Keris Stainton's Blog, page 81

Authors for Japan: Thank You

If you haven't had a look yet, the auction is open until Sunday and there are some amazing things to bid on: Authors for Japan.

It's going incredibly well – the site had more than 25,000 hits just yesterday and I'm hoping to get to 50,000 today (currently: 41,149) and there have been some wonderfully generous bids. Plan to highlight a few items later (or tomorrow, depending on how long Joe sleeps!), but I just wanted to highlight a few people without whom this wouldn't have been possible.

First up are authors Emily Gale, Katrina Germein, Kate Gordon and Fleur McDonald who had the original Authors for Queensland idea that, obviously, I totally nicked – I did ask first though, honest.

Susie Day designed the wonderful logos and badges (don't forget you can grab one for your own site over there on the right).

Jenni Nock uploaded almost all of the items to the site and I absolutely wouldn't have got it live in time without her. Anne Marie Taylor, Betty Herbert and Carrie Dunn also helped with the uploading.

Keren David and Linda Jones have not only tweeted enthusiastically, but have also contacted many, many members of the press. And George Michael.

Of course I also have to thank all of the amazing authors who donated items and the wonderful people who are bidding (some of them in quite a frenzy!) and everyone who continues to tweet, facebook and blog about it all.

I'm incredibly grateful.

Authors for Japan: bidding is OPEN!

The auction is LIVE – comments are open and you can start bidding!

MORE items will be added this evening so do keep checking back.

Please help promote the auction by tweeting, facebooking, bloggging – we need to get the word out. There's a badge on the right hand side of this blog.

If you're an author and emailed about a donation but can't see it on the site, please check if you have an email from Keris – it may be that we're waiting for more information from you. If not, please email AuthorsForJapan@googlemail.com.

Also, some names aren't showing in the tag cloud – apologies, we're trying to fix this.

Authors for Japan UPDATE

We have now stopped accepting donations for the Authors for Japan auction. Thank you to everyone who has been in touch so far.

I've got back to lots of you and will get back to everyone else some time today, but if you haven't heard from me yet, please don't think I'm ignoring you or don't appreciate what you've offered – I've just been rather overwhelmed by the response!

Bidding on the items opens at 8am tomorrow and there are lots more items to go up before then.

Authors for Japan is now LIVE

Authors for Japan

We'll be putting posts up throughout the day so you can get an idea of the amazing items available before bidding opens.

The auction will open at 8am GMT tomorrow (Tuesday 15th March) and close at 8pm on Sunday (the 20th).

To bid, you'll need to leave a comment (with the amount of your bid) in the relevant comments box (on the Authors for Japan site please, not here).

At the conclusion of the auction the bidder who has made the highest bid in UK Pounds will be deemed the winner.

Winning bidders will be notified by email and instructed to make their donations to the British Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal.

Authors for Japan UPDATE

Just a quick post before my husband disowns me and my children go feral – THANK YOU SO MUCH for all the incredible offers and support so far.

I've got back to lots of you and will get back to everyone else some time today, but if you haven't heard from me yet, please don't think I'm ignoring you or don't appreciate what you've offered – I've just been rather overwhelmed by the response!

If you haven't heard from me yet, what I need from you is confirmation by email (to keris.stainton@googlemail.com) of exactly what you're offering, along with a short blurb about you and your book(s), plus relevant photos so I can start putting it all up on the website. (Ready to go LIVE tomorrow!)

(Also, if appropriate, can you please confirm that you are happy to send the book(s)/etc. out directly to the winning bidder.)

Authors for Japan – can you help?

I can't comprehend the scale of the devastation in Japan and I can't stop thinking about it. I woke up in the night and lay there, thinking about how lucky I am and how I wanted to do something to help. At first, I was going to just put a button on this blog and ask people to contribute towards a Shelterbox, but then I remembered the wonderful Authors for Queensland auction and decided to try that instead.

If you're an author or a publishing professional willing to contribute something to be auctioned in aid of Japan, I'd love to hear from you. I'm thinking proofs/ARC, books, naming a character, swag, chapter/query letter/synopsis critiques, even writer mentoring.

And if you're a reader, let me know the kind of thing you'd like to see in the auction and I'll try to get it. There'll be a dedicated website up by Monday.

Thank you. (Oh and I've never done anything like this before so any help/advice would be wonderful too!)

UPDATED: Blimey, you're all so lovely! Thanks for all the offers so far. If you could make sure you leave your email with your comment, I'll get in touch in the next couple of days (I currently have a 2-year-old yelling "MAAAMA!" from his bed… why isn't he asleep?!) Or if you prefer, you could email me at keris.stainton@googlemail.com Thank you!

