Tuesday
Tuesday was the day I had the most author signings on my list of things to do at BEA. None of them were ticketed, so my roommates and I headed over to Javits around 7:30, after stopping at the conveniently located BP gas station Dunkin Donuts. I made it to both my must-see author signings - Ilsa Bick for Ashes and Leigh Fallon for Carrier of the Mark. Yay!
The lines at BEA were super crazy this year with people lining up very early, sometimes over an hour ahead of time. Unless it was can't-miss author, I passed on the waiting and chose to wander around the show floor. I tend to be a loner at BEA, wandering by myself most of the time and only meeting up with my roommates and other friends accidentally throughout the day. I'm a little weird that way, but it works for me.
I had planned on attending the Bookrageous event, but was way too tired to dress up and head all the way over there after a full day at BEA. Instead, Amelia and I went to a deli in Port Authority for dinner and had one of those amazing conversations that went from The Hunger Games to gentlemanly manners to strong women to mean girls and everything in between and had a blast. Different aspects of The Hunger Games popped up in almost every other conversation I had at BEA this year and it was awesome to be surrounded by so many people who had strong opinions about something so specific and bookish. That doesn't happen in my life outside of the constant Twilight ravings I endure from my old high school friends on Facebook.
Wednesday
Wednesday was the day o' ridiculous blogger drama at BEA. We headed over to Javitz at 6:15 to get our tickets for Rick Riordan and other authors and then promptly sat in line to enter the show floor when 9am came around. I headed off to the bathroom and to get more coffee at Starbucks. 45 minutes later, I finally got back to my spot in line where my friends and stuff was. And was accused of just arriving at Javits and cutting in front of a huge bunch of people. Lame. Apparently people are supposed to pee in bottles and never get a second coffee in the morning without being accused of wrongdoing. Especially lame since even the people at the very end of the entry line get onto the floor within a minute or two.
My major, must meet author of the day was Ally Condie, so I headed over to where she would be signing at 10 and the lovely people at St. Martin's/Dutton were handing out tickets that guaranteed you a book when you returned after 10am. Awesome. I wandered around for a while and headed back about a half hour before the Crossed signing began. Amelia and I got in line about 75 people back or so and were content with our place in line. We spent at least 45 minutes talking to a woman