That Syncing Feeling

The Fatted Calf Blues machine is starting to roll and there seems to be a lot of elements I have been juggling to promote the book.  

I did an interview on the CBC Radio One Charlottetown afternoon show Main Street with Matt Rainnie.  This was my second interview with Matt and I think it turned out well.  Matt is very friendly and laid back and knows how to put his interviewees at ease.  All the same, I have a tough time listening to myself (like many people do, I think) and find it's easy to be self-critical when I hear how I stumbled over some answers or felt I could have been more concise.  I could also hear the nervousness in my voice (which tends to pitch a bit higher under stress). Before going into the studio, I sat in the car and listened to Jian Ghomeshi on Q interviewing Leonard Cohen.  I can only hope that someday I can approximate the Cohen’s eloquence and wisdom. 

While I was in Charlottetown I saw copies of Fatted Calf Blues on the shelves of The Bookmark. It made this whole experience all the more real for me like nothing else has so far.  I also saw posters for my upcoming book launch at the Confederation Centre Library on April 23rd (Canada Book Day) at 7:00 pm.  I have to admit I'm feeling nervous about it.  First of all, I'm wondering how many people will show up even though there has been a bit publicity so far with the CBC interview and a nice mention in The Buzz. Thelma and I put together a media release and faxed and emailed it to various newspapers, radio and TV stations.  No responses yet, but hopefully something will happen closer to the time.

I'm also constantly working out in my head what to say at the launch, what points I want to make about the stories, the process of writing them and getting them into a book, how PEI has helped shape my writing, etc.  Also, I keep changing my mind about which story or stories to read.  One long one or maybe a couple of the shorter ones? Thankfully I have decided to limit myself to 20 minutes, so that should help me decide closer to the time.  The one thing I am looking forward to is the food.  Thelma and her mom will be making sandwiches and baking brownies, cheesecake squares and cookies.  

Thelma and I also put together a small promotional video of me reading a postcard story called Elephant Rock, at North Cape (where the story takes place).  It was fairly chilly the day we shot the video. We did two takes of me reading the story with different backgrounds and then Thelma shot some footage of North Cape.  When we watched it all at home, it was obvious that we couldn't use the audio, so I recorded the story on Garageband.

When it came time to mix the video with the audio, the elements didn't all sync up as well as we would have hoped.  In fact, if it weren't for Thelma's editing skills (she is by far the Thelma Schoonmaker  of home made videos) it would look a lot worse than it does.  As it is, I think it has a kind of rough charm all it's own.  We had a few issues with finding the proper format in which to save it (again solved by Thelma's resourcefulness) and will be uploading it (as soon as we can access some hi-speed) onto Facebook (as a virtual launch) and on YouTube.  I doubt that it will go as wildly viral as the performance by Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent, but I do hope it garners some modest attention and helps promote the book.

Putting together the video seems to me symbolic of the whole promotional effort for the book. There are a lot of elements to sync up, all of which Thelma and I have been doing to the best of our ability, but what it all adds up to in the end owes as much to luck as anything else.