fairy overload

I’ve been off with the fairies this past week on the Isle of Skye and now I’m finishing up Season 2 of Carnival Row. In Portree I bought three more books on fairies only to then buy a bestiary that has me rethinking the mythical creature in my novel. I’ve basically decided to let myself be a sponge for as long as I can. I was worn out after that three-day tour but I’m glad I went. The fairy pools (left) were impressive despite the rain and the fairy glen was mystical. It’s a fairly desolate landscape—“Iceland without the ice,” as our guide explained—but I’m glad I spent some more time in the Highlands. We had snow the first day, rain the second day, and sunshine on the third. Now I’ve got just four days left and I’m trying not to pack too much in. I went for a run in the rain this morning and then saw the name of a primary school on a banner at an anti-racist rally in George Square. I’d seen on Twitter that their students had self-published books to create their own mirrors so came home, cleaned up, and went back over with a bag of my dragon books. Found them easily and the head teacher invited me to stop by on Monday! My other contact has arranged a secondary school visit for Tuesday afternoon and then it will be time to pack. I’ve easily managed to write at least one poem a day this month but the novel is mostly unfolding in my head rather than on the page. Hopefully I’ll have time when I get back to put all those ideas into words. For now, I’m going to grant myself a bit more dream time, returning to Pollok House for my last visit tomorrow afternoon. I keep wanting a retreat, to get farther away “from the madding crowd,” but I haven’t effectively designed my life that way. I joke about living in a cave somewhere but I don’t want to be totally cut off. While in Skye I realized that my inbox keeps overflowing because I haven’t set the right boundaries. I want this transnational life and I appreciate the freedom of being able to write anywhere, but I’m not fully IN Scotland when I’m still booking gigs back in the US. Technology was a blessing during the pandemic but now it has become a sort of tether. You’re never fully free because folks expect to be able to reach you no matter where you are. I thought about making a yearly “booking box”—I’ll do school visits and conferences within a three-month period but after that, I’m done for the year. So whether I then return to Scotland or stay in the US, I’ll live a life outside of the kid lit arena. But when a new book comes out, you have to promote it and if you’re lucky enough to have a publisher who’ll send you to conferences, you can’t say, “I’ll only do the ones that fall between January and March.” Can you? Isn’t that like sabotaging your own book? We had some ugly drama last week; the illustrator of A Song for Juneteenth has been arrested for abusing his foster daughter 17 years ago, which means we won’t be going forward with his illustrations. So the May pub date is scrapped and I won’t be presenting at the picture book breakfast at the ALA annual convention in June. When I first heard the news, I just felt ill. I hardly dare to hope that the criminal justice system will help this survivor, but I pray that confronting her abuser will lead to healing in some way. My editor listened to my concerns when drafting an official statement to release about the book, and we’re going to discuss alternate illustrators when I get back. If something like this came up outside of my 3-month “box,” I couldn’t very well choose to ignore it. So maybe three consecutive months won’t work…maybe I have to pick the months when there are festivals or conferences and work “full time” then. NCTE is in November, ALA is in June, TLA is next month…my publisher is still sending me to TX for that conference since I have other poetry books I can promote. I agreed to do a small festival in Hamilton at the end of April and can visit family while I’m near Toronto. I’ve got a festival in NYC in May, then my week in Alaska at the start of June. I think that’s it for trips. Will I come back to Scotland for the fall? It’s a nice idea. IF I can sublet my apartment, and IF I can find a more affordable place to stay here in Glasgow, and IF I can cut the cord so that it doesn’t feel like America’s calling me every single day…