Not Fucking it all up (contains swears)

It is four weeks today until my book comes out. The Waterstones website helpfully tells me it is 28 days until publication. 28 days. Holy shite.

And things are going well. People who have read the book are liking it and then passing it onto other people who might also like it. The publicity side is going great guns. I’ve been invited to speak at events. Sometimes I’ll walk into a bookshop and make a little finger-wide slot where my book might sit with the other H’s and genuinely, I am dizzy with gratitude. For that reason I am also terrified of Fucking It All Up. What I am saying is that I am nervous. Can you tell? I really don’t want to Fuck It All Up. Will you all help me not Fuck It All Up please?

The funny thing is, I really think the book can fight it’s own battles, it’s tough old thing or at least it hides its soft parts well, it’s me that’s the rogue element in all this. I spill things. I say the wrong thing (especially when saying the right thing is important). I trip over. A lot. If I have something important to go to I will definitely get caught in the rain on the way and arrive looking like I should be a resident of Fraggle Rock. I am stunned when anyone says anything nice about Tony Hogan and so just say ‘thank you, thank you, very kind of you, thank you’ repetitively like I’m Rainman. I still find it hard to introduce myself as a writer even when I’m at an event where people have my book in their goodie bags.

Maybe this all makes more sense if I say that I grew up in environments where the highest aspirations you were allowed to aim for was to become a Supervisor at your local Freezer Shop then convince the bank to give you a new car loan so you could buy yourself some big boobs for your holiday in Ibiza. Now I have a stack of my books on my windowsill but that girl from the council estate is here too (not that she ever wanted fake boobs by the way) and she is bewildered by all of this. Kids from my background were told growing up that we had nothing to say worth listening to, nothing to give to society worth having. I didn’t listen to that then, which is why I’m here now, but it doesn’t make my reversal in fortune any less strange to me. It’s hard to explain really. Can we add inarticulate to the list above?  

So, in the next 28 days I’ll work hard and be kind. I’ll run a lot, drink Guinness, look at the sky, eat Twisters and toast and pet bulldogs in the street. I’ll remember that even if I do Fuck It All Up I’ve been doing that my whole life and then laughing it off and getting on with it. And I’ll probably just keep on doing that.