Rachel Hamilton's Blog

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COUNTDOWN TO LAUNCH – 7 WEEKS TO GO

7 weeks image

Seven weeks to go before ‘The Case of the Exploding Loo’ starts appearing in bookshops, and it’s been an interesting week. The most surreal moment was when I saw myself on the news talking about my book. My sister’s response sums it up – “I very much enjoyed you determinedly not touching your wind-blown hair while pretending to type on an off laptop.” Still, who’d have thought I’d be able to say, ‘Watch this, Mum – I’m on after Sir Tim Rice!’

Less interestingly, the kids and I were sick, so I kept them off school on Tuesday. I realised this was a mistake at about the same time my son realised it was April Fool’s Day, but it was fun watching their pranking efforts:

My son decided he wanted to glue a coin to the floor so he could laugh at anyone who tried to pick it up. Luckily he announced this in advance and I had time to hide the superglue. Sellotape didn’t have quite the same effect.
My daughter tried the ‘pretend a raisin is a fly and then eat it’ trick, which may have worked better if she hadn’t waved the raisin about, making buzzing noises first.
After sulking because the loo rolls he’d balanced on top of the door failed to hit anyone, my son took to the computer, where I found him pranking Minecraft villagers by dropping bricks on their heads and pouring lava on their houses.

I’d love to draw a book-related conclusion about how this shows we can be more effective in imaginary/fantasy worlds than in the real world; but in reality it just shows a worrying desire to attack and maim poor defenseless Minecraft villagers. However, it did keep the kids occupied for a while.

This gave me time to start planning a blog tour. For anyone unfamiliar with the world of book-launch-jargon, that’s like visiting book stores, except instead of going to physical places I’m hoping to visit different blogs, with a mixture of interviews, reviews, ‘behind the scenes’ news about ‘The Case of the Exploding Loo’. My super-agent, Luigi Bonomi, has offered to write a post describing the role of a literary agent and how he decides which books to take on, which should be fascinating as he’s very wise and experienced (which doesn’t mean old). Eleanor Willis, the lovely S&S editor who gave me a book contract for ‘The Case of the Exploding Loo’, will be outlining the editing process and explaining her reasons for choosing my book (because, yes, this blog tour IS all about me, me, me). And my illustrator has provisionally agreed to do a Q&A. So I can’t wait to read them all.

Not to be outdone, my son has already started his ‘illustrated blog post’ about having a mum who’s a writer (in breaks between massacring Minecraft villagers). I laughed, but I’m secretly chuffed. He’s funny and Neil Gaiman, Kate Scott and Nikki Sheehan have all described his blogs about their books as their ‘best review ever.’ (I’ve put a link to his Book Walrus review page below). So I look forward to seeing what he comes up with.

I’ve also been sorting out UK book events and am hoping to have something in the Nottingham/Lincoln area in early July, in Bristol during the last week of July and in London around the 10th of August. Everything is looking good for the UAE events in Magrudy’s (May 30th), Kinos (June 6th) and The Old Library (June 13th). Hopefully I’ll see you some of you there – if only because I’ve already started having nightmares about sitting, pen in hand, gazing around cavernous empty spaces, murmuring, ‘Hello? Anyone?’

Well, that’s it from me for another week, apart from this week’s thank yous. A big thank you to Mark and Alex for a fantastic idea that I don’t want to talk about yet in case I jinx it, but which will be brilliant if it comes off. Thanks to Alice for helping me come up with ideas for a book trailer – more on that soon! Thanks to Elen for her eagle-eyed typo spotting. Thanks to Toutam and Kelly for helping me when I was feeling poorly and to Frank for buying me breakfast, which turned out to be one of the only meals that didn’t make me feel ill this week. Thanks to Reem for talking to me about cookies, PR and school visits, to Carmel for looking over my press release with wise eyes, and to Sam for being my PR minion. Also big thanks to The Boy FitzHammond and the man, Nick Stearn, for creating such a wonderful book cover, front and back, which I’ll be posting on site soon.

Also a few congratulations. Firstly to my friend Annabel Kantaria for her book deal – I’m almost as excited as when I got my own. Secondly to my sister, Debbie on turning 30 – and dressing up as the dragon from Neverending Story to celebrate!? Thirdly to my husband on his new job – well done you! And last but not least to Zsolt Teleki and his beautiful wife on the news that they’re expecting a baby – apologies for thinking it was an April Fool’s joke!

If you have been a marvellous human being and deserve thanking or congratulating and I have forgotten you, feel free to give me a kick (not too hard). My brain seems to have been gobbled up by the bug I caught this week and I’m operating on half batteries!