There is no recipe for that hum of excitement

Sorry in advance folks about my broken linkity-link button. It is pouting over in the corner and refusing to acknowledge my repeated requests. In fact none of the buttons work. No idea when normal transmission will resume.

I have seen Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two and have become a little obsessed. Hoping to see it for the third time today. I guess after seven previous movies played out over the ten teenage years of much of the cast, both story and reality have somehow entwined to deliver up an intense and satisfying conclusion. If it was an eight part series about adults it couldn't reveal growth and change in the characters in the same way. You know you are an adult when you can wipe all memory of yourself from the minds of your parents in order to protect them from unbridled evil. And -SPOILER ALERT IF BY ANY CHANCE YOU HAVE WANDERED INTO MY BLOG WITHOUT BEING A READER - when you have fought the enemy for so long, delivering yourself up for death makes sense. And now it is over.

Read this interesting post (http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2011/07/thing-about-self-promotion-is-that-self.html) over at Nathan Bransford (ex-agent, now author)'s blog and nodded at this bit

"This is one of the hugest drawbacks about an era of publishing where publishers expect authors to shoulder the lion's share of the promotional activities. No one I know enjoys self-promotion, and no one out there particularly likes being promoted to either. People usually want to hear about new things from enthusiastic and neutral third parties, not the hugely biased person who created the thing."

Bransford goes on to say that despite the hideousness of self-promotion you have to suck it up and do it anyway. I struggle mightily with this. If folk would rather hear it from someone else then telling them directly might be a bigger turn off then a turn on. Campaigns that go viral, go viral for reasons that all the experts in the field can't explain. Look at Harry Potter (the editor at Scholastic US himself said he was closing the fantasy imprint when Harry Potter came along), look at Susan Boyle, look at Twilight or Justin Bieber. There are plenty of things shoved in our faces everyday that 'don't take'. Movies, books, programmes, stars, with lots of money and creative thinking and crafty persuasive advertising behind them and none of it generates that hum of excitement, that 'I gotta have it' reaction. I will go out and meet potential readers and read my books to folk and hope they like what they hear enough to part company with their money to own it. But I don't know that doing more than that makes a difference. The one thing I will do is keep trying to create new work that readers might like, especially those that liked my previous work. Because sometimes it is the weight of one's career that helps it build speed.

What will I do for the rest of the year without Harry...

I was looking forward to the November release of the next Harry Potter movie (HP and the Half Blood Prince) and felt pretty grumpy when I learned it was being held back til the middle of next year, apparently for commercial reasons. As much as I revere The Dark Knight, I'm afraid its partly responsible as it earned a million simollions on its mid year release this year and as the writers strike has left the film industry a little movie-lite for the middle of next year HP jumped into the mega-buck-opportunity providing breach. With no more books in the series, having the movie delayed seriously compromises the R n'R plans I'd made for what remains of 2008. I will just have to console myself with James Bond instead.

I have at least been cheered by the ongoing efforts of our Kiwi Olympians. Still trending up from all the fourth place showings at the last games, we now have a slew of bronzes. I like where this is going and look forward to London 2012 when we should be in the silver medal position for everything. Don't for one minute think I am dissing third place. Having watched a range of events I respect everyone who actually makes it to the games as a competitor in the first place. These are mostly people who have put just about every other aspect of their lives on hold to train right, eat right and mentally prepare themselves to battle it out on the day. When you think that many events are only of a few minutes duration, some even less then that, it blows my mind that people make so many sacrifices in the hope they will come first, second or third. Kind of puts into perspective all the difficulties of the writing business. Sure, I work for hours to maybe earn about ten cents an hour if my book is accepted, nothing for all that effort if its not, but I can write for years, I can still do other things, and I get to eat chocolate if i want to.

I've been a little worried the last few days. My current WIP is looking a bit setting-lite. In my last two novels (Jack the Viking and his sequel) the setting was kind of a character in itself. It was essential to maintain a sense of setting both in Jack's modern location and back in the time of the Vikings. Contrasting the two times was something I wanted to explore but I also needed a clear image of the Viking period to background Jack's emotional state and the changes he experienced. Now with the new story, place doesn't have a key role and as I progress, the characters dominate and I find, while I know where they are, the setting refuses to assert itself. I'm not sure whether this is a problem or not? But I have the feeling I should decide on this now. If i have to write more on setting after the first draft is finished i might be making a large and difficult job for myself. What do you think?