goodnight, New York

Because we live in the future, I am writing and posting this while on a bus between New York and Boston. We just sat immobile in Connecticut for about 20 minutes, no big deal, but at least the internet never went out.

My weekend lurking at SCBWI was absolutely fantastic. My friends are brilliant and hilarious, and I met a ton of new people and had so many great conversations. I even got a good few hours of work done in the hotel bar. Just a wonderful experience overall.

The biggest thing that happens for me at SCBWI, always, is that I leave so inspired to become part of the industry. This time was no different. I want to go home and finish revising and send out queries, like, this week. (I’m not even halfway done revising. It won’t be this week.) Being around that much creative energy, that many people who love the same things I do, is incredibly inspiring. I can’t speak for the conference, because I have still never attended, but the energy in the air is worth the trip for me.

A few notes on venues for anyone going to New York:

The Wheeltapper Pub, on East 44th between Lexington and 3rd, is a great little bar. The service there both nights was great, and it’s not terribly expensive. Comparable to Boston prices, at least. I love me a good Irish pub, and I highly recommend this one.

But I cannot recommend the Grant Hyatt hotel at all, especially if your plans involve sitting in the bar/restaurant for any length of time (which were, basically, my plans entirely). With the exception of one exemplary waitress, every single staff member interaction in the hotel was unpleasant. The building is okay (although let’s not talk about the giant head statues in the lobby) but the service at the place is dreadful. I’m not particularly hard to please, but I was unimpressed.

However, I wasn’t in New York for housekeepers and waiters to be nice to me, I was there for friends and fun and fabulosity, and I got those in abundance. A great, great weekend—now I just hope I get home sometime this weekend.

off on adventures

By the time you read this, I will be on a bus. GREETINGS, FUTURE-PEOPLE.

Anyway. I’m heading to the SCBWI winter conference in New York City. Not actually attending the conference, but a bunch of my friends will be there and since NY is basically right next door to me I really have no excuse not to go.

So! If you’re there say hey! I’ll be practicing my skulking.

boldly going west

SO HI.

I went away on vacation and my brain forgot to come back. Sorry bout that. But I’m here now! With updates!

So. In the week+ since last we met, these things have happened:

1. Sunburn.
Ooooh sunburn. I spent an entire day by the hotel pool having people bring me drinks with umbrellas and pink bits in them, which was lovely, but I didn’t pack sunscreen. Oops. Oh well. I’m sexy-tan now.

2. Madame Tussaud’s.
Lots of fun! Observe:

(Guess which one is me.)

Also, YES PLEASE:

We also wandered around… that place where there are all the cement handprints… and stuff…

I know, right? (That extra foot belongs to the lovely Hannah Moskowitz, my partner in crime on these adventures.)

3. IT’S ITS.
Omg. I can’t even. Like.

An It’s It is an ice cream sandwich, vanilla between two oatmeal cookies, dipped in chocolate. They were a sometimes-treat when I was a kid living in CA, and I didn’t realized until I moved away that they are a WEST-COAST EXCLUSIVE.

So the first thing I did upon returning to the left coast—buy me some It’s Its and eat them all up. NOM NOM NOM. (And of course I had to take some really immature photos to send to the kidbro.)

4. SCBWI
The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrator’s conference was the main reason I was out there—not to attend, but because all of my friends were attending. (I am using the measurement “all” very loosely here.) I did crash one panel and one party, but other than that I just hung out. I did manage to meet some cool people, though, and have some simply wonderful conversations about writing and publishing and reading and whatnot. Cindy and Suz included me in their documentation of the conference, if you go want to play Where’s Waldo in their pictures. (warning: Cindy’s post also contains a lot of food pics that will make your mouth water excessively.) If I missed anyone else’s pics, let me know!

