A long time between drink: Launch Day 2013

For every launch, there will be collateral damage.

It’s been 1126 days since my last book launch. Or 27,024 hours.

Sometimes it has felt like a very long time. As if my book was taking forever.

Now, as the act of writing slowly recedes into memory, and those 27,024 hours between launches begins to telescope into a single, easy figure (“about 3 years”), it doesn't seem that long.

In an alternate universe I could have written one word every 15 minutes from the moment my last book launch wound down and I’d only be writing the final word of the novel (“am”) as the clock strikes six tonight. (I'd then have to improvise the Acknowledgements page.)

The reality of composition, of course, is different, but something about this equation makes sense. There’ve been few waking hours in recent years that I haven’t thought about “my next book” (sadly, I wasted the first year trying to write something the wrong next book).

And there’ll be few waking hours the rest of my life where I’m not thinking about my new "next book".

All I need to do is keep placing one word after another.

And in 160 weeks, give or take, I’ll have this same wonderful knot in my stomach.

My book is dead, long live my book.



More on The Mannequin Makers
A playlist for the novel (and the launch)
Location Guides: Part One (Marumaru), Part Two (Antipodes Islands), Part Three (Crossman's Gully)
The editing process