Story Shop!

Well, Story Shop ended up being a fantastic day. Helen, who had Story Shopped last year, advised me to make as much use as possible of my free pass to the author's yurt and so I did. You'd think it would be an intimidating place with all those famous authors floating about, but it was actually pretty relaxed (the free coffee/juice/wine/pastries/bowls of food may have had something to do with that). I gawped at Sarah Smith from Channel 4 News looking laid-back in her Converse, admired (and stayed out of the way of) a regal Joan Bakewell and had a nice wee chat with the lovely Kevin Barry.

Then, half an hour prior to the reading itself, my subconcious revealed it had devised a cunning way of preventing me from getting too panicked about the reading itself. This it did by making me suddenly realise I'd managed to leave a small carrier-bag loaded with paperbacks lent to me by Gav, next to a chair in Waterstone's (serves me right for browsing books somewhere other than the Book Fest book tent). So after recreating the opening scene of 'Trainspotting', I returned somewhat flustered but suitably distracted. The reading went well mainly due to a small but perfectly formed audience featuring a number of friendly faces and then it was back to the yurt to make full use of the 'Guest' yurt pass and keep old friends entertained.

So thanks to the magnificent folks at the City of Lit for letting me read and if any of you are thinking of applying for Story Shop next year, do it!

And now it's all over, there's just novel editing to focus on. Which is of course completely unrelated to this new blog post appearing...(ahem).