In which Seanan spends the day working at Orbit, visits a circle of hell, and encounters bloggers.

[seanan_mcguire]

Monday dawned bright and (very, very) early, since DongWon had asked that I be at Orbit at nine a.m. to do some recording. Now, Orbit is located near Grand Central Station, which is very much Properly In Manhattan. I was staying in Jersey City, which is very much not Properly In Manhattan. It is, in fact, in a different state. As a California girl, this causes me a certain amount of existential confusion every time I need to go from one to the other very quickly, since I know, deep down in my soul, that it takes at least eight hours to go from one state to another. Such is the eternal divide between the East and West Coasts.

Since I needed to get to Orbit by nine, I got up at seven. This means that, on some level, I got up at four. There is a reason I occasionally demand love and caffeine from my editors. I am comfortable enough with Manhattan at this point that I was able to get myself to the office with a minimum of trouble (barring a brief "walking the wrong way up 6th Avenue" incident, and really, that could have happened to anyone), which is good, since I was carrying my laptop. Yes, the big orange one. Yes, the one that weighs as much as one of the cats. Why?

Because I was having dinner with The Agent and a few more of her clients that evening, which meant there was no way I was getting back to Jersey City. And if I was going to be at Orbit all day, I was damn well going to get some serious work done.

I beat DongWon to the office by almost twenty minutes, and was detained by security until he arrived. I am never letting him forget this. Never ever ever never. But! He did eventually show up, and we were able to get into the office, finally, where there were greetings and huggings, and presentations of really fancy chocolate (from me to the office, not from the office to me). I had time to inhale one doughnut and drink a bottle of Diet Dr Pepper, and then it was off to the recording studio, where a very nice engineer explained how a recording booth worked. Thanks, nice engineer! Nobody had bothered to tell him that I have three studio albums out. Sorry, nice engineer.

My first task: recording the audio book edition of "Apocalypse Scenario." Super-fun! I managed not to get too into it, but wow was I glad to have done voice work before. It was nice and smooth and lovely. I followed it with two different podcast recordings, all done in the same wee room. Everything was professional and well-orchestrated, and before I knew it, it was all over, and I was being settled at the only open desk in the office.

Cue working. Type type type. Type type type. I was supposed to have lunch with some friends who were also in New York for BEA; when they didn't answer their phones, I had lunch with DongWon and Devi (another Orbit editor) instead. We went to a seafood restaurant, where I ate mussels and potatoes and hot fudge sundae, om nom. DongWon had to run before we finished eating, leaving Davi and I to talk about him behind his back. Ha ha, DongWon. Ha, ha.

Back to the office; more working; more whining at my computer. I actually had to borrow copies of Feed and Deadline to use as reference material, since otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to verify the continuity of what I was writing. This is why it's good to write at your publisher's. They'll always have copies of the books you need on hand.

Eventually, the day ended. Poof. And I, being the sensible girl that I am, loaded up my tote bag with my laptop and all the books I had managed to collect over the course of the day and went hieing off to downtown to meet up with The Agent for dinner. She had directed me to a library, in an alley, in an unfamiliar part of the city. I assume this is because she wants to see whether I will survive being eaten by a Grue. I found the library, and felt very smug about it, right until I went inside, went down to the floor where the YA author event I was meeting her at was being held, and discovered that I had, in fact, descended to a very unpleasant and specialized CIRCLE OF HELL.

Seriously. What seemed like several hundred people (and may have been just fifty, I don't know, it was a CIRCLE OF HELL) were crammed into an itty-bitty space, creating an immense amount of heat and noise. And somewhere in all that chaos was my agent. I sought. I strove. I gave up.

Spotting a woman with a Diet Dr Pepper, I begged to know where it had come from, and damn near wept when informed that she had brought it with her. Then I discovered, much to my surprise, that she was actually a book blogger I know through her reviews. And then she took me to the secret cluster of book bloggers hiding from the heat near the elevators. Yay! Much joy and chatter and hugging followed, lasting until The Agent appeared, her new client Claire in tow, to whisk me away to a less hellish locale.

Did I attack the first gas station we passed like it was the Promised Land, coming away with a sack of Diet Dr Pepper? Yes. Yes, I did.

We had dinner at a lovely place near Waverly Place (still no wizards), where we ate bread and cheese and I had fish and eventually went downstairs and was horribly sick due to a fish bone sticking in my throat. Since I had not retained dinner, The Agent bought me a cupcake. Happy times. Claire was awesome, but I was tired, and BEA was the next morning, so I returned to New Jersey and slept. FOREVER.

Next: BEA and DAW. It's acronym day!

Comments

[starletfallen.livejournal.com]

It is, in fact, in a different state. As a California girl, this causes me a certain amount of existential confusion every time I need to go from one to the other very quickly, since I know, deep down in my soul, that it takes at least eight hours to go from one state to another. Such is the eternal divide between the East and West Coasts.

