Personal appearances, and how I decided to embrace positivity.

I really haven’t been blogging enough, have I, considering I’ve got a book out. But, you know what? If I’m going to write any more than 500 words anywhere, I just feel I ought to be paid for it. That’s not the spirit of web 2.0, is it?

So, I’ve been getting my face around a bit in the last week. Last Friday I went on Little Atoms, the Resonance FM show that’s about to hit its 100th episode. That makes me feel a bit of a lightweight, as we ‘only’ managed 37 episodes of Midnight Sex Talk. But it was good to have a chat with someone who’s given the issues in Cleaning Up some proper thought. (Podcast available soon). We covered all sorts in a half hour that flashed past. I’d have loved to have gone on for another half hour at least, but the schedule demanded a couple of tranches of static blurts, Resonance stylee, and it would have been bad form to talk over them.

One issue that emerged was what it’s like to be a young woman. I can remember endless attempts to make conversations with me in the street or on the tube, and at work being either patronised or having some guy try and get into my knickers. I don’t wish I was 20 again for all the tea in China. And as for 15, christ.

Neil Denny, the Little Atoms presenter, very kindly took me for supper round the corner, so I didn’t have much time to fill before my next date with Tim Shaw at Absolute Radio. Thanks to Suzanne Portnoy for putting me their way – I have to confess that it was only on the day of the show that I realised it was Virgin Radio, and not something sponsored by a vodka company. It has 200,000 listeners, apparently, so it would have been rude to turn it down.

I requested a chocolate rider, and Roque, the producer, went way beyond my expectations with four large Green & Blacks and a box of biscuits. I must admit I’d been slightly dreading it, as I was expecting to be hauled over the coals, but it was a charming and gentle three-hour affair with Mr Shaw, with a young man dressed only in his underpants and some other nice people, and a pretty glamour model who kept disappearing to the loo and who said some quite interesting and positive things about Robbie Williams, some of which had to be censored.

On Tuesday I did a phoner with a honey-voiced journalist from Radio Kerry.

On Wednesday I went to The Middle Space, where the topic of discussion was ‘Whiteness’. It was very fast moving and intellectual and chaired by the super-bright Faisal Al Yafai. This doesn’t really count as a personal appearance, on my part anyway, as I didn’t say a single word. It made me realise that I don’t think about the world in an intellectual way a lot of the time. I prefer human stories, of which there were several interesting ones, but by the time I’d formed my thoughts, the discussion had raged onwards. I’ll sneak some caffeine next time and jump in.

On Thursday I did the gig with Sally Brampton at Waterstones Notting Hill, which is becoming quite a cultural salon without any poncey overtones. (Great article by Sally about depression here). It was well attended, but it was quite draining sitting in front of an audience talking about the various ups and downs, let’s say, in my life, and how hard it was to get help from the NHS. I think Sally felt the same. There were clearly some past and present service users in the audience, and plenty of nods and knowing laughs at various points in the discourse.

One of the final audience questions was about which books we could recommend, and we both made suggestions. And that was where I had an epiphany. Over the past god knows how long, I’ve been watching violent telly (CSI, serial killer dramas etc), and reading violent crime thrillers (murder/autopsy books etc), and I think it’s time to stop. I almost never watch comedy. The idea of it just bores me, and I laugh a lot anyway. But I think that has to change. The society we live in is a very cruel and heartless one, and that’s even before you bring violence into the equation. There’s no point in heaping this stuff on yourself as well.

After the gig I felt slightly on a downward spiral, in a sense of ‘Is that it?’ – about my whole life rather than just the gig ending. That’s no way to live. So, from now on (OK, when I’ve finished my current Tess Gerritsen) I’m going to try to fill my head with positive and forward looking things.

Note: However, if anyone catches me turning into the kind of foolish, arrogant positive-thinking wonk that I’ve parodied in all my books at various points, you’re allowed to smother me to death with an entire truckload of The Road Less Travelleds.