Summer Review

Oh, dear readers, are any of you left after the summer of plane hopping and amusement parks and revisions and eye infections?  I owe you many wrap ups from many events, but I'm going to condense them into a greatest hits.

BEA - Also, known as my week eating too much pizza but still losing 5 lbs.  Score.

What can I say about BEA?  It was like the start of summer party, the graduation night where everyone is excited and eager and about to have that one amazing summer where your life goes from that to this.  I met so many fellow authors and bloggers.  Margot Wood brought me a copy of her Crewel photo.  I discovered Sarah J. Maas is the spitting image of Jennifer Lawrence — and also a hell of a lot of fun.  I had too much wine at the West boys' rooftop party.  And I basically was Barney Stinson for a night thanks to the wild Zoraida Cordova.  There's a night that will live in infamy.

And yes there was this.



And this.

My first signing - and people came!

 

ALA Annual in Anaheim - or, the trip with Splash Mountain

ALA was memorable for three things.  One, I loved the pace of the convention.  People were respectful, but laid back.  It was all about books in the best sense.  Two, Jessica Khoury (whose debut ORIGIN comes out so soon!) and I went to Disneyland. The decision went something like this:

Scene: 10:30 pm on a Saturday night.  I have sneaked into her Disney property hotel through the covert means of a cab.

Jess: What do you want to do?  Disney closes soon...

Me: I sort of still want to go, because you know it's Disneyland and we can.

Jess: Oh good, me too.

I mean, yeah, we only had like an hour and a half.  But it's Disney-freaking-land.  Then I made a crack that went something like "I just wrote a YA novel, I'm going to Disneyland!" And then Jess made me feel old by sort of blinking at the reference.   Ugh, prodigies.

The infamous Splash Mountain photo

Also, I'm going to say it, it's time to let go of some of the animatronics, Disney.

And then on the ALA floor someone recognized me, and I was flustered and was like "Me?  Do I know you?" Which I think sounded bitchy, but really I was just confused because why would anyone know me?  Surreal!

Comic-Con International - or OMG, is everyone here a psychic vampire preying on my life force?

Seriously, I can walk a floor for hours and gab, flit from event to event.  Maybe it was the early flight, and 20 hour first day or having my husband with me, but after a few hours at CCI, I was exhausted.  Also I saw no movieish celebs, but met lots of literary rockstars.  My panel was full of them and, dear readers, I was so shaky the first few times I answered a question.  I'm not usually the nervous type.

Hungry for Dystopia Panel

Then there was the total fail Kayak Adventure, and Sarah and Sooz's fun with Stormtroopers.  Oh, and btw, for all the nerdy goodness going on at teh convention center, the night I snuck out with Sarah and Sooz was the most fun I had.  It's always a wonderful moment when you realize you've met two kindred spirits!

And now I have a travel break until September.  I've loved, loved, loved my summer, but I'm quite happy to be back on the ground.