M.J. Scott's Blog, page 44
June 25, 2011
New York – Episode 4 (The Cloisters)
So yesterday we went up to the Cloisters which is located in Fort Tryon Park, way the heck up in 190th street (which is almost as far as you can go). But we writers are intrepid types, so Keri, Kelly Hunter, Anne Gracie and I eventually found our way after a bit of confusion when we came out of the Metro station (thanks to the helpful passerby who pointed us back to the train station elevators lol).
The Cloisters is, as the name suggests, a recreation of a medieval cloister, made up of bits of various European abbeys etc acquired by the museum (it's a branch of the Metropolitian Museum of Art). It is full of gorgeous medieval religious art, tapestries, sculptures, carvings and treasures and is a beautiful, peaceful place set in a beautiful park. So herewith some pics (but not the full 100 or so I took there!).
Foggy day in the park
Squirrellllllll!!! (This little guy had suitable New York squirrel attitude…he posed for us quite happily then got very grumpy looking when no treats were forthcoming!)
The Cloisters from the entrance
And some more exterior…gorgeous stairs
Wall critter
Gorgeous dragon
My mind is blanking on the correct terminology for this bit of a church but it was lovely!
More stained glass
Hands
Marble relief
Gold and blue angels
Chalice
Tapestry
And the famous unicorn tapestry (slightly blurry, sorry but apparently unicorns emit secret blurry vibrations as this was the only one I couldn't get a really clear shot of!)
And lastly….Saint Roch, who was famous for curing plague. We think it must have been with the power of his mighty thighs….I mean check out those legs (and who knew that medieval saints wore shorts!)
And that's all folks, tonight we do a harbour cruise, so hopefully some pretty night shots will be up next! Tomorrow Keri and I are going to brave the outlet mall….if you hear any screams it's probably our credit cards.
New York – Episode 3
And now onto Wednesday. On Tuesday there was shoe shopping and other frivolities which I've already posted about on FB etc. Wednesday afternoon, Keri and I went for a wander around to get a closer look at some of the places we went on the bus tour.
New York Public Library – Patience or Fortitude (which is what the lions are called but I'm not sure which one this dude is)
Stairs inside the library
View from one of the windows
Ceiling in the library
Door in the library
Outside Grand Central Station
Grand Central Station concourse
Lights in Grand Central
Interior of the Chrysler building
Lamps outside the Chrysler building
Statue outside a hotel whose name escapes me right now
Stained glass inside Saint Patricks, which has some of the most gorgeous stained glass I've seen
More stained glass
Next up will be some shots from the Cloisters….
June 24, 2011
New York – Episode 2
Some more pics from our Monday tour…
The Brooklyn Bridge
The Statue of Liberty
And again
Trinity church
Random dudes with huge snakes down near the Stock Exchange (because that's the sort of thing you see in New York : ) )
Next up….Wednesday's adventures (Tuesday was shopping and socialising with the lovely Kady Cross)
June 23, 2011
New York – Episode 1
If WordPress will co-operate…some New York pics. This first bunch is from the tour we did on Monday.
The Dakota building where John Lennon lived.
Strawberry Fields
The Flatiron Building
Statue outside 30 Rock (ie the Rockefeller Centre)
St Patrick's Cathedral
The Empire State Building
Stay tuned for Episode 2 and 3….
June 22, 2011
ARCs!
This morning brought a lovely delivery to the hotel room courtesy of my fab agent and editor…two copies of the gorgeous ARCs Roc have done for Shadow Kin. There was a little bit of squeeing and much petting of said ARCs.
It's a thrill to see Shadow Kin in book form, even though it's not quite the final book…makes it all seem like it's getting very close!
Having lots of fun here in New York…more on that in a later post when I figure out how to use the card reader for my camera lol
June 15, 2011
Start spreading the news….
Sorry, unoriginal but couldn't resist. I'm off tomorrow (fingers crossed, ash cloud permitting etc, etc) for a few weeks writing, sightseeing, shopping and conferencing in sunny New York. Yippee!! I've never been before (other than in transit late at night) so I'm very excited.
I will be blogging as I can once I get there but will probably be offline for a few days after today, so I'm not ignoring you if you're trying to contact me!
