First, thanks to Night Owl Reviews for the great review of Blind Items!
Second, among other things, I went to see the revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying on Broadway this weekend. I have to say, Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe was pretty great! It’s a fun show.
Third, I’m thinking about National Novel Writing Month already, and have this completely crazy idea. I spent some time today writing out several pages of notes. So I hope that works out!
I live a little less than 4 miles, give or take, from Coney Island, where Hurricane Irene made landfall at 9am this morning. But I’m at the top of a hill, so I made it through the storm unscathed. I stayed inside, there was lots of rain and wind, but no flooding or leaks or power loss. It was a good excuse to buckle down and get some writing (and revising!) done this weekend, and to eat a big home-cooked meal Saturday night, and obsessively watch the cable news. I was actually expecting the storm itself to be scarier than it was. Which of course doesn’t diminish the impact the storm did have on many people up and down the east coast. (A tree fell on my father’s house in Connecticut, in fact, but he doesn’t think there was any significant structural damage to the house—he sounded more upset about the loss of the tree when I talked to him, actually). New York City did see some pretty significant flooding and the subway won’t be back up until sometime tomorrow, so it could be a few days before things are back to “normal.” I have to say, it’s been a pretty interesting couple of days, what with the mayor’s office doing a ton of work to make sure the city got through the storm as best as possible and tons of information flying fast and furious over social networks.
I hope any of you in the hurricane’s path came through it well, and that the rest of you had a great weekend. 
Aug 26
According to the latest, Hurricane Irene is set to hit New York City Saturday night, and the governor has declared a state of emergency, and the MTA is shutting down mass transit tomorrow. It’s a little strange to think about now, given that it’s sunny outside at the moment (calm before the storm?). But, as a result, it looks like I’m going to be stranded in my apartment all weekend (luckily I’m not in an evacuation zone—I live in a neighborhood with “heights” in the name, which is not just there to be silly). Let’s hope I don’t lose power so that I can use my exile for good!
I’m going to be hanging around The Romance Studio’s End of Summer Bash all weekend with book excerpts and I’ll be giving away a book from the backlist. Lots of other great authors are participating, so be sure to stop by!
And to those of you on the East Coast, I hope you stay safe and dry! I’m gonna make one last run to the store to make sure I’ve got enough food for the weekend.
Jul 5
I feel sometimes like setting a novel in New York City is cheating a little bit. I do this sometimes because it’s easy to set a novel where I live—I know what things look like, I know the cadence of the speech of the locals, I know the patterns of life in the area. On the other hand, I think I’d want to set stories in the city anyway.
I took some time off last week, and took a long walk around Brooklyn one afternoon. When I was out, I realized that I was very near to the intersection in which my character Jonathan lives in Blind Items. This is a photo of the intersection of Dean and Bond Streets in the neighborhood of Boerum Hill. This is not one of my greater photographic achievements, as this shows mostly the concrete of the intersection, but you can see that there is a little cafe on the opposite corner of where I stood when I took the photo, and lining Dean Street are all of these gorgeous old red brick houses. (You can click on the photo to embiggen.) I imagined that Jonathan would be renting an apartment in one of those houses, living modestly and under the radar despite his famous father. Just as I imagined Rey the movie star would be living in a big brownstone in Park Slope and Drew in a run-down old building in Fort Greene. There’s a lot of Brooklyn in the novel, though the characters spend time in Manhattan, too. I like the way Brooklyn is less densely populated, though, more residential and a little less chaotic than Manhattan. It’s home to me, so it’s where some of my characters come to life, too.
Blind Items will be out from Dreamspinner on July 29th!
You’ve heard the big news by now. It’s pretty awesome, yeah?
I’ve been living in New York State since 2002, and the thing about politics in New York is that you have to get used to being let down. There’s so much corruption and nonsense, and even when the news broke that a bunch of Republican senators had switched votes and supported this bill, it still felt like the NY Senate would find a way to fuck it up. But then I watched the live stream of the senate session last night, and when the yeas and nays were counted, and that cheer went up? It felt like a pretty damn fine time to be a New Yorker.
My mother, who moved to New York a few years before I did, commented that it was a surprise to see Albany actually do something useful.
I’m reviewing the page proofs for Blind Items this weekend, and it looks like I’m going to have to make a couple of last minute changes to a scene in which my main character, Drew, laments that he can’t get married in New York. It doesn’t feel like such a hardship to change the scene.
My upcoming novel Blind Items has very pretty cover art now! More details when the release date gets closer! (Click on the link for a blurb. The book is due out this summer, I think in July. I just sent back the second round of edits, so I’m at the stage where it’s finally starting to feel like a real book.)
