Russell KirkPatrick.com

My froat's much better now. I'm drowning in phlegm but the sandpaper has gone. I got eight hours' sleep last night!

I guess you didn't need to know all that. 

I've been spending time thinking about the power of music. Much as I love language, it seems to me that music is an even more fundamental thing. I can't do without it. I probably listen to between four and eight hours' worth a day.

Music has much of what our brains need. Patterns, familar sounds, and innovation. As much as I love reading, I find music even more satisfying to my soul.

That's all. Off to think some more. 

I see Path of Revenge is #6 on Dymock's Australian SFF bestseller list this week.

That's good news. My first novel made it to #1 on its first week of release and stayed there for four weeks; subsequent novels in the Fire of Heaven trilogy did nearly as well.

This series has started slower. It's not receiving the huge publisher push the first series did, nor should it. I want the book to stand on its own merits. And now, three months after release, it appears on the bestseller list. I interpret that to mean word-of-mouth is working in its favour.

What do sales mean, anyway? It's not the money. (Well, it's not all the money.) A lot of it is about knowing that people are reading your story. That's what I want most of all. Though if you want to buy it just to look cool, that's fine by me...

I've got a sore froat. I hate sore froats. Sore froats are no good for lecturers. I need sympathy.

 

Book sales (at Pennys anyway) have been great since the window stint. Linda tells me that people have been coming in since last Thursday looking for me in the window, as if I've become a permanent fixture!

Apparently writers are trooping in, asking if Linda can get them published (aren't we a terrible breed - never let a chance, however faint, go by).

The Waikato Times rung the bookshop and asked if we were happy (!) and said that, had we paid for an advertisment on the front page, it would have cost us at least $10,000.

Best of all, I was emailed by an old friend I'd lost contact with when he was posted to China by the immigration department - he's remarried, has a four year old and now lives in Wellington. I'd met him at varsity and had been his groomsman. Shows how far the publicity went.

My son Iain and I went to a Mars Volta concert on Monday night (you probably don't know who they are - your loss - a cross between Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin) and it was

LOUD

I'm not kidding. But fabulous all the same. They're in Australia now.

All in all, a fun week. 

 

I made the front page of the WAIKATO TIMES with my window novel-writing stunt.

 

 

 Thanks to Linda and the staff at Pennys for a successful promotion.

 

I survived. Not only that, I wrote over 5000 words. Someof them might even have been good.

I was in the window of Pennys Bookstore from 12 noon to 9pm, with a break for tea, writing my novel to the entertainment of passers-by.

I suppose you'll be wanting pictures? Righto then.

 

Yours truly typing away.

 

Gary the rep, Linda the donkey and Jenny the bookseller, all sitting outside the window, wathcing.

The funniest thing was watching the reaction of (mostly adults) who thought I was a static display. 'Oh! It moved!' The kids loved it. Lots of inquiries, a few sales, and hopefully some long term benefit. And I heard someone ask was I for sale, and how much I was. Sadly, I wasn't sold.

Great fun. Thanks, Linda and Jenny. Gary the Rep might even get me to do it all again in Wellington later this year.