Having grown up on the West Coast, I had a similar problem when, while living on Long Island, one of my roommates gleefully announced we were going to go meet up with some friends in Pennsylvania. TWO WHOLE STATES AWAY. And we were making a day trip out of it. We didn't even have to leave before sunrise! It was deeply unnerving, let me tell you.

[kengr]

It helps if you've grown up or lived near the border. From Spokane, driving to Idaho was no big deal. Living in Portland, especially at my current location, I could *walk* across the border and back in a few hours.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

And if one lives in San Diego, traveling the distance between Jersey City and East Midtown can put you in another *COUNTRY*.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

I'm in Vancouver BC

I can drive to another COUNTRY in half an hour.

And frequently do so just to pick up mail.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Word.

[archangelbeth]

I grew up mostly in central Texas, and am now living in New England. The way states are jam-packed together up here, like counties, still boggles me, even after 20 years. (I am slowly becoming used to the way that there are little windy-twindy roads that look like you're at the back end of beyond, and then, suddenly, you're going through the center of some little town! It's like... trees, trees, trees, OH LOOK TOWN HALL! trees, trees trees.)

[starletfallen.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD I live in one of those little windy-twindy OH LOOK TOWN HALL areas. XD Hilariously, it's like "trees, trees, trees, OH LOOK TOWN HALL AND THREE DIFFERENT COLLEGES! trees, trees, lake, trees..."

[archangelbeth]

I'm currently living in an area that, near as I can tell, is "trees trees trees OH, LOOK, MAJOR BUSINESS AND TURNPIKE! trees trees trees MAIN STREET!"

Heck, going down the turnpike, it's all "middle of nowhere, trees, NO WAIT THERE'S A CITY BEHIND THEM!"

It's kinda cool, though the "grew up in central Texas" part of me tends to go, "But... I should see city coming for miles away!" *snicker*

[starletfallen.livejournal.com]

Arizona's like that, too. THERE ARE NO TREES unless you go north, but only people who can't take the heat go north. *says the girl who fled to upstate NY*

[archangelbeth]

The only reason I'm up here in the Frozen Wastelands (what kind of nearly-summer only gets up to 68F??) is because my spouse melts at anything above about 75F...

He makes snide remarks about Texas trees. Calls them bushes. Hmph. Just because they don't grow tall and straight and try to fall through the window into the living room doesn't mean they're not trees!

[starletfallen.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, I am SO HAPPY to live somewhere where winter lasts for about 8 of 12 months. I would much rather wear sweaters and coats and scarves and hats than die of heatstroke in freaking April.

[archangelbeth]

Awwww, but it's nice to have heat to warm my bones like I'm a stained-glass window! (More seriously, my untreated-for-many-years hypothyroidism probably contributes to my opinion about Cold Weather. I'm like a reptile if I don't have my meds... *beth slithers around illustratively and falls into a torpor in winter*)

[starletfallen.livejournal.com]

Aaaah, yeah. The one downside to the cold is that when my psoriatic arthritis acts up, the cold makes it hurt like a mother. Thankfully, it doesn't flare up too often most of the time, so I can enjoy my snow in peace. Fluffy, scarf-wrapped peace. ^_^

[archangelbeth]

I'd probably like snow and winter much better if I never had to go out in it. >_> (Alas, waking before dawn to get the kid on the schoolbus... Bleah. Also, *shiver*. *sigh*)

One benefit to taking up crochet, and having knitting friends, is that one can make lots of scarves! (Including ones with book-sized pockets in the ends.)

[starletfallen.livejournal.com]

I crocheted myself some fingerless gloves. ^_^ And knit a hat. I still need to make myself a scarf, though I have plenty I've bought.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Ouch, I would be seriously unhappy with no trees! It was bad enough moving back to the UK from Germany where they have forests (some of them with wild boar and other 'traditional' wildlife), to where we have trees but mostly only in patches and as windbreaks between fields.

[starletfallen.livejournal.com]

Well, there ARE trees. Usually only in cities and towns, though. I don't really count the scrubby bush-like things that grow out in the desert "trees".

And now up HERE, I live on the edge of a forest. :D Much nicer, yes precious.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I don't count the tame trees in cities and towns *g*. Looking out of the window here at work (near Cambridge, England) I can see trees dotted around the "Business Park" but that's not like having a forest round the site (or, as I was in Ulm in Germany, being on top of a 1500m 'hill' and being able to look down on forest and across to the Alps on a good day).

Flying over Germany all you see for ages are trees, with the occasional little town or city (sharply controlled limits, not sprawling across the countryside like in southern England). I haven't flown over NY state, but what I remember flying over Pennsylvania was similar to Germany, large tracts of what looked like unspoiled forest (parts of PA reminded me of southern Britain some 30+ years ago, only larger *g*).

Trees are a goodness.

[starletfallen.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, proper forests and mountains...