My day with R. J. Anderson, Sarah Rees Brennan, and Karen Healey against a backdrop of Harry Potter fans!

I would title this "Infinitus 2010" except I spent virtually no time at the convention, except at my friends' panel. In fact, my most interaction was shelling out $50 to basically not attend. However, nothing against the convention, which seemed like a very lively event with tons going on and most excellent people-watching. I have never seen so many capes, a pleasure to my eyes. I like capes. I myself wore the green dress I obtained in NYC with a peach-colored capelet, black and white striped socks, and green men's 70's shoes which have an 18th century cut to them, heel and all. Well, if I was a witch, that's what I would wear.

I met Rebecca (R.J.), Sarah and Karen up in their hotel room. I must confess that for several minutes I had Sarah and Karen mixed up. I have no idea why because I've seen numerous pictures of Sarah and she looks exactly like said pictures. I think I was thrown by the fact that she didn't have an obvious Irish accent, but then, Karen's accent doesn't sound remotely Irish either, so none of this makes any sense. I blame it on the fact that I only got 3 hours of sleep, and luckily I didn't tell Karen I loved The Demon's Lexicon or anything.

(I will also note, I have twice before thought one writer was actually another writer, and in those cases I didn't realize until I got home. Even more luckily, this mistake has never been revealed. Unless I reveal it on my blog, like now, for your amusement.)

We talked for a bit, and then we had a panel to go to--me to watch the panel, the other three to be on it. The location of the panel had been moved, last minute, and we were led to a small hallway...for a moment I thought perhaps the panel would be held in a restroom, but it turned out to be more like a storage room for extra chairs and tables.

I don't really like to watch other writers be on panels because I WANT TO TALK, but it was a great panel. All three had very entertaining or interesting stories about how they get their ideas, and all three read excellent excerpts from their books, and all were good readers. I've seen some very bad readings, and I am always relieved to see good ones so I don't have to fight to nod off! The audience of ten or so people asked wonderful questions. Then we adjourned to the dealer room to sign, only the signing table was overwhelmed by some other event going on, so it never really happened as planned. I did sign the stock at the Books-A-Million booth and I heard some were sold. I thank you, whoever you are!!

We ate a hilariously small lunch at one of the hotel restaurants. My $5 miso soup had literally ten noodles in it, and about a teaspoon each of tofu and seaweed, with possibly half a cup of broth. Ohhh, Universal Studios.

Sarah, being from Ireland, wanted to get some Florida sunshine, so we went poolside to read. I was wearing the green dress, which I'm beginning to think is cursed, because I wore it on the hellishly hot day of BEA, and now was stuck sweating in it again. I might live in Florida but I'm not at ALL fond of the weather from May to October. Everyone else was reading but I really couldn't focus in the heat. After a little while, Rebecca also lost her tolerance for Florida in July and we went up to the hotel room and had a wonderful conversation about all those deep writerly topics--themes and representation and world-building and blah blah. Heaven!

Sarah wanted to go to the Books-A-Million rumored to be three blocks away, but it turned out to be closed. Forever. But Dade is always up for a bookstore trip and he needed to pick me up anyway, so I called him and procured us a ride to the Barnes & Noble. He's almost an hour away, so we had dinner first at the hotel, where we had more lovely writerly conversation. At one point, costumed Simpsons characters wandered over to our table and loomed over us. Sarah and I waved at them, but they didn't go away. They just STOOD THERE. Homer put his hand on Rebecca's back. All three of us waved, and finally they shuffled off. It was extremely creepy. Let me say it again: Ohhh, Universal Studios.

All in all, despite some ridiculous expenditures on Universal property, it was a lovely day with three wonderful writers, and a great reward for turning Between the Sea and Sky in to my editor on Friday, YAAY!