Yes, we know who you are! by Catriona

Who are the authors who have inspired you in how you conduct yourself as a professional writer? This is not so much the creative/writerly side of them (but could be) but how they navigate their career, and the publishing industry in general. What do they do that you find inspiring or interesting?

This is out now in the US - buy links

Right, well I'm going to start by recounting an experience that taught me how *not* to be as a professional writer out in public.

I got introduced to this guy - let's call him Firstname Surname - at a publisher's party. I asked - re. Surname - "Is that an U or and I"?

He gave me an extremely waspish look and said, "Don't they have Jews where you come from?"

I blinked a couple of times and said, "They don't have schwa where I come from." Schwa is the name of that very beige little central vowel that pops up in a lot of varieties of English, but not in Scottish, at least not in stressed syllables. It's why no Scottish kid will ever be named "Fleur". Because she'd get called either Flurr or Flooo-ur. Poor wee sausage. Anyway, back to Captain Schwa at that party.  I was trying to work out how to pronounce his name properly in my accent! How was that rude? How the frilly hat was it antisemitic?

Of course, it wasn't. I worked out later - well, my editor told me with a lot of eye-rolling and extra anecdotes from other events - that my transgression had been not already knowing who he was. Not fainting with the honour of finally meeting him in the flesh at last, not coming back to consciousness weeping that I didn't happen to have my enitre well-thumbed collection of his works to be signed if only he was gracious enough to grant such a favour.

I'm not naming him. But, trust me, if I did, some of you would go, "Who?"

(Reminds me of my good friend Alex, who used to be a trolley dolly (his term) for an airline. Whenever he was asked "Don't you know who I am?" - and he was; people are weird - he'd raise his voice and say to the entire cabin, "Need some help here, everyone, please. Gentleman's forgotten who he is.")

Alex- king of sarcasm

Compare this with a similarly small but equally huge incident concerning Charlaine Harris at the Harrogate Crime Festival. Okay so one of the ways a UK literary festival differs from a US convention is that the panels and interviews are individually ticketed. At Harrogte, the deal is that authors can attend them for free but, if an event is sold out, we wait till all the paying customers are seated and then tuck in where there's space, or stand.

I don't remember what the sold-out session was the year that Charlaine Harris was Guest of Honour and I was there too, but we were waiting in the corridor at the door to the ballroom to see if we'd be able to squeeze in, when a member of the publicity team shot across the other end of the passageway and then did a perfect, ambulatory double-take - re-appearing moving backwards, I mean - then changed course like a wee car on a scalextric track and came thundering towards us. Well, towards Charlaine. Well, actually, towards the student volunteer, checking tickets at the door.

That's not me and Charlaine Harris,
but it is Harrogate.

She had just fired up the blowtorch to blast the ticket-taker to a heap of charred regretfulness for the sin of letting Bloody Charlaine HARRIS for God's sake stand in a corridor, when Charlaine put a hand on the publicist's arm and murmured, "Hon? Don't do that."

So. I decided a long time ago that no matter how succesful I might be lucky enough to get, I'd be Charlaine Harris and not Sir Dontyou of Knowwhoiam.

Which is why the story Angela told on Monday of cringing because she asked me, when we first met: "Where are you on your writing journey" is not a story I've even remembered. That and the fact that the answer is same for all of us. "I'm one bad book or a change in tastes away from not getting to do this any more."

Cx