Three things I learned about work, rest, and play during a book launch
HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY is six months old! In today’s newsletter: three things I learned during the most intense part of the launch; new podcast and radio interviews; upcoming virtual and in-person events; and a book recommendation: a cosy murder mystery by Brandy Schillace!
Some things I learned along the way about work, play, and rest
In the Paddington Bear books, bears have two birthdays a year. Methinks books, too, should have two birthdays a year, at least until they turn one. Six months after HUMANS came out in the US, I’m looking back on the whirlwind months running up to and following Pub Day: final scraps of research, completing page proofs, checking the index, writing a forest of emails to set up the spring book tour, writing and giving in-person and virtual talks, being on the road, meeting old friends and making new ones, podcasts, radio interviews, social media posting, and making it to today with my skin intact. Some thoughts that have stayed with me:
Time is finite, so beware of mission creep.
I learned to pick things that I was willing and able to do to get the word out about the book, and to try not to worry about the rest. Just because my febrile brain can think up a new publicity activity or be inspired by a fun thing that someone else does doesn’t mean that that activity should become a line item on my own to-do list. Things on that list cast passive-aggressive stares of “you haven’t done me yet” until and unless I do them. Because, believe me, that’s a to-do list that’s infinite.
But a task doesn’t need to be done yesterday; publicity efforts don’t need to all happen at once. I’m going to have monster-related things to say and write about for some time to come.
If it’s out of my control, I try not to feel meh about it.
HUMANS came out on February 4. Looking back on the state of the world every Feb. 4 since 2020 it’s clear how much is unpredictable in the timing - and therefore in the fate of - a book. On February 4 2020, my book proposal was with literary agents. Most people didn’t know that a pandemic had begun.
The news cycle over the ensuing five years shaped the sales and launch logistics of many books: cancelled book tours; spikes and troughs in public interest in topics; changing budgets and priorities of readers and of institutions like libraries and universities.
The state of the world also affects the sales of books published years previously. In the past five years, some books became timely seemingly out of the blue (like Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass; Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps The Score).
You can’t plan for that! The best you can do is to think up a book that seems medium-term timely in a cyclical way (since humanity is, alas, great at not learning from the past) or write a response/memoir to a news cycle thing in a matter of weeks. The later is probably only feasible if you happen to know a lot about said thing already and have other ducks in a row, like already being an agented and published author.
Then there are the unpredictables, uncontrollables, and unknowns in media and publishing. The amount of space for book reviews in newspapers and magazines has shrunk. Many publications have folded. Others are functioning under the thumb of billionaire owners who interfere with editorial decisions.
The book review columns that remain have an ever-increasing number of books to choose from. There’s only so much an author or a publisher can do when the space for reviews is finite. And editors and editorial priorities change.
Being pleased about the press coverage and opportunities that happen, and focusing on what I can do to get the word out to folks who might love HUMANS or even review it, is a lot more fun (and effective) than brooding about what nice things didn’t happen, or the things I tried to line up but that haven’t (as yet) happened.
And hey, Halloween is less than three months away, so who knows what may be slated to come out then…
Rest, rest, rest - and start early.
Not so long ago, I could switch off properly when I took time off. Working on my previous book while living in Washington, DC in 2014-15, weekends were so deeply dedicated to resting that I didn’t even do the grocery shopping on them. Instead, I put a lot of energy into playing as hard as I could.
I attended tons of concerts. There were free ones daily at the Kennedy Center. One of my fellow Fellows at the Library of Congress was an Italian composer, conductor, and musicologist (who reads this newsletter!) whose friendliness and earnestness meant people constantly gave him pairs of concert tickets. I made a resolution to never turn down a free concert ticket, a resolution I almost never broke. Those concerts, and having people with whom to attend them, were such a gift (grazie, EC!).