5. MuserTOWN
After the conference, my friends and I all roadtripped down to Long Beach for a fun reading of our books/works-in-progress. I read from Bethany Griffin‘s Handcuffs since she couldn’t make it. There was also an EPIC GAME of Zombie Tag, which was videotaped. Stay tuned. There may be footage of me screaming for brains. (And thanks to Scott and Sonia for showing up! Awesome surprise.)

6. MST3K
Lots and lots of MST3K.

Because really, what better way to cap off a perfect vacation?

And now I’m home and thinking of getting a kitten. Because. KITTEN. Hello.

brilliant title of brilliantness

Apparently my complete exhaustion this morning meant I didn’t actually post that last post properly. But it’s there now!

Me?

I’m currently somewhere over Kansas and/or Oklahoma (the airplane map is kind of hard to read). Internet at 40,000 feet! I love the modern age.

I’m cold because I forgot to pack anything warm and I’m hungry because I forgot to pack food, but I got a couple of hours of ouchy-neck airplane sleep, so I’m not quite as sleepy nuts.

I probably won’t post much in LA. Or I’ll post, like, every day—who knows. But I’ll be around. My phone is not what one would call smart so my LA adventures won’t be tweeted very much, but I’ll have interwebs. So you won’t have to miss me too much.

peace out, pretty kitties

off to LA

After a 3-hour delay that is a story unto itself, I finally got home from my business trip to DC, landing in Boston at 10:30 last night. I returned to the lovely Logan International Airport at 5:30 this morning for my flight to LA (that’s 7 hours turnaround, for those of you keeping track). I am tired, I am cranky, the Virgin air people have already pissed me off, and it looks like I’m in a middle seat.

BUT.

I am on my way to LA! Hope to see you there!

UPDATE:

because I know you all care

I have found some nicer Virgin people and my seat has improved.

However, there is now a howling child in my boarding area.

aaaahhhhhhh

are you going to be in LA next week?

If so, you should come to this:

Also if you are there and you win Rae’s book I am going to be SUPER JEALOUS.

Also you know this event is legit because HELLO SPACECAT.

why you need to bring your spatula to SCBWI

Are you going to SCBWI?

Are you packing a spatula?

This weekend, at SCBWI’s Summer Conference, there is going to be some EPIC ZOMBIE TAG happening, and you need a spatula to participate. Don’t know what I’m talking about? You obviously don’t follow Hannah Moskowitz. She recently sold her first MG novel, ZOMBIE TAG, to Roaring Brook Press, and a key part of this book is a game called—are you keeping up here?—zombie tag.

Which all the cool kids will be playing at SCBWI. I don’t have details, but I know it’s going to happen. And you want to be there.

So bring your spatula and stay tuned. It’s going to be AMAZING.

Hannah outlines the rules of zombie tag in this post, but here are some of the basics:

For the best game of Zombie Tag, you need somewhere between 8 and 15 people. More or less can work, depending on the size of the house. Wil, the main character in Zombie Tag, plays with closer to 6 people, because his parents would never let eight kids in their house at once.

This game is played at night, in the dark.

–Your objective is: If you are a zombie, turn everyone else into a zombie. If you are a human, escape the house.

–If you are the victim of an attempted zombie attack, you have four ways to escape:

1) Fight him off with your spatula. Zombies are terrified of spatulas.

2) Hit him on the top of his head with the flat of your hand (gently, please) which is a zombie paralysis move that will freeze the zombie for ten seconds, allowing you to make an escape.

3) Run. Be warned, however: Zombies possess super speed.

4) Remember your BARRICADE post-it? [you don't because I cut that part out, go read the full rules] Slap it on a door and hide in a room. The zombie, upon encountering a barricaded door, must bang on it for thirty seconds to break the barricade before he can enter. This should give you time to find the key if it is hidden in this room, at which point you will need to find an alternate route or fight the zombie long enough to sprint to the door. Or, if the key is not in the room, it is enough time for you to call your mother and tell her you love her.

–If you are bitten, you become a zombie. But all is not lost! You now begin hunting the others with your zombie compatriots. And you win if everyone is a zombie at the end.

