Drawing Breath
A month of Familiar.
The wooden frames of my bedroom window are disappearing. Stripped one tiny shaving at a time by an industrious wasp. It is the sound I associate with midsummer - like someone grinding gravel in their teeth. The wasp ploughs furrows in the frame, rolling a tight ball of wood with her mandible and front legs. It is precise, careful work that goes on from dawn to dusk. She carries the spirals to her nesting site and mixes wood with saliva to form a paste. This mash is crafted into papery cells for the queen to fill with brood. This rhythmic scraping wakes me at five o’clock in the morning and another long summer day begins.
I am catching my breath after the sprint of launching Familiar. May and June were packed with events, travel, media work and opportunities to meet readers. My head is spinning and I wanted to share some of the highlights.
Belfast - London - Sligo: three beautiful launches in an old spinning mill, a repurposed church and an independent bookshop respectively. These were incredibly fun events where I got to read from my novel and meet readers. I spent quality time with my publishers - two of the best women I know, and reconnected with many old friends. Thanks to each and every one of you who came, bought a book and joined us in the pub afterwards.
The Fruit
I am learning how to tour bookshops without embarrassing myself when I find my novel on the shelf. There are so many incredible books on offer right now and it is a pleasure to rub spines with them.
I recently watched my eldest on stage at an end of year school party. He and his friend took a song my brother’s band wrote decades ago and performed it with absolute confidence. These are out of body moments for me - watching a human who is flesh of my flesh fully inhabiting his life; watching a book I incubated for years holding its own on a shelf.
The best conversations about my work have been with my children. In some ways they have seen me for the first time. At every event they were front and centre meeting guests, serving drinks and asking questions when the floor was opened. Sharing my success with them gave me such a buzz.
It was not always easy to bring them along. The journeys were long, they had late nights and cramped accommodation, a disrupted school term and a distracted mother. The abundance of strawberries and Shloer at the Belfast launch did not end well for my youngest, or my mother’s bedroom rug, but aside from that everyone had a blast.
Burnout
There are so many unknowns around launch time. If the book is well received, there is a domino effect to promotional opportunities. I was fortunate to receive a commission to write an article for the Irish Independent about the years that preceded my novel. I spent days trawling old journals reliving the tired, scared days and remembering the women who held a space for me to evolve. It was eviscerating yet it allowed me to fully inhabit this moment when the fruit of that labour is out in the world.
The piece sparked a conversation with Andrea Gilligan on Lunchtime Live and an interview with my local paper, the Sligo Champion - burnout, it seems, is a universal theme.
Root Work
By far the best part of this season is meeting people. The majority of book writing is underground. Root work. I spend hours alone at my desk, in the forest and on the bogland around my house. I am, of course, never alone but in the company of fictional characters. However, it is lovely to burst into the light for a short time and meet real human beings.
This work will continue in the coming months with an event at the Cairdre Sligo Arts Festival entitled, Nature, Mortality and the Divine in new Irish Literature, next week. My dear friend Elske Rahill is facilitating a conversation with me and Niamh MacCabe, author of the stunning book Four Night Seas. I can’t wait. I’ll also be visiting book clubs, book shops and podcast studios to ensure Familiar ranges as far as possible.
Summer Pause
Last night my son (who is nine tenths teen, one avid observer) called me to the window to watch a fallow deer cavorting with a fox. The young buck was hoof-deep in water at the lakeside, the fox made straight for it then turned and hid beneath a willow. The deer investigated and the two chased one another along the water’s edge. They played like this until the light went and a herd of cattle bullied them into the forest.
Wasp at dawn, deer at dusk, a jumble of children in between. It is the summer holidays and although I wake early to meet word targets for my next novel, my work is primarily taxi driver, IGCSE tutor, cook and bottle washer, mum. I have paused my paid subscriptions to attend to this work wholeheartedly and will return in September with more regular(ish) posts.
Thank you for being here and I hope your summer is wild.
What a busy time! You have blossomed in the spotlight. Now take a moment to refresh and allow your wonderful book to fly!
Congratulations Bethany. Derry or Donegal launches?