It’s off to Norway I go (OK, it doesn’t scan: give me a break)… Tomorrow I do my first ever publicity junket, and as if that’s not scary enough on its own merits, it’s going to be in Norwegian. So I’m spending a little time this evening trolling the internet translation sites (not least so I can see what Tiden have posted about me and the book on their website!) so I can at least manage ‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak any Norwegian at all, not a word. Except maybe “Fisk”.’ in my hosts’ native tongue. That’ll confuse everyone. Me included.
As you’ll know if you’re a long-term lurker here, I’m going to be spending most of the next two days getting to airports, waiting in airports, flying to other airports, waiting for connecting flights so I can fly to other airports and then wait for a train to get to a taxi rank to get to a hotel (and then do the whole thing in reverse about 20 hours later), and a lot of the time in between will be spent trying not to giggle nervously in front of the Norwegian national press and radio. I’m going to get ‘DON’T FIDGET!’ and ‘CALM DOWN POO-HEAD!’ written on the inside of my eyelids tonight in blue biro. That’ll teach me.
Meeting ones publishers for the first time (quoth he grandly) is something of a nerve-wracking experience. This isn’t due to anything scary about the publishers themselves – who have all been exceptionally nice, St Martin’s Press and Harper Collins both – but more the expectation that I’m going to make a complete and utter tit of myself in front of people I really, really need to impress. Which normally results in my trying too hard and making the aforementioned complete and utter nipple of myself. Though I think I’m getting a bit better at it now. Kinda...
Tomorrow I will be suave and sophisticated with an urbane line in self deprecating humour. I will not be nervous when interviewed on Norwegian national radio, or when someone sticks a camera up my nose and says “Sexy, gir meg sexy, ja, det er det, lager kjærlighet til fotoapparatet!”. I will not, in short, make a complete and utter tit of myself.
Oh who am I kidding...