weddings, parties, anything

right now i'm waiting for a courier to bring me the final proofs. i have a list of things i need to check and double-check, and some threads that need to be tied and trimmed. today i get to start playing with my pages for the last time. i am also looking forward to seeing how my additions/deletions from the first round of proofs went. then after this is all done, of it goes to the printers ti be turned into a real book, then i can start writing new stuff again. some characters i created a while ago have gotten so bored waiting for me to write them that they've started talking to each other - which is a little weird, but i don't mind because i've been eavesdropping. sounds crazy but is actually true - i've been getting snippets of their interactions, their surroundings, their social lives - the results could be interesting. I’m finding that any times where i'm not actually putting words down can be excellent character background development times. i think maybe it's like a writing equivalent of the old saying 'a watched pot never boils'.

anyhoo. my publicist (yes, i now have one of those) sent me a draft of a press release for 'the bollywood beauty' earlier this week and i opened it at work. i laughed my head off when i read the line 'shalini akhil is available for interview'. well, aren't we special (and a tad desperate-sounding - it's a little 'weddings, parties, anything', don't you think?). anyway, it will be interesting to see if anyone takes me up on that offer, and also if i get misquoted. i was speaking to a lecturer at uni about interviews and publicity. she wrote a memoir last year and did a fair bit of publicity, and told me that one paper in melbourne (no prizes for guessing which one) interviewed her, then just decided to make up its own quotes for the article. she also recently got interviewed by a women's magazine for an article about grief, and found it amusing that next to her words, they ran a picture of a sad-looking model.well, here we go then. i'm looking forward to seeing pictures of stunning, indian-looking models propping up my words all over the place - quoted or misquoted, i don't mind - as long as the models are hot.