–If you are a human and you find the key, run like hell towards the front door. If you escape, you win! You are now the only hope for humanity.

You know you want to be there. See you in LA!

my favorite fuzzybeasts & upcoming events in gracetopia

Sunday in Gracetopia, and we’re lounging around in the a/c, reading, with our two favorite little beasties (and we’re not sure why this sentence is in the plural):

That’s Wednesday the Cat on the left and Roommate’s sleepyfaced pup on the right, and my big feet on the far right.

This is going to be my last calm day for a while, so I’m savoring every minute. This week I’m going to DC for work for a few days, which then leads straight into VACATION WOO! My work flight lands in Boston at 8pm and my vacation flight leaves Boston at 7am the next day—with the first episode of a NEW PROJECT RUNWAY SEASON in between—so THAT will be a fun 12 hours. But then vacation! I’m meeting up with a bunch of my friends in LA, and I don’t think the city’s prepared for how awesome we are.

Why LA? you may be asking. (Or not, but I’m answering anyway.) SCBWI! That’s Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, for those of you playing at home, and their annual summer conference is happening next weekend. I’m not attending the conference itself, but I’m going to go hang with my friends who are going. Expect pictures! If I’m not too busy lying on the beach. (It’s a hard life I have, I know.)

So yeah. This is my last day to myself for a while, so I’m just going to sit here with the pets and drink some wine if the bugs would be kind enough to stop kamikaze-ing into my glass, and read Chew, which I highly recommend, and write a bit, which I also highly recommend.

And here’s one more fuzzybeast picture because AWWW:

Peace out.

New York + SCBWI + Suzanne and Sophie = Win

So let’s see if I can adequately describe this weekend I had.

First, a reminder: Enter to win Suzanne Young’s debut, THE NAUGHTY LIST! I was with her at her first signing yesterday, at the SCBWI conference in New York, and the book SOLD OUT. Here’s a pic of Suz IN ACTION:

I’ll be drawing a name Wednesday night. (I don’t remember what day I said in the original post, but I am hereby declaring it to be Wednesday.)

So yes, SCBWI.

It was everything I could have hoped for and more. First, Sophie and I prepared for our big surprise entrance—Naughty List shirts! We didn’t quite bring Suzanne to tears (which was my ultimate evil goal) but I like to think we came close. Here we are with our shiny new signed copies:

(btw, I am blatantly stealing all these picture’s from Suzanne’s blog—check it out!)

So we spent the first day hanging around with Suz while she did her awesome conference blogger thing. Afterwards, Soph and I hiked back to our hotel through the bitter bitter cold, stopping partway to enjoy some classic NY diner food. Yummmm.

Sunday was just me, because Sophie had to go home to “go to school” or some BS like that. I spent the afternoon with Suz while she did her first ever book signing. People loved her! And there were so many who were so upset when the book was gone. THEN, I ended up at lunch with some truly fantastic people who I am going to keep anonymous so I don’t feel like a name-dropping heel. But wow, I felt like a rockstar.

Unfortunately, come mid-afternoon it was time to catch the sketchy Chinatown bus home. Nobody was having phone sex this time, so it was a much more enjoyable ride than the last time I took Lucky Star to New York. (At least, for me.)

So. A couple of things I took away from SCBWI:

1. I want to be a writer. The conference basically reignited my desire. Being around writers and industry people in general is always a good spark, but I think this time it just made it… tangible? somehow. Like, oh yeah, THIS is the dream you’re shooting for, Grace. It is real, it doesn’t just happen to people in the movies.

2. The authors I had lunch with gave me some reassuring words about heavy subject matter in YA fiction, and I was just generally encouraged to keep going. It was wonderful.

3. I really want to go to SCBWI LA. Can I afford this? Probably not. Can I dream? Yes.

So, thank you to everyone I met who was so awesome, especially to Suzanne. I had a truly fantastic weekend.

(P.S. Here’s the official SCBWI blog if you want the real low-down.)