Adventures with Neil

I am very psyched to share about my trip this last weekend to Atlanta to see Neil Gaiman on his last U.S. book signing tour. This was my second time being in the physical presence of my favorite author. The first was in 2011 at World Fantasy Con in San Diego, which you can read about here.

The adventure started out by picking up my friends Ann Marie and her boyfriend Lee and driving five hours from Florida to ATL. We got to the site of the event, a small women's college, about three hours before Neil was scheduled to talk and went to grab something to eat. When we got back like thirty minutes later, there were hundreds of people in line ahead of us. We had to wait in the blazing sun for over an hour to pick up our tickets, but it was a very pretty and magical looking ticket indeed:

 

After that, we had to get in the longest line I've ever seen, which spanned like half the campus, to wait to get into the building. This is the line when we got to the back (though it's missing about thirty people on the left side), and what you can see below is only about a fifth of the whole thing. Can you see how far it stretches into the distance???

 

 

We finally got in and sat in the balcony at the back of a large auditorium. Neil spoke at about 7:30 and as usual was smart and charming and super cool. He read from Ocean at the End of the Lane and then had a brief Q&A, though he refused to answer more than three Dr. Who questions. My favorite answer? When asked how he approached a writing project, he said, "I just sidle up next to it and say Hullo."

 

This is the gorgeous building we were in:

 

 

After Neil spoke the serious waiting began. We had about six hundred people ahead of us to get our books signed. Finally, after midnight and eight hours of waiting total (eight!), we got our books signed. And it was totally worth it. Neil was so friendly and made a point to talk to everyone even though he'd been signing for hours. He said he liked my shirt, which just about made me giggle like a school girl, and I asked him about something he'd said he was working on when I saw him in 2011, and then we were through and it was over, and I didn't regret one bit of the waiting.

 

Here is a pic of me and Neil, with most of my makeup melted off from waiting in the Georgia heat and a beam of light cutting across my head:

 

 

Silly as it sounds, I feel changed every time I see Neil. It solidifies my aspirations as a writer, and helps me dream of the future. I want to be the cool author with an eight hour line. I want to travel the world and make good art and inspire others. I want to free the imagination of countless readers and change how they see the world every time they pick up one of my books.

 

So, yeah. It was a pretty rad weekend :)

 

**Update** LOL, I just read my old WFC 2011 post where I talk about waiting ONE WHOLE HOUR to get Neil to sign my book. Oh, perspective...

 





My Ubiquitous - but Sparkly and Awesome - New Year's Post

I love sitting down on New Year’s Eve or Day and thinking about the year retrospectively, as well as the year ahead. Why do we do this? I don’t know. Maybe because it’s kind of cathartic to look at two big chunks of time simultaneously – the faded past, the hopeful future – and reflect. I’m the queen of reflecting and analyzing and planning, so a NYE post is perfect for that.

And blogging is actually perfect for looking back on your year because you’ve written down all the important stuff.  So that’s what I did before I started writing this. I looked back and read through many of my 47 blog posts from 2012 and had fun letting the year unravel before me. The first few months of 2012 were occupied with editing Martinis with the Devil, and then me and hubs went to Italy in March (click here for lots of pretty pics). After that I started querying, and got zero agent responses – vamps really are a tough sell now. I think it’s a terrific book, but I was able to let it go, because in May (May 7^th to be exact) I started Everdream, which has an incredibly unique premise. With hopes that it could be “the one” I was willing to let Martinis go on the back burner while I worked on Everdream. In July I got a big promotion at my day job, so that was very exciting (Oh, and I turned 30. Not quite as fun). And this fall has been filled with writing contests and editing Everdream. I made it into GUTGAA with Everdream, made it into the semi-finals of Write Club with Martinis, and got chosen by the mentor I wanted for Pitch Wars (with Everdream). That last one is still unfolding – I got awesome feedback from my mentor on the whole manuscript, and just finished those edits. The agent round is at the end of January.  So, all in all a very exciting year. I didn’t get to my last writing goal, which is to completely rewrite Countless, my first book, from third to first person. I started playing around with it, but Pitch Wars took precedent. Oh, and random aside, this is probably my fave post that I wrote in 2012.

So, looking ahead to 2013. I find myself in an odd place for writing goals this upcoming year, because they all depend on factors that are somewhat beyond my control at the moment. So, I’ll just talk about what I would like to happen, and what could subsequently happen after that. I’d like to find the perfect agent for my writing career early in 2013. I need someone who represents and loves both my middle grade work and my adult urban fantasy stuff. They are kind of night and day, so this person will need to be as ying-yang/multi-faceted as me to enjoy both. If I find this agent and this agent finds a publisher for both Everdream and Martinis, my main goal for 2013 is probably going to be writing the second book for both of those series. I have the second books for both loosely plotted in my head. I would also like to work on revamping Countless when I have time. I’ll be optimistic and not write about Plan B (not finding an agent). I already wrote about that in this post, so no need to repeat myself. Other goals: read more and develop better timelines for editing (blog posts to come on that topic). Learn to live in the present moment. Focus on gratitude. Train my horse. Travel somewhere awesome. Keep exercising regularly and even more. Dance. Sing. Enjoy the beauty of life.

Wow, so I’ve written a pretty long blog post. I usually try not to do those, since we all have lots of stuff to read and do. But anyways, let me know in the comments if you’ve written a New Year’s post and I’ll totally come read your long introspective retelling of 2012 J Happy New Year everyone!! I love this writing community, and I’m super thankful for you all as we head into 2013. Let me know what your plans are! 

Funny memories

So, while mowing the lawn yesterday (yes, I'm one of those people), I suddenly remembered something that made me laugh out loud (although the atrocious sounds of the lawnmower covered the sound). When I was about eight or ten years old, I used to get Ranger Rick, a kids magazine about nature and conservatism. Each issue had a fictional story with forest animals, along with educational articles. Anyways, I decided at one point to write a story about saving sea creatures that live in tidepools. I went so far as to type it up and send it in. And so it was that I received my first rejection letter, the bane of probably every writer in existence.

Looking back, I find it hilarious that I was so into not only writing, but getting published at such a young age. It was one of those memories that I had nearly forgotten, but it was oddly inspiring, though they turned me down. If I can be so persistent at that age, and still love to write a couple decades later, that means something, right? I did end up getting some magazine articles published a few years ago, so at least I have had a small taste of not getting rejected. Here's to perseverance and fulfilling life long dreams!