M.J. Scott's Blog, page 43
July 19, 2011
New York Episode 8 – Central Park
I didn't spend enough time in Central Park…when I go back to New York I definitely need to spend more time wandering around. It's designed (on the most part) to be very natural looking with meandering paths and shade and curves that make it both enticing and deceptive about where you're going. It's great that such a densely crowded city has this immense green space in the centre of it and I think if I lived in New York, I'd have to be rich so I could live up near the park. These pics are from Tuesday 5th.
Typical park
The Great Lawn
Ducks, turtles and fish in the Turtle Pond
Belvedere Castle
Obelisk
Crabs holding up obelisk…because apparently that's what crabs do when they're not helping Captain Jack Sparrow out
Arch
Bears
July 14, 2011
ARC giveaway
I'll be announcing the winner of my June/July mystery contest (and which mystery book I got signed at RWA) later this weekend but let's move onto the next contest…I'm giving away one signed Shadow Kin ARC!
Pretty! (May come with something additionally good like Aussie chocolate…)
To get your hands on the pretty, you can as usual comment on any blog post until I declare the contest closed sometime around the end of the month. You get bonus entries if you go like my Facebook page or start following me on Twitter or come up with something cool and groovy like an Interpretative Dance of Why You Must Have The Arc or Shadow Kin cookies, provided you come back to this post and tell me you have done so (and hopefully provide evidence of cool/groovy things).
July 12, 2011
Washington Part 2 – The stuff
Washington has many many things to see. Sadly one cannot see them all in nine hours or so. But here are some of the things we go to.
Not Washington but made me giggle as a Stephanie Plum reader. Sadly neither Morelli nor Ranger joined me on the train.
Outside of Union Station aka how train stations should look
Capitol
Smithsonian Castle
Thomas Jefferson Memorial
And the man himself
Lincoln Memorial
The Washington Monument and the reflecting swamp (sadly the pool was empty)
Abraham Lincoln
The roof in the Lincoln Memorial
Statue on a bridge
Stay tuned for more!
July 9, 2011
My favourite New York things
We're chilling out in our LA hotel as we both decided we were touristed out. So we sprang for internet and therefore another blog!
There are still lots of pics to come but I tweeted these last night and thought I'd do a longer version here. So, here are my ten favourite things from my New York trip in no particular order.
1. Meeting my editor, Jessica, in person and lunching with her and my agent in Greenwich Village (which was a very 'hey, I am a writer moment' ; ) )
2. Going to see Sleep No More….weird, intense, kind of creepy yet amazing and unlike anything else I've ever been to. Would love to see it a few more times just to have time to explore all of it. Sadly I doubt it will come to Australia any time soon.
3. Wandering through Central Park on a brilliant blue summer's day. The shady green spaces are heavenly and full of intriguing things and, once again, we barely scratched the surface of it.
4. Junior's cheesecake. I'm not generally a baked cheesecake fan as I prefer cold-set but Junior's is awesome. I managed to try three flavours while in New York but I think, as awesome as Devil's Food or Strawberry Shortcake were, the original was my fave.
5. The Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met. I'm not exactly a fashion girl but I had seen pictures from the exhibition and had heard people rave about it, so it went on the list of things to do in New York. It more than lived up to the hype. It was fabulous. Dark and beautiful and intriguing and the muse loved it. So much so I bought the very large exhibition program and shipped it home so I can look at the images again. In fact, the muse adored the Met in general. The place is a Tardis…it just goes on and on and on and every time you think it can't go on again you turn a corner and there are more rooms. But that's another blog.
6. The sunset harbour cruise. Just beautiful to see the sun setting reflected off all the buildings (which reminds me, we saw the most awesome brilliant hot pink sunset flying into LA last night…looked unearthly).
7. The 4th of July fireworks over the Hudson. I wasn't overly keen to go see these initially as I don't like fighting through huge crowds and had visions of New Year's Eve type madness but Keri wanted to go, so we did and I'm very glad. The fireworks were wonderful and the crowd wasn't that huge and very well behaved.
8. Hanging out with my agent and US writer friends. The hard fact about being an Aussie writer is that you meet lots of wonderful folks (online and in the flesh) who live far away and don't get to see them in person often enough, so it's always lovely when you do get the chance to hang out. Even though the conference hotel was also a Tardis and I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to.
9. Going to Washington for the day. As I've said in my blogs, it's a very pretty city and I will be going back there again one day to spend more time exploring and museum hopping! Though maybe not in summer…it was also very hot.
10. The shopping (yes, I can be shallow), especially Fluevog.
I could go on but will hopefully talk about some other stuff in the blog posts still to come. It's been a wonderful trip. I wasn't sure I would like New York as much as I did…it seems to be one of those cities that people love or hate and I thought it might be too full on for me, but I really liked it. So now I just need to keep writing those books so I have the excuse to return a lot!