[Photo source]

Thank you

I'm not going to keep banging on about My TV Hell (probably*), but I did just want to mention one more thing*… Vanessa ended the segment (and also the show) by asking Shamash's advice. Her question to him was something along the lines of "What advice can you give to this poor woman [i.e. me] who thinks virtual friends are the same as real friends?!"

I think all your amazingly lovely responses to yesterday's post prove that while virtual friendships may not be the same as so-called real friendships (I think Shamash said the brain reacts to them differently), they are still absolutely wonderful and to be valued rather than mocked. Thank you. You've made me laugh and cry and feel very, very lucky.

* There may be more flashbacks so I do need to leave some room for further ranting…

What I learned from my TV hell

This is going to be a long one. You may want to make yourself a cuppa…

When I first heard I'd been invited to go on The Vanessa Show, I felt proud. Proud that someone had read something I'd written (Why I refuse to feel guilty about my Twitter addiction on Ready for Ten) and thought it was interesting enough to ask me to come on TV and expand on it.

Less than a week later, after recording the show, as I walked along Oxford Street crying into a tall mocha, the expression "pride comes before a fall" kept going through my head. I felt like an idiot. But then I thought, well, that's a stupid expression. Why shouldn't I have been proud? Why shouldn't I still be proud that even though my first TV appearance didn't go as well as I would have hoped, at least I did it? So I am still proud. And here's why.

On a school day and everything!

As I headed for London on Tuesday morning, I admit I was feeling a bit full of myself. When I was a kid I was obsessed with London and desperate to live there. London, I thought, was where everything happened. London was where I could be myself and become a success. And then I moved to London and it didn't quite work out that way. I was shy, insecure, afraid. When I left London (in 1997) I felt like a failure. It's taken me a long time to be able to enjoy London again and each time I go back, I remember more and more why I loved it in the first place. So on Tuesday, I was thinking about how I no longer have to go every day to a job that I hate. How I get to be a writer and get to go to London and on TV. Get me.

When I got down there, I was nervous, but I met my lovely friend Sarah (and her gorgeous son) for lunch, checked in at my hotel and then got the tube to the studio, so I didn't have time to get myself too worked up. I did keep thinking back to 1995 I think it was when I went with a friend to audition for a TV show (can't remember what it was called – it was a film show presented by Johnny Vaughn) and could barely speak I was so terrified. But I'm nowhere near as shy as I was back then and wasn't I just on the radio last week? This would be just like that only with cameras. And Vanessa Feltz.

Don't mention Celebrity Big Brother…

As soon as I got to the studio, I was ushered into the make-up room where Vanessa was already sitting. I felt a flash of nerves then – she's an intimidating presence – but she started chatting and I felt fine. She asked me to give her an example of a tweet I'd sent that day. I'd only sent one, which had been to say that my train to London had been delayed. "Boring, I know," I said. "Yes," Vanessa agreed, adding, "appallingly dull and tedious! What on earth made you tweet that?!" I said that sometimes tweets are just good for getting things off your chest, but that someone (Helen!) had then tweeted me to tell me that there were delays between Milton Keynes and London and how Twitter's great for information as well as for chatting.

Vanessa asked me if I talk on the phone and I said I didn't very much anymore. She said she doesn't either, she just texts. I did have a moment when I wondered if she was treating our conversation as research for the interview, but then I thought, no, that would be unfair. And the questions will have already been prepared by a researcher. When I said I was nervous Vanessa said, "Oh there's nothing to be nervous about! It'll just be like this, us talking."

Again, I felt a bit proud. I was holding my own, I wasn't blushing and I didn't feel intimidated or shy which – even though I haven't really felt shy for years – is a massive thing for me. At school my worst fear was having to give a "talk" or read aloud from a book. I remember a teacher asking me to take a note to a teacher in a different classroom and I stood outside almost crying because I hated the thought of pushing open the classroom door and everyone looking at me.

Let's have a heated debate!

I went back to the green room and chatted with Shamash, a mindfulness expert who was there as the "anti-Twitter". I'd been a bit worried about this, worried that I'd be attacked and end up having a row on screen, but not only was Shamash lovely, he's on Twitter. I felt confident that it would be, as the producer had assured me, a friendly and positive debate.

We walked through to the studio and watched Vanessa conduct a debate with a woman who feels bad about bribing her 2-year-old to do certain tasks and a parenting expert who doesn't agree with bribery. And then it was time for our segment. We sat down. I saw myself on the giant monitor (why they have a bloody great screen directly opposite so you can see how utterly gormless you look I don't know) and thought, ugh – the make-up artist had straightened my hair, but, by the look of it, only on one side – but then I just wanted to get on with it.