I’ve been watching the news about the impending state senate vote on marriage equality here in New York, and as more senators side with equality, it’s starting to look like a real possibility! New York already recognizes same-sex marriages conducted in other states, but the last time marriage equality came up for a vote, it failed (mostly because of some very outspoken conservative senators). A number of Republicans who voted against it last time have switched their votes. If you live in New York, here’s a list of swing senators to contact.
And one last small thing that I think is kind of neat: Mantastic Fiction is doing a GayRomLit book club, wherein they’re reading books by all of the authors who will be attending the GayRomLit convention in New Orleans this October. There are a few new books each week. (I’ll be at GayRomLit!) It might be a good way to discover some new authors.
Montague Street, Brooklyn, ca 1895; photo from the Brooklyn Historical Society
I’ve been somewhat incommunicado the last few weeks due mostly to computer problems. (First my hard drive died. Then a month later my logic board failed! The people at Apple were beyond amazing and I seem to be back up and running again, so let’s hope those issues are behind me. Nothing will set a writer on edge more than taking away her laptop!) I’ve been meaning to spend a little more time in Yahoo Groups and blogs and Goodreads and all those places, but I just haven’t had time. Sure, there’s the promotional aspect, but I just like hanging around this community of readers and writers, too.
One last big, awesome thing. I just signed a new contract with Loose Id for a novel that was my first stab at writing a paranormal romance. Two researchers, academic rivals, have to team up to solve a murder mystery involving two men who now haunt a museum. The above photo is a picture of Montague Street, specifically the old Brooklyn Academy of Music, in what is today the neighborhood Brooklyn Heights, where most of this novel takes place. Montague Street is sort of the central artery through that neighborhood, stretching from what is now Borough Hall (City Hall in the time before Brooklyn and Manhattan became part of the same city, which was right around when this photo was taken) to the East River, and the street is lined with shops and restaurants, not so different than 115 years ago! Anyway, there are edits and revisions to be made, and I don’t have an estimated pub date yet, but I’m hoping for maybe sometime this fall.
Mar 5
I guest blogged at the RWA NYC blog yesterday, talking a little about my inspiration for The Boy Next Door.
I took a walk earlier this afternoon, and it’s nice outside, nearly 60ºF and sunny. I took a couple of pictures—I love Brooklyn in the spring, although there aren’t any flowers yet, really. (In another month or so, we’ll start seeing cherry blossoms around the neighborhood, which is always lovely.) After the insane winter we had, I gotta say, I’m really excited for spring. This was, I think, the first weekend day with weather this warm in what feels like forever.
And spring means baseball! One of my works in progress is a romance between two professional baseball players that has been a little bit of a struggle to write, but I’m enjoying it. I spent some time this morning working on pre-draft rankings for my fantasy baseball team, which is pretty exciting. I’m excited for the new season.
I hope the weather is nice wherever you are.
Dec 27
This was the scene out my bedroom window yesterday afternoon in the middle of the storm, so you can see 'my' backyard (which has been taken over by the cafe on the first floor) and the yards in back of the surrounding buildings.
I’ve seen a lot of bloggers posting photos of the snow blanketing their lovely yards, but snow is something else in the city. So, I took a couple of photos. You can click on any of these to enlarge them (but I took them with my phone, so they are not that sharp).
This is a block near my apartment this evening. In the distance, there are people digging out their cars.
This is my block, which, as you can see, hasn't even been plowed yet, as of just before 5pm.
The walk home, just as dusk was falling, was punctuated by the squeal of the tires of cars stuck in snow banks. It makes me pretty glad I don’t drive. Also pretty glad I didn’t have to leave Brooklyn, because a bunch of the trains are still out.
It’s sort of a fun adventure, but it’s sure as heck not easy to walk in. I am, granted, not exactly in peak physical condition, but climbing over those snow drifts was rough on my ankles. Here’s hoping they plow by tomorrow.
The snow day yesterday provided me with a good solid block of writing time, and I was quite productive, so at least we got something out of the storm. 
February snow storm
We’ve had some equally crazy weather here in Brooklyn the last few weeks. We had a tornado touch down near my apartment about a month ago (Gothamist has pictures of the damage). I missed most of the storm itself due to the fact that it happened while I was traveling via subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan. I saw the damage, though. I tree fell down in front of the church across the street from me and there were dozens of downed trees in nearby Prospect Park, which is really heartbreaking. Then yesterday, we got this insane hail storm. I came home in the middle of it. It was pretty strange to see what looked like ice on the sidewalk when it wasn’t even cool enough to put on a jacket.
I don’t know if I have a point besides to say that anything can happen, and weather sure is a strange thing. I mean, I lived in Massachusetts for a while, where the motto is generally, “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes,” (70°F days in December! Snowstorms in April!) but this weather lately has just been bizarre. And inspirational, apparently, if I got a novella out of it. Which comes out on October 20th. 
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2011 Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention: One Perfect Rate for Blind Items
