3 for 2! My editor at Waddling Duck just rang with the news that I have made it onto the 3 for 2 table at Waterstone's. I'm ecstatic. I'm going to have a sticker! It's really happening.
'They'll probably slap it right over your name, though,' says one of the Pedants, helpfully - I think, but since nobody can pronounce my name surely that can only be a good thing.
I call a friend to enthuse: 'Guess what! '
'What?' (She's not very enthusiastic.)
'I got a 3 for 2.'
'So what did you buy?'
'No, I didn't buy anything, it's for my book. It's going to be on the table at Waterstone's .'
'What book? Is it out?' (A friend, did I say?)
'No, not till February.'
'And it's already doing badly?'
'No - I just told you, it isn't even out yet.' (Defensively, as ego deflates like old Hallowe'en party balloon still hanging from the kitchen ceiling at Christmas.)
'I thought they only slung the books that weren't doing well on those tables, you know to get rid of the slow ones.'(Heart on table, knife through it.)
'Actually, no, it's very hard to get a sticker. It's a really, really good thing.' (It is, isn't it?)
'Well if you say so.' (I hate this person.)
'It is, look, when you go into a bookshop, where do you go to find a book?'
'I don't. Buy books, I mean. Hardly ever go into a bookshop. I use Amazon.' (I really hate this person.)
'But when you do...?'
(Reluctantly) '...I go to the tables.'
'You see! And so there I'll be, 3 for 2!'
'But I always get annoyed when I see that because I don't want 3 for 2, I just want one.'
'And I only read non fiction.'
I give up. Somehow I don't think that my book was ever going to bought by this person. I only hope she isn't representative of my 3 and 1/2 friends . I'm going to be lucky to be the make-up the numbers book - the third you pick up after half an hour reading the back of all the others. I know that feeling. I am that person. I love the 3 for 2 and I do chose a book by its cover. I'm averse to anything with a cartoon handbag, don't much like the heroine to be Scottish (competition) or Irish (look - some people can't tell the difference) and am particularly fond of the whole dock stretching out into a calm blue expanse of water, sand dunes, high reeds, New England seascape, lake in Maine, Seattle, outer banks, 'Mary-Lou/Taylor/Alice is a woman with a secret in her past' sort of thing.
And, dear God, isn't the world of fiction simply flooded with secrets not-so-buried in the past? Are there really that many ruddy secrets? Who can keep their mouth shut that long? I am the mother who told her children there was no Santa before they'd even worked it out for themselves.
My book, of course is nothing like that. No sea. No dock. No North Carolina shore. And the heroine? Running from a secret in her past?
Positively sprinting, darling.
