NYC/NJ Trip Report

I'm back from my NYC/NJ adventure. I had sooo much fun!

To recap: I took a train into the city Tuesday night and hung out with my friend down in the East Village. Then Weds I went to Dorchester where I worked with my editor to finalize revisions on A Hoboken Hipster in Sherwood Forest, my February book. Then I met up with my partner in crime, Liz Maverick, at our hotel (a great little Comfort Inn in Hell's Kitchen which, despite the name, is really a cool area.) We went out for sushi in midtown at a place called Blue Fin in the W Hotel. Good stuff.

On Thursday, Liz and I went back to Dorchester to have lunch with the head of sales, head of publicity and our editor Chris to talk about all the fabulous plans they have in store for the launch of the new Shomi line. Liz is doing book #1 in the launch (WIRED) and I'm doing #2 (MOONGAZER). I'm so excited about this project because 1) It's a very cool, different style of book for me to be writing and 2) it's part of a launch so there's all sorts of special promotion attached that a midlist writer like me doesn't normally get. I can't wait! Of course this means very tight writing deadlines, but I know I can do it. I can't wait to see the manga-inspired covers, too.

Thursday night was Dorch author night. Liz, Jade Lee, Cindy Holby and I went down to Greenwich Village to eat at a former speakeasy called Chumley's. Then we found a terrific Italian bakery nearby where we pretty much ordered everything in the case and drank cappaccino. Mmmm... delicious!!!

On Friday we headed down to the NJ RWA conference. It was a lot of fun. This is the 4th year I've gone to this conference and I always have a good time. We went to a great plotting workshop by Bob Mayer which was both inspiring and scary. Then Liz won an award for her book Crimson Rogue. I also got to see lots of my writer buddies - including Alesia Holliday and Barb Ferrier and Nadia Cornier. It's so not fair that I don't get to see these people on an everyday basis.

Saturday night I came back into the city to hang with friends and Sunday I went home. Now I'm back to reality with all sorts of crazy deadlines, but at least I had a really fun week!!

Marianne