THE END IS NIGH

This is not how my desk is supposed to be.




This is how my desk is supposed to be.



And I hope that in a few weeks it will be. In my roundabout way, I am trying to explain (maybe even "show not tell") why this blog has become so much more occasional than it was meant to be. (Unlike my other blog, to which I devote more time than I should.)

See, I'm supposed to be a writer, sitting there with a lovely notebook and pen, accompanied by a glass of vino, and indulging my senses with the scent of sweet peas. Instead of which, for the last three years I've been chairing the Society of Authors in Scotland, which I have foolishly allowed too often to take the place of writing. (I do have an email folder called "nice emails" to show for it, however, and I should point out that it is not too late to contribute to this ...)

I'm in the final run - 11 days to go, not that I'm counting, of course. The AGM and Summer Party are on Aug 18th, during and in the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

In fact, the other day I saw them start to put the tents up for the EIBF and, good God, it WASN'T RAINING. And it's still not. This is a disaster. How will they put the pegs in the ground when it's not all glistening mud? How will they know what to do? I am very concerned. We have wet weather plans but no dry weather contingencies. This is something I must organise. Not to self: add to one of the lists.

Now, those of us involved in the book festival tend to become somewhat all-consumed by it. There's all that Yurty atmosphere and we can sense the raw, heady smell of it at a thousand paces. For those of you who don't know, the Yurt is an extraordinary structure that cannot truly be called a tent - it is more like a cross between a canvas palace and a canvas cave, with a lot of canvas in between, along with many rugs to trip over, many sofas of incredible uncomfortableness, and much free wine, food, coffee and Highland Park. Also a strange combination of huge friendliness and the constant sound of egos being battered and massaged in equal measure. It's not a place to enter without several deep breaths and any other form of calming device that you have at hand.

For me, the EIBF is the excuse for my current desk-state. I am, I have to say, overwhelmed by tasks and lists and events unprepared. (Which begs the question as to why I am writing this blog post today ...)

I am doing six different events and chairing two. Chairing can be more stressful than doing your own event: when the speaker or audience dries up, it's down to the chairperson to carry the event through to the occasionally bitter end. I am sure the wonderful people I'm chairing will give me no trouble at all - but the audience might. Please don't. Please just ask an incredibly witty and positive question. There are many other things that audiences can do or not do, but I'll keep it simple and trust you to behave. And smile. And laugh in all the right places.

My six events are all half prepared. But half is not enough. I looked at some of my notes yesterday and couldn't understand what I was on about.

I am also organising the Soc of Authors in Scotland AGM and Summer Party. (I think I may have said that already.) This is a feat of extreme difficulty, most of which no one will ever know about unless I drink a bit too much HP in the Yurt. I have 100ish members coming, each of whom has to be herded, catlike. They are all published authors but many of them can't read. I have emailed them all asking for various bits of information and many of them have not replied; many others have sent the wrong information to the wrong place; and many others have given me far too much information. Bless them. I asked for volunteers to help at the party and so many of them were wonderfully forthcoming. HOWEVER, this now means that I am boggled by a spreadsheet telling me how many people can help early but not late and have bad backs, or can help late but not early and can't stand for long, and how many have no bad back at all but have to take their mother-in-law to the station so can only arrive at 10.55, and how many really want to help by handing round food but would accept being asked to fill goody bags but only early and not late, and how many ... Yes, you're getting my drift.

I will bore you if I tell you the logistical difficulties posed by organising a party in a venue with no refridgeration or washing-up facilities; not helped by many people not having replied to the invitation. The fact that we have a fabulous line-up of about 80 guests along with our 100 members is at the same time wonderful, and yet daunting. I'm not going to name them, because that would be tacky and I'm not tacky, but I will say that if you had told me during my years of dismal failure to get published, that one day I would chair an AGM at which Margaret Drabble would be a guest, I would have said you were delusional. I am sure that the last thing she really wants to do on a sunny day in the book festival is listen to me witter on, but she is. And I'm very grateful to her.

On the subject of other events - please, someone, come to any of mine. Any. Anyone. Please don't let me be there on the stage whistling into thin air. I'll be grateful for ever. I won't list them here but you'll find them on the book festival website, and the two I'm chairing are Writing in a Recession and Monkeys + Type-writers. If for no other reason, come to see what shoes I'm wearing. This is always good for a laugh. In fact, one of my abiding festival memories is of chairing Marion Keyes, with TV cameras, and of her asking the audience to give a round of applause to my shoes. Heaven without chocolate or sparkly wine - I never thought it possible.


Meanwhile, I will leave you with one final image - my sitting-room at the moment, thanks to the generosity of many companies who have donated gifts for our goody bags. Shown here are 200 gifts from Borders, Waverley Books, the Writer's Handbook and the Society of Authors. And this picture doesn't even show the Starbucks, Highland Park, Orkney Fudge and Times / Sunday Times and Strident Publishing contributions. Thank you all, lovely people.


With all respect to my lovely colleagues in the Society of Authors in Scotland, I'm really looking forward to getting my life and my sitting-room back.