I have inadvertently made the day a whole lot more stressful for myself by agreeing to give a talk in assembly at the girls’ school on genetic abnormalities, ahead of Jeans for Genes Day. It is something that I’ve done before and something that I think is very important in terms of making genetic abnormalities less of a remote concept for children and helping them understand why it’s so important to raise money on Jeans for Genes Day. However – I think I may have been a bit hasty in agreeing to do it on the morning of my book launch when I will be bouncing off the walls with excitement and nerves and general anticipation. Mind you, I suppose if I’m going to bounce off walls an assembly hall is possibly the best place to do it. So do think of me at 8:30am on Wednesday 29^th, I will have to be dressed, focussed and thoroughly prepared to give a talk to a hall full of 8-13 year olds. Tricky. Although, thanks  – as ever –  to Steph (who I must mention on at least a weekly basis) for her assistance in finding ways to explain genes and their function to children. She’s coming to the launch party by the way, if anyone is interested in seeing exactly who it is I’m always talking about.

And last, but not least, I’m not an Independent reader, but Julia Budworth’s words about Rachel Johnson (sister of the gorgeous Boris) in today’s edition had me literally howling with laughter. HOWLING. Her line “….All she thinks of is sex. You can’t get her away from a penis….” was one of the funniest things I’ve read this year, hence the title of my blog. Brutal in her honesty, Mrs Budworth made it very clear exactly what she thinks about the editor of The Lady. And that is that she is not one. See here for the full article: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/julia-budworth-tea-with-the-lady-2089890.html Well worth a read.

My husband’s just come in by the way, looking peculiarly stressed, but he has informed me that he’s cleared up, sorted the washing out, tidied, vacuumed, done my ironing, bathed the girls, checked their uniform is available for tomorrow and made dinner. Result.

Rachel&Boris

And so…..here we are. We have arrived at The Day that I have been waiting for most of my life. The day that I finally become a published author!!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s right, Things He Never Knew is officially released today, Friday 24^th September. The countdown to publication is over.

If we tally up everything that has been building to almost this precise moment, it’s quite a lot:

–          28 years of life for a start.

–          19 ½ years of full-time education (we won’t calculate the school/Uni fees as I’m not sure that my royalties will EVER cover them. Sorry Daddy.)

–          I estimate 300+ examinations (as in the test kind, not ill-health kind), including 11 GCSEs, 3 A-Levels, an AS-Level and a Law degree. And all the years of work they entailed.

–          One ‘discussion’ with my husband about exactly why I should be allowed to stay at home and write stories, rather than get up and go out to work like most people.

–          Literally thousands of hours of creativity poured into my various stories/poems/manuscripts.

–          Even more hours spent in perfecting Things He Never Knew so that I have told the story in the best way that I can, that it will hopefully draw you into Steph and Theo’s ravaged world and that you will be both intrigued by and sympathetic to them.

–          A LOT of determination and perseverance to get where I am now.

Obviously now that the book is released, it’s available online at www.amazon.co.uk and at www.waterstones.com, as well as at all good bookshops. Well, I say ‘all’, I don’t actually get told where it’s being stocked so the best thing if you hope to buy it from a bookshop is go in and ask if they stock it, and if they don’t or they’ve sold out they will certainly be able to order it for you.

And once you have it and you’re reading it, can I ask – please don’t take against poor old Steph too much. In a sense what she did wasn’t her fault and her best excuse is that it was unintentional, although an excuse is all it is. You will all see the drama that unfolds across the pages and although Steph deserves this, it isn’t a nice thing to have to go through. As for Theo, it would be easy to sympathise wholeheartedly with him, but I would ask that you bear in mind that he hasn’t been quite as accommodating or understanding to Steph as he might have. Over the next couple of weeks or so, a complete in-depth blog about the background to Things He Never Knew will be appearing here which will reveal why what happens in the book, happens. But for those of you who read immediately, do try and keep an open mind for Steph. And whilst I’m on the subject of Steph – I’d also like to make it clear that her character is not me! I wasn’t expecting so many people to make the assumption that it is; maybe I made a mistake in casting myself in the role of Steph on the front cover. But no, she is not me, nor anyone of my acquaintance. She is entirely fictional, she exists only in my imagination and in the pages of the book where the consequences of her rash actions are played out.

I’m going to leave it here for today because I think the events of the day kind of speak for themselves and I am happy to let a brief and reverential silence descend across Revelations and Revelry for now. I am thrilled, delighted and awed to have finally become a published author….it really is a dream come true for me. Thank-you to everyone who has supported me and bought it so far, I really hope that you all enjoy reading it and witnessing Steph’s apparently perfect life coming undone at the seams. I would love to have any comments on the book, either here or on my facebook page or via email, sarah@sarahhaynes.me.uk. I’m impatient to know what everybody thinks! So if you read it and have something to say, please do let me know.

