Day One in New Orleans

Alright so Day One of RT in New Orleans is complete. Technically it’s starts tomorrow but let’s face it, the party arrives when I do. New Orleans itself is drop dead gorgeous. I’m staying in a hotel on the edge of the French Quarter and all afternoon there was music pouring into my hotel room from somewhere. When you first arrive from the airport it is exactly like every other city I’ve ever been in: industrial, lots of billboards for strip clubs, and a strange odour that just seeps through the cab windows.

The first thing that struck me was the cemetery. You already knew I was insane, this should not come as a shock to you. We were in “average city”-ville until we hit the Greenville Cemetery and then it was like someone flipped a switch and you were in this magical land where the buildings are as old as the trees they surround and every abandoned and desolate building has an amazing story to tell. Even the lights of the city at night, usually red, white, and yellow, are purples and oranges and shades of ghostly blue.

I don’t know what it is about this city but it just has its own magic.

I attended two events today. In my pajamas. It was amazing.

The New Adult Pajama Party was an amazing way to meet some NA authors and just hang out with readers and writers. There were hand massages, beer pong (with water), Truth or Dare, a fortune teller, everything you would want at a slumber party for several hundred women in a room for two hours. Everyone has been insanely friendly and helpful and just goofy.

The YA Spooky Sleepover was a room full of those same girls, pigging out, telling and writing ghost stories, playing games and showing off their slippers. One thing I will say: Go Big or Go Home. I was a little hesitant when it came to dressing up for events but when you’re sitting beside a woman in leopard-print footie pajamas, you feel underdressed for a slumber party. I also learned that I do not write well under pressure. 5 minutes is not long enough for a table of writers to tell a ghost story. Most of them turned out to be a little…nonsensical (*cough* Cyndi’s table wrote about a Frankenstein chicken with shark teeth).

But now I am exhausted and have a crap ton of swag to sort through before bed. And maybe I’ll eat today.

This is going to be an awesome week!