So you'll have to entertain yourselves with a good book or two until then : )
June 11, 2011
Letting go
I've just sent the page proofs for Shadow Kin back to my editor. Which means, at least as far as writing it goes, my work on Shadow Kin is finally done. It's as good as I can make it and apart from doing my bit to make sure people know about it and can find it when it comes out, there's nothing more I can do, as much as my writer's brain might like to keep tweaking it.
It's kind of an odd feeling. Books live in your head for a long time (some longer than others). I got the idea for Shadow Kin way back sometime around June/July 2008 just before I went to RWA in San Francisco (hmmm, that's neatly circular given I'm about to leave for RWA in New York in six days). I wrote maybe fifty or sixty pages of it then but then had to put it away while I worked on other things. I picked it up again seriously sometime in mid? (or perhaps a bit earlier) 2009. I sent it to Miriam on 5 December 2009 according to my emails. Roc bought it in February 2010 and today it's finally done, even though I'm still carrying that world around in my head as I work on the rest of the series. My first book is about to go out into the world where it will belong to the readers who read it as much as it belongs to me. It will sit in their heads in a different way, through their eyes and experiences and their take on the story, which will all be different to mine. That's the most intriguing thing about stories…they're slightly (or vastly) different for everyone who reads them. A kind of telepathy where I take this big shiny thing in my head, get whatever I can of it down on paper so that someone else can read those words and take it into their heads and wrap it up with everything that makes them themselves and see what they make of it from there.
Some will see what I saw (or close enough to it), some will see very different things. Some will like what they see, some may even love it. Some will definitely hate it or not see the shiny thing at all and be "meh" about it. And there's nothing I can do about any of that. What will be, from this point in, will be. I have to just let it go and focus on the books I can still do something about…the ones I'm writing now. Which is another part of the process of taking the step from being unpublished to published. Letting go, moving on and trying to make the next book even better.
I wonder what the next idea to take up head space is going to be? And how long I'll carry that one around?
June 9, 2011
Excerpt time
Okay folks, it's the moment you've all (hopefully) been waiting for…the first Shadow Kin excerpt is live on the website.
You can read it there, or follow the link to download a pdf, ePub or mobi version to read at your leisure on the device of your choice (I am assuming at this point that if you have an eReader you know how to sideload stuff onto it from your computer). If you don't have an eReader you can download the free Kindle app to read the .mobi file, use various pdf apps to read the pdf and use Stanza (amongst others) to read the ePub file. For some reason, the cover image doesn't want to load on the .mobi file, so I'll be investigating further but I figure the text is the main thing.
It's been a sharp learning curve in ebook file production this morning so I'm running away to do some other things now. Enjoy!
P.S. Thanks to my darling big brother for helping me with various aspects of said ebook production (yay for computer whiz brothers)!
June 8, 2011
Just a quick one
My awesome editor says she has Shadow Kin ARCs (squeee!), which hopefully means I get to fondle one in NY.
(An ARC is an advanced reading copy…basically the book after the copyedit and layout but before the final proofing which is what get sents to reviewers etc, so it will be the first time I see SK looking like a book).
Also, for those not on Twitter or FB, first excerpt coming later this week! And maybe…just maybe…a book two title.
June 2, 2011
June contest
And the winner of May's contest is Gwen Hernandez! Gwen gets Naked in Death by J.D. Robb.
For June, I'm going to be doing something a little different…a mystery contest.
You see, I'm off to the Romance Writers of America convention in New York and there they have a massive book signing to benefit literacy charities, so I thought to myself, self, let us obtain a signed book for the next contest.
But because I'm not sure who will be there etc, I am unable to announce exactly which book. So you will have to comment along this month in good faith and suspense. The book chosen will fulfill my pay-it-forward contest philosophy of being a book by one of my favourite authors in one of my favourite genres. Because my travels extend over the end of the month, I may keep the contest open a little longer this time. Depends on how well behaved the internet access in the hotel is (hopefully far better than LA!) and how much fun we're having.
As usual to be in the running, just comment on any blog post this month (where month equals until I close the contest this month). The history of why I'm giving away my favourite books is here.