So I shall sign off for now: Sarah Haynes LLB (Hons)…………and  PUBLISHED AUTHOR 🙂

I’d like to open this particular blog post today by mentioning for the fifty-thousandth time my FIRST EVER REVIEW!!!!!!!  And how amazingly pleased I was with it; you will see the link to it on this page but if I can just give you a small extract: “….Sarah Haynes…… is definitely an author I want to read more from based on this brilliant book .” To be honest, even if I’d have written it myself I wouldn’t have made it as good as Chloe from www.chicklitreviews.com did. I was astonished when I read it. And thrilled, clearly, but I hadn’t predicted what she wrote in the slightest. It’s a very strange feeling to know that someone has read your book and was entertained by what you’ve written and sort of mind-boggling to get such a glowing review. And yes, I know, it’s only one and there are (hopefully) many more to come and they won’t all be so good but I was very anxious about my first one and consequently very relieved. I smiled for ages! Days, in fact.

But moving on to more pressing matters, I must say that – if I had drums, I’d be rolling them.

If I had a Geordie accent I’d be saying “It’s day 10,454 in the life of Sarah Haynes and there are only two days to go until the release of her debut novel”.

If I had enough breath I’d be holding it – but no. Instead I am settling for a tense feeling of nervous anticipation and excitement as I rapidly approach the publication date, which I actually can’t believe is almost here. Just think back to mid-May of this year when I sent a very casual email to the publishers enquiring when my book was actually due for release and received the startling response of “July 30^th” which was a lot sooner than I had anticipated. I wondered briefly why they hadn’t sought to mention this to me before? But no matter, my book was being published! And having an actual date made it all so much more real. Being slightly naïve I had no idea that there was potential for me to fiddle around with the release date, and for a couple of days I just accepted it and, in fairness, was quite excited. Then I thought about it a bit more and realised that I had no front cover. Or news release. Or book summary sheet. Or website. Or – well – anything really. And after some to-ing and fro-ing and gentle persuasion from friends I eventually decided that yes, it was better to push it back by two months and plan properly. My instinct was to rush headlong into it and see where the pieces fell. Luckily I had some firm hands of guidance and thus the date of 24^th September was settled upon and my preparatory Task List was born. Much like a real child I have resented it at times, but equally like a real child I couldn’t do without it. And believe me, I’ve tried (with both the task list and children).  But as I sailed forth in blissful ignorance into the feverish world of book promotion I have been very grateful for its steadying presence. And that of its offspring, because the master Task List spawned smaller lists; media targets, review targets, guests lists, potential launch event venues, costs, items that were/are needed, priorities and a sequence for which these things should be approached. I must be brutally honest here and admit that I haven’t always adhered to the Task List as I might have done….it has, at times, been overwhelming. It didn’t help that the summer holidays and therefore the continual presence of both of my young-ish children fell right into the middle of when I needed to be most productive. As some of you will know, it is very hard to write/organise/speak to people charmingly on the phone simultaneously whilst one child begs for Charlie and Lola DVDs and flapjacks and the other one wants immediate details of exactly how the human body can manage all of its many functions at once. My answer was “The brain, darling,” whilst fearing for the wellbeing of mine.

So as fast as I seemed to be accomplishing things, more were being added on to the bottom of my List – from Florida by this point as you might remember. But counting my blessings, I had (and still have) a form of website where information is available to people, I have this blog site (which I LOVE) and very luckily a few people who saunter along every so often to see what I’ve written. I mean of course those of you who I haven’t directed here imperiously from Facebook. God bless Facebook and its whip-cracking effect. I think if I ever do become a highly-successful author I shall have to credit Facebook with some of my success.

With all this under my belt the next thing I began to tackle was Twitter. And you all know I was far from enchanted at the beginning but, begrudgingly, I have to admit that it is useful, but as well as that I have made contact with some very lovely people through it. Cari Rosen being one, and Elizabeth Buchan (author of Separate Beds which I am currently reading and loving) being another. It’s still an unfamiliar sphere, but I am getting there with it. Of course something did threaten to stop me in my twittering/facebooking/skype-ing/emailing tracks and that was the demise of my old laptop. This was a disaster in the most forceful meaning of that word (in my world at least). Not only did I lose the ability to do any of the above, I couldn’t work on my new manuscript (which I must start doing at some point) or write blog posts or indeed anything at all. I swiftly came to see that I must have a new one and although this was far from financially ideal, it really could not be avoided. And I must say, it is a huge relief to have a computer than I can rely on to function and save things and not overheat and that the latest version of iTunes works nicely on.

So with the last, pitifully short four months behind me, I am now sitting here just two days away from publication, feeling slightly wondrous and amazed at everything I’ve managed to achieve in that time and I’m waiting for a sense of relief to hit me. Of course it won’t because this is far from the end; in fact it’s only the beginning of the beginning as far as I’m concerned. But I’m changing direction now, and rather than focussing on preparation I feel like it’s time to charge forwards into everything that I’ve prepared. Instead of lists of media targets and guests and business cards I need to concentrate on the launch (SO EXCITING! I do adore parties) and book-signings and promotional appearances. Rather than reading proofs and approving covers and posters, my mind should be turning towards getting my book stocked in as many places as possible, and indeed getting myself around as many places as possible to sign them for people.

I’m pleased with what I’ve achieved over the last four months and all the things I’ve done, and I should be looking ahead with excitement and confidence. Of course I am, but as well as that there’s something else – and that’s a vague sense of unease about the things I haven’t yet done. Oh well, nobody’s perfect.

Except for Boris of course.

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