DC is also the home of endless free museums, safe and gorgeous streets with sidewalks, and a wonderfully flat, soft, and sociable place to run: The National Mall. I learned that, if it wasn’t swamp-seasonly hot or ice-stormingly cold, you could head west from The Folger Shakespeare Library in the afternoon and run backwards some of the time (exercising different muscles). The shadows on the straight, sandy paths would help you avoid bumping into people.
Fastfoward to 2023. Now the continuum from work to play was so smooth that play felt a lot more like work, and vice versa. I might cook something fun for hours - while streaming an enthralling literary podcast like David Naimon’s Between The Covers or (significantly more work-y) a marketing podcast about book launches or author platforms.
Depending on how hard I chose to think while listening to a podcast or reading, the same activity could be work or play.
It’s a luxury to do for work many of the sorts of things I would choose to do for fun, like reading, visiting museums, listening to podcasts and even watching Star Trek. But if I do them too effortfully, or do them while thinking about my own book or book promotion, that sabotages the fun, the rest, and ultimately the work. Staleness and tiredness are murder for creativity and good decision-making.
Turning the work-brain off became a lot harder to do once I get closer to the launch and in the months immediately afterward. I know for next time to rest early, rest regularly, and rest more intentionally (ha!) with the work brain off.
New recordings
On the Colin McEnroe Show, a Connecticut Public Radio programme about history, science, books, culture, and all things surprising, I was a guest alongside fellow historian of science Natalie Lawrence (author of ENCHANTED CREATURES: Our Monsters and Their Meanings) and children’s book author Margery Cuyler (STOMPIE THE ZOMBIE is out today).
We talked about Beowulf’s monster Grendel, Shakespeare’s Caliban, Star Trek, maps, a little hairy girl called Antoinette Gonsalvus, what children’s monsters reveal, and more. What a fun show it was to do - and it turns out that Colin McEnroe is also a Star Trek fan!
My segment on this episode starts at the 23-minute mark. The show is also available wherever you get your podcasts.
My intervew on the HPS podcast is also now available. I talked about my boomerang-like relationship with the history and philosophy of science and about HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY. If you’d like to read about my brush with actual science, you might check out my last newsletter.
Upcoming events
Edinburgh International Book Festival, Friday Aug 15, 13:30-14:30 - get your tickets here; tell your local(ish) friends!
Institute of Psychoanalysis, virtual lecture, September 16, 20:15-21:45 UK time (recording available for a week afterwards) - tickets here.
And a cosy murder mystery recommendation!
I loved historian of medicine Brandy Schillace’s THE DEAD COME TO STAY, her second novel about book editor Jo Jones’s zany, murder-mystery-filled life in Yorkshire, England. Jo, who happens to be autistic, is an American transplant who keeps getting mixed up in local murders. The funny, thoughtful characters I first met in Schillace’s THE FRAMED WOMEN OF ARDEMORE HOUSE are back.
In THE DEAD COME TO STAY we learn more about Jo’s extended historical family – the one whose past was mixed up in the murder in the previous book. There are also mind-blowing revelations about her more immediate, contemporary kin.
One of the joys of Schillace’s novels is experiencing the interior lives of Jo Jones as she amateur sleuthes her way through mysteries. Also sympathetic is detective MacAdams as he excavates the human dramas behind the murder.
There’s an exciting, unexpected (for me) contemporary twist at the core of the plot. This is a murder mystery set now, in contemporary Britain: not in the 1920s, not in Inspector Morse-Land. But what I loved the most is the funny, cosy style that makes everything feel safer. This book is a restful escape - despite the scrapes and murder.
I read THE DEAD COME TO STAY as a digital advance reader copy. My pre-ordered copy has now arrived. When I’m done with summer travels I’m going to re-read the first Netherleigh novel and then THE DEAD COME TO STAY in glorious hard copy!
You can also find me on www.surekhadavies.org,
BlueSky (@drsurekhadavies.bsky.social),
Instagram/Threads (@surekhadavies),
and LinkedIn (@surekhadavies-53711753/)