But I did....
I took one enormous gamble and went for it.... and that's why I've been so long in coming back to this blog.
It started innocently enough. My partner and I went for a drive in the Shropshire countryside and ended up at one of our very favourite spots, the tiny but picture-book perfect Whittington Castle. We sat by the lake and drowsed in the sunshine. The castle was advertising an event for the following weekend, a Fairy Festival. Within half an hour I had booked myself a place to promote The Last Changeling, a novel I had always thought of as being seriously anti-fairy. I call the malign beings in my story 'metahominids', (after all 'fairy' is such an 'airy fairy' nomenclature for what I have written of as seriously nasty beings, surely?).
The festival was a huge success and my book was eagerly taken up by just the kind of people I thought would have hated it - wing wearing fans of 'the fey.' I was taken aback to see that so many people like their fairies kick-ass rather than disneyfied, and it taught me a huge lesson. By being very precious in promoting the book as a novel for adults, I had avoided using the term 'fairies', and thus I had all but hidden my book from a potential legion of fans.
'D'oh!' as the great philosopher Homer, (Simpson), would say.
Well.... long story short, I caught the festival bug and decided to hold an event of my own in Llangollen. A very pretty town in North Wales that features a lot in The Last Changeling. My partner and I approached the Royal International Pavilion's very helpful staff, and asked when we could book this enormous site.
This is where the International Eisteddfod takes place every year. If you haven't heard of it, think of it like an Olympics for singing and poetry. People from across the planet rock up to the tiny town and compete to out-sing and out-recite one another. One of my personal highlights from this years' event was the parade. It got held up as it snaked through the town, and a delegation of very beautiful Chinese girls, all dressed in embroidered pink silks started singing a familiar song in Chinese. It was only when they got to the chorus 'Music. music. music', (which they sang in English), that I realised they were singing an old ragtime hit, 'Put another nickel in to the nickelodeon...!' Amazing!
But I digress... the Pavilion staff came up with a possible date for our festival, the 10th and 11th of August. This gave us around seven weeks to organise the event. Just us two. With no money. That is when my boss told me not to do it.
Yet the words of a very successful man, Richard Branson, came back to me. His philosophy is simple, 'Screw it! Let's do it!'
So we did.... we planned and cut wood, we created wonderful things, we painted and begged and borrowed.
And we didn't sleep, and we worked ourselves to a standstill.
And we came up with amazing ideas that could be created on a shoestring
We had a wonderful website built for free: llangollenfaeryfesti.wix.com/llangollenfaeryfesti
Against all the odds, the two day festival The Legendary Llangollen Faery Festival took place over the weekend of the 10th and 11th of August 2013, with a Grand Faery Ball where the grownups donned fairy finery and danced to the most amazing music on the evening of the 10th.
And bands came and played and sold their CD's to cover their costs and we had workshops and stalls and great food and the papers gave us amazing coverage and it was on the radio and everyone, but everyone had the greatest time - as did we - and everyone, but everyone has booked their stalls for what they demand will be an annual event and so we have to do it all over again next year... Phew!
It was the busiest, buzziest time I've had in a long time... and all because I've written a book about fairies!
