KC and the Stunned Sign(ing) Hand

Robert M. Pirsig reckons, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, that we’re all motorbikes.  Or rather, he likens the conscientious good maintenance of a motorcycle to the emotional (perhaps even spiritual) upkeep and running repairs that we ought, in good conscience, to carry out on ourselves in life.  It’s a nice analogy – feels a bit cramped set down here like that, read the book if you haven’t already, it unfolds more elegantly there – and one I still fall back on now and then almost thirty years after I first stumbled on it.

One of the components I find myself tinkering with a lot on my particular bike is the Humility Valve.  I’m no great fan of false modesty, I think it looks pretty uniformly ghastly painted onto all those hugely successful movie and music stars in plasticky interview or award acceptance mode, or even on moderately successful genre authors at conventions for that matter.  But at the same time, it’s only fair to recognise that genuine modesty is sometimes quite hard to manufacture when you’ve done well at something and there’s a line of people round the block all telling you how great you are.  Thing is, that kind of rush can actually be very good for your creative juices – but at the same time, let it tip over into arrogance or entitlement and you’re in trouble.  So – tinker, tinker.  It’s just one of those strip-it-down-and-clean-the-parts things that you have to keep working on, trying to make sure there’s a decent bleed balance of self-esteem/humility to keep you running real.

Doesn’t hurt to have the odd transfusion of one or the other pumped into the system either.

At Octocon in Dublin last month – which was, by the way, awesome; lovely people, lovely venue, lovely city – I had not one but two pretty massive doses of humility jacked into my veins in the space of as many hours.  First off, there was this:

 

Yes, that is a MacBook Pro I’m signing there, and the speech bubble leaking from my slightly shocked mouth reads “Are you absolutely fucking sure about this, mate???”

I mean, I own one of these beasts myself, and I don’t even like to get a grease streak anywhere on its beautiful aluminium unibody hull – let alone have some guy scrawl his signature across the base.   But this particular fan (whose name I didn’t write down and has now slipped my mind – stand up if it’s you) insisted; he had my stuff from iBooks and so the logical thing was for me to ink up his chosen reading platform.  He was then going to go away and cover the signature in sticky back cellophane to preserve it for posterity.  (Picture courtesy of my Con guide, minder and all round great guy, JC – many thanks)

Colour me humbled.

And as if that wasn’t enough, shortly after the signing wrapped up and JC led a slightly dazed Yours Truly back to the Camden Court hotel for pre-Con drinks, I bumped into one K.C. Freels – an American fan who’d flown all the way from Nashville to Dublin specifically to meet me.

Man, I hope I didn’t disappoint.

I came back from Octocon quietly fired up.  Dark Defiles is in the home straight.  I’m pulling out all the stops for this one.

See you on the shelves.