A State Of Mind.

Today I completed a task that I had set for myself a few weeks ago - one that I had some reservations that I would actually achieve.

I have gotten 100 copies of "The Hambledown Dream" into bookstores.

From as far away as Sale in Eastern Victoria to a clutch of stores here in Adelaide - I have spent the past few weeks working the phones, the email account, the pavement and the car in an endeavor to bring "The Hambledown Dream" to as many people (...well 100 of them at least) as possible. I have spent countless hours talking with store managers over the phone and via email, trying to sell myself and my novel and I have dealt with some really nice people...also some fairly ambivalent people.

There are two things I have come to realize about selling a book - it is bloody hard work and I HATE Stephanie Meyer.

I am not a natural sales person - far from it. My primary vocation is as a Nurse and I don't do rehearsed lines at all well. I deal in hard facts not products. I have found it extremely hard to "sell" myself and my book in each of the stores I have gone into - in some cases I have left book stores without success at all. And I have felt pretty deflated. All the people who have read The Hambledown Dream have told me they loved it but in and of itself that is not enough. Word of mouth in and of itself is good but even that isn't always enough.

I have recounted in previous posts my experiences with trying to crack the nut that is the mainstream media. That nut has been virtually impossible to crack and that is starting to get me down too. Because without the ability to speak to a larger mainstream audience - who don't frequent the Internet - it is going to be difficult to reach a larger audience for the book.

I'm sitting here now having just added the last stores to the tracking sheet my publisher and I have set up thinking about my next move. I was so relieved this morning after I signed off on the last consignment agreement that would get my book onto shelves at an Adelaide Hills book seller (see my FB Author Page for details). But that relief was short lived because now I have to wait and see if they are going to sell. And I can't sit idle and just hope that is going to magically happen. Yet I have no budget for any form of advertising in anything mainstream like the newspaper. Facebook can get you so far, as can Twitter and any one of a number of other online portals that offer a free form method of "advertising".

Stephanie Meyer is saturated throughout every bookstore I've been into these past few weeks. She has a massive marketing machine behind her which has facilitated a BABILLION sales of her works. From where I stand it's like looking at Everest. How can I compete with that??

Successes are short lived. Writing the book was just the beginning. I sit here, less sure of myself now than when I was when I first began to write the novel that I tried for so long to write.

I don't really hate Stephanie Meyer...although the last good vampire flick I saw was Lost Boys...

DFA.

The Hambledown Dream makes KATG!

At 3AM this morning, during a quiet lull at work I nearly fell off my chair whilst listening to the latest episode of my favorite internet talk radio show Keith & The Girl. 

Keith & The Girl gave The Hambledown Dream a wonderful plug!

I was actually pre-warned by one of the KATG stalwarts "Newsy" who happened to be on IM at the time that Keith's mention was coming up and I have to admit, I was quietly crapping myself. As a comedian, Keith Malley is acerbic, blistering but bloody funny. What would he have to say?

You see, there is a bit of a history behind this, because I have been chasing Keith & The Girl for a while now in the hope that they might make a mention of the novel on their show. The only way I could do that, though was by sending them a copy, which my publisher graciously agreed to do on my behalf. 

Keith & The Girl is a show, quite unlike any other. It does not conform to a particular genre, they are not constrained by the rules that govern terrestrial radio. Thus they are, in a word, able to get away with anything. Which they do, but it is all so wonderfully funny. I eagerly await each new episode like an addict waiting for his next hit (pardon the pun).

Anyway - despite the sarcastic raucousness of it all - the piss-takey nature of Keith's...rant...there is a lovely spirit underlying his little plug for my novel. I have been beaming like an idiot the whole day since I heard it...

Download .mp3

DFA.

"Dream" People - Inspirations For The Characters In The Hambledown Dream (Part 8 - Dennis "Denny" Banister).

And I finally come to the second major character in The Hambledown Dream, the person who is responsible for all of this.

Dennis "Denny" Banister is another one of those characters that has been with me for pretty much my entire adult life. He began his own life waaay, way back in 1996 or thereabouts, when I first began working on my futuristic political thriller novel "Syndrome". In that work, Denny was the protagonist - a Bladerunner-esque detective in a dystopian future who is on the hunt for a shadowy terrorist cell who may or may not have infiltrated the U.S. government. He was portrayed as a dogged but defeated man in his mid-30s who has turned his back on the Australian Federal Police after a botched sorte into South America which resulted in the deaths of two members of his crack counter terrorism unit, and he has retreated to rural Victoria, Australia to raise a daughter he barely knows alone. His wife had died some years before and...yada, yada, yada...

We all know by now where that story ended up don't we...

But as with certain other characters who now populate the pages of "The Hambledown Dream", Denny's was a character I was reluctant to let go of. Of all of them, Denny was the one character who stuck with me through my early failures as a writer and the opportunity to incorporate him into the novel was one too attractive to resist.We witness in just a few short pages, the tragic decline of a wonderful, loving and generous young man. Not to miss gifted also. He is a virtuoso guitarist of a truly sublime talent - one who can deliver both a technical mastery of the instrument as well as an emotional well spring that drives his ability into seemingly unattainable directions - a stark contrast to the technically brilliant but emotionally barren qualities of Andy DeVries.

Denny has the world at his feet. He has just completed an architectural degree, he is about to start his own business and he and Sonya are planning to announce their engagement. All that is cruelly taken from him when Denny discovers - too late - that he has inoperable cancer. In a breathtakingly short time - he is terminally ill and about to die. A brilliant life, a brilliant light - cut short much too quickly. But just when we think that all is lost for this young man, we are given subtle hints that suggest that Denny's journey may not yet be over. We witness Denny's life in flashback as we witness the synchronicity of another young man's journey in mirror image.

Actor Hayden Christensen, the inspiration for the character of Denny Banister.

In visualizing Denny as the vibrant and alive young man in the dreams that are peppered throughout the novel, I was drawn to Canadian actor Hayden Christensen as a physical template. Christensen, whose work in George Lucas' Star Wars prequel trilogy was examined more critically than most other stars working in that genre, delivered a performance in a much smaller production called "Shattered Glass" which, I felt, was nigh on perfection. Christensen is capable of such intensity which he delivers through his eyes and his subtle gestures. He can be malevolent and soulful, witty and tender. He is not nearly given the credit that he is deserving of. There were a number of dream sequences in the book which I crafted with both Rose Byrne and Hayden Christensen firmly in mind and they worked really well.

Denny's journey, is as tangible and real as the journeys of my other characters and in writing it, I found myself wondering about the nature of death, what lies beyond and how the strength of love may well play a role in the continuation of a life beyond death.

DFA.