July 8, 2011
New York Episode 7 – Brooklyn Bridge walk
The Brooklyn Bridge spans the East River connecting, funnily enough, Brooklyn and Manhattan. It was the first bridge built across the river and was the longest suspension bridge when it was first built as it was the first suspension bridge to use steel cables. The coolest thing about the bridge though, is that it has a pedestrian walkway above the road so you can walk either from Manhattan to Brooklyn or vice versa and get some great views of the city. Keri and I walked it on the 4th of July.
Given it was a pretty hot day, we took the subway to the Brooklyn side, ate awesome pizza then walked back to Manhattan. It's a bit under 2km long, so doesn't take ages to walk. The bridge is under restoration so some of the views are blocked by fences etc at the moment but I still got some cool shots.
Under the bridge (by the pizza place)
Beginning of the bridge
Cars below the pedestrian walkway
Pillars
Sunny Manhattan
Cables
Rust
Twisty
Horace (who founded the New York Tribune and is a nice looking old guy statue in City Hall Park which is where you come off the bridge at the Manhattan end)
This might be the last blog until next week sometime…I'm starting the long trek back home today so unless I luck onto internet access along the way, there will be radio silence for a bit! But there are still a few New York and Washington blogs to come once I return. It's a been a great trip…thanks New York!
July 7, 2011
Washington Part 1 – Air and Space Museum
On Sunday (the third) Keri and I got up very early to take the train to Washington for the day. The train takes a little over three hours but was very comfy (thumbs up Amtrak). Once in Washington we just did the hop-on hop-off bus thing and raced around seeing stuff and taking many pics (many, many pics….there will be a few Washington blogs).
Washington is a very pretty, open feeling city (at least the central bit where we were) and definitely felt relaxed after a few weeks in Time Square. It was also hot, damned hot. I think when I go back, it will have to be Spring. We didn't get to do everything we wanted to do as there is a limit to how much you can do in eight hours or so plus a traffic accident held up the bus for almost an hour at one point when we were at a part of the loop where you couldn't easily walk to anywhere else. The air con also broke down. That was fun. Not.
Still, we did go to the two of the three parts of the Smithsonian I've always wanted to go to (the third, the National Zoo, we didn't have time for). Next trip I'll do some more (the Smithsonian is about 11 or 12 Museums all up).
So, as a starter, here's some pics from the first of the museums, The Air and Space Museum (indulging my sci fi geek side lol).
Steampunk airship
Da planes! Da planes!
Shiny
Spirit of St. Louis
Kitty Hawk
Moon boots
Apollo module
Lunar module
July 5, 2011
New York Episode 6 – 4th of July Fireworks
Okay, we have a bit of a blog backlog after the last few days sightseeing, so I'm going a bit out of order. Here are some shots from last night's fireworks along the Hudson which were fabulous. Keri and I scored a great spot down near the Intrepid and had a great view. And I have to say the crowd was really well behaved and not too crowded.
Sunset reflections
Sunset
Boom
Red and pink
Burst
Pink Smoke
Multi
Stars
Watching
Next up…some Washington pics!
July 2, 2011
Goodreads giveaway
My lovely publisher is giving away many copies of Shadow Kin over on Goodreads. Open to US folks only but international peeps, do not despair, I'll do some international ARC/book giveaways too in due course. But if you're in the US, get thee to Goodreads if you want to be in the running.
June 27, 2011
New York – Episode 5 (Sunset cruise)
And now the long promised pics from our sunset harbour cruise on Saturday night. Which was a beautiful evening after a long hot day. (Also, two hours of enforced no shopping lol)
Very happy with the pics from my little Panasonic…got some great shots but will not inflict them all on you!
First up, the Intrepid which has been converted into a museum…
The Chrysler building gleaming…I think the Chrysler is definitely my fave New York building
Ellis Island in silhouette
Long view of the city
Statue of Liberty at sunset
Bridges and the Statue
Sunset
And again
Last light over New Jersey
Empire and Chrysler
Reflected sunset
And my other fave New York building..don't know what this one with all the Mondrian type windows is but it looked very cool at sunset with all the reflections turning the windows pink and silver and gold!
New York Interlude
Today I had lunch down in Greenwich Village with my agent and editor which has to be one of the most what-people-think-the-writing-life-is-like things I've ever done lol
At lunch, Jessica told me that Book 2 in the Half-Light series has been scheduled for June 2012…so yay! It is still title-less at this stage but hopefully consensus will be reached soon.
To celebrate, some obligatory Times Square at Night shots! Shots from the sunset harbour cruise we did on Saturday coming up. Tomorrow the conference starts to get underway so there may be less bloggage next week until I resurface from that!
