Launching in Lockdown
By Anna Vaught.
Who would be compliant except the person who gave up?
Who could accept?
– Saving Lucia (Chapter Two)
I love a chat. I am shy and introverted, but I love a chat. I’ve found that all this chatting — a lot of it about books and ideas and what everyone is up to — has come in useful, too, during the present crisis, because during lockdown with a cancelled launch, and independent presses worried about their future, things have come up and opportunities emerged from all these chats. Why don’t we…things. During a period of upheaval, fear and anxiety, I must say that I’ve been energised and cheered by how helpful and inventive book folk are. It is true. I am also quite a new writer, but I have been busy the past four and a half years because, as well as doing the writing, I have learned about the industry — an industry about which I originally knew so little — and had that Damascene moment of discovering independent presses. Putting in the groundwork — training really — means I have been able, on my own, to spot and explore possibilities. And there are many supportive people in the industry willing to teach and guide. I have had some difficult encounters too, but my late and incomparable nan used to say, ‘Ah well now girl, where’s there’s shit there’s gold,’ and I always remember that. So, I turn anyone who has been a gorgon or a pompous ass into a funny character in my head. Or as a stimulus for a story.
But I digress. This is one for another day.
So, my launch in Bath and events tentatively booked in and many ideas we had for Saving Lucia were all scotched and I began, with Jordan’s (he is an independent publicist working with a number of presses) encouragement to move it all online. I’ve participated in The Stay at Home festival, soon it’s Bookbound; David Collard’s A Leap in the Dark evening boosted my confidence and led to some new connections, as well as a bit more joy and the feeling we are all doing our best to keep on keeping on. Indie booksellers have written to me expressing support and asking me to do events when this crisis is over. Twitter is a fantastic tool and many open conversations have been had where writers have asked others to help boost news of their book with all events cancelled and high profile writers such as David Nicholls have come forward to help get news out of launches. I have also written guest blog pieces on the stimulus for Saving Lucia (Isobel Costello’s Literary Sofa) and have other profile pieces on the way – for Severine, on hysteria; reading resources on my own website. Launching during lockdown requires you to spread out and maximise all resources. I am learning a lot and Jordan and I continue to look for writing opportunities for me. As I write I’ve had word of more readers who love the book and a reviewer whose work I really admire just messaged me to compliment me on the book. Here is another thing: Saving Lucia, which is focused on quite well-known women in the history of psychiatry and psychology, sprang partly from my own complex mental health history. You cannot imagine the potency of supportive comments on the book or insight thereon because I am glad that readers enjoy the book but, with this book in particular, I feel seen through their insight. Likewise, when I have been misrepresented or misquoted along the way with this book, it is very triggering. Now, in this time of exceptional trial, I have really to try not to flip; to become sick: there are too many people who need me here. Thus, lovely comments on the book are set to a single file so I can draw them out and look at them.
Now, this is a busy year, in that my first short story collection, Famished, comes out with Influx in early September. Jordan and I have to ramp up activity on that not long after Saving Lucia is released; so really we could be launching one novel in lockdown and sailing close to the wind on a first short story collection for early September, although hopefully launch events will be in person. One thing I am mindful of is that I’m looking for publication opportunities in which I can promote (where appropriate) ALL my publications this year, as I also have various creative non-fiction and short fiction pieces out this year and I do have an overarching theme of trauma, memory and the connection with the imagination. I like to say that I built and rebuilt my mind with books through catastrophic mental health problems: that they gave me life. I do not see books — and art and culture — as luxury; to me, they are contiguous with life. Everyone is having a difficult time with their books so, much as I embrace them singly, I must make links too. I am looking, thus, for unexpected outlets for Saving Lucia. My previous writing has been used by Psychology teams and trainers and my first book profiled in The Psychologist. Not a literary magazine. You have to be inventive and launching a book in the time of Covid requires that more than ever. Back I go. Back I go, too, to look for the positives I can manage this year. The bursary fund I made for Birkbeck for Creative Writing Students who need additional support; the mentoring I have put in place from May to September for someone who is managing chronic mental or physical health conditions. There are a lot of people we do not see and ought to: those who are in permanent lockdown because what they are coping with precludes their being out and about in the world. There will be as much genius there as in the people you see on book tours and writing darlings. So, launching in lockdown also prompts me to look sideways. I have it easy compared with some people and finding things a bit tough is also my prompt to action. Does that make sense?
Finally, I have the support of a lot of bloggers and readers and, on launch day and leading up to it, they will be helping us spread the word and we will boldly maximise whatever broadsheet press coverage we receive Then, we have an interview with my friend and fellow writer Lucie McKnight Hardy and, two weeks after publication, a twitter book group. Other things will come up. That is the other thing: there is an element we cannot plan. I am working from home — writing is not yet my day job — and, suddenly, my two eldest finished school altogether with exams cancelled, one has been long-term poorly (I was dealing with that some months before Covid) and I have to keep it together at least a bit on home learning with my youngest. Oh — and I have walking pneumonia with my GP thinking I have quite possibly had Covid and am near the end of the cycle with a secondary infection. I will never know, but I am just feeling blessed to be here.
One thing I have been reflecting on — and one thing I needed teaching — is this: I am always leaping ahead: thinking, planning, and shifting too much into the future. But the past is a different country and the future is where we can never be. I hope that Saving Lucia will make its way into the world happily and that its press navigates the current difficulties. But I am going to conclude this piece on launching in lockdown by keeping in the present and saying fare thee well to my new book. I am grateful that I made it, just as I am grateful that books gave life to me when, through my imagination and that of their writers, they saved me.
@BookwormVaught