The show is recorded "as live" so Vanessa did a link to the next segment (my segment) and then there was an ad break or something. During the break Vanessa said something like "I'm really looking forward to this because it's a real bone of contention between me and Ben" (her partner, who co-presents the show). "It's a real argument, not a TV argument," she continued. "It drives me absolutely fucking mad."

And that's when I thought… Oh. Shit.

I must have a life cos it flashed before my eyes

The actually interview is pretty much a blur, but I know she started by saying something about how she was amazed that I'd agreed to join them in the real world, something about "isn't it true that you never even talk on the phone anymore!" and that my husband gets annoyed that I'm online all the time! And that I'm on Twitter when I'm with my kids!

I was completely wrong-footed. I remember thinking, "Wow. You bitch." But at the same time I felt a sort of grudging admiration. She's a pro. And I was naive. And I knew I was screwed. It's The Vanessa Show, after all.

I don't remember my responses clearly. I made a feeble joke about everything being in 3D. I know I said something about Twitter not being about what you had for breakfast. I know I told some stupid story about David melting butter on the radiator and how other people had tweeted "boneheaded" things their husbands/partners had done. I know I said I try to give my boys my full attention, but sometimes I'm tempted to go and tweet something they've done or said. And that Twitter has made me laugh and cry. But I couldn't remember any of the things I'd wanted to say. I could barely remember what Twitter was.

It all went by really fast and then Vanessa was thanking me, the crew was congratulating me and then I was outside in the street thinking, "What just happened?" As I walked up to the tube, I thought of all the things I wanted to say, but hadn't said.

Meanwhile, back in the real world…

I wish I'd said that parenting is isolating and Twitter is supportive and encouraging and entertaining. I wish I'd said that my virtual life is in addition to, not a replacement for, my real life, which is wonderful. I felt guilty that I'd talked about David. (Poor David always gets the shitty end of the stick.) I wish I'd told her how amazingly supportive Twitter is. How it can literally be a lifeline for some people. How I can be chatting with friends about TV, looking at photographs tweeted by astronauts on the Space Shuttle, and reading a link to an incredibly powerful and moving blog all within a few minutes.

Before the interview, I wanted to say that Twitter is not just broadcasting, it's a conversation, but then I worried that – because she's a broadcaster – it might get Vanessa's back up. I wish I'd said it now. Because she may be an excellent broadcaster, but she's not so hot on conversation. No wonder she doesn't get Twitter.

Imagine All By Myself playing over this bit. Maybe on a saxophone.

As I walked through London, I felt worse and worse. I berated myself for sounding silly and frivolous and making Twitter sound silly and frivolous. I felt like I'd let the lovely women at Ready for Ten down. I felt like I'd let Linda Jones (who has been supporting and encouraging and inspiring me since I first started writing) down. I felt like I'd let everyone on Twitter down.

I wandered and I whimpered and I felt very sorry for myself. I tweeted about it, obviously, and got the most incredibly lovely responses that made me laugh out loud and also made me cry even harder.

Even so, I didn't want to stay overnight as planned, I wanted to go home and see David and our boys. Leaving London a failure again. But when I woke up on Wednesday morning, I felt much better. I felt strong and confident and positive.

Yes, it's all about me.

I don't believe everything happens for a reason, but I do think this happened for a reason. It taught me that I can do things I didn't think I could ever do. It taught me that I'm no longer that terrified girl standing outside the classroom door, scared to go in. It taught me that I'm not the blushing, tongue-tied 20-odd year old at the Johnny Vaughn audition. During the interview, Vanessa asked me if, on Twitter, I feel pressure to be "amusing". I don't know what I replied, but what I should have said was that the only thing I want to be is authentic. And that's how I felt when I woke up on Wednesday morning.

In 1989 when I moved to London, I thought it was where I could be myself and become a success. Twenty-two years later, I no longer live in London, but I am myself (even to the point of not wanting the make-up artist to straighten my hair and replying "Absolutely!" when she asked if I'd be wearing my glasses) and I am a success.

Tweet that, Vanessa.

Which song gets you dancing?

I can't not dance to this song. And Harry and Joe love it too.

30 Day Song Challenge Day 9

Writing Wednesday: What is it about stories?

I was watching the World Book Night programmes on BBC2 the other night and I started thinking that our obsession with books and stories is a bit… odd. I mean, it's wonderful, obviously, but isn't it strange that so much time and money and passion and discussion is expended on stories made up in people's heads?

It made me think about people I've known in the past who've only read non-fiction because they're not interested in "made up stories". And then it made me think about Harry who, when I tell him a story that he thinks is funny or interesting in some way, will ask me to tell him over and over again.

So I just wanted to ask a quick question: why do you read fiction? What's the fascination with stories made up in strangers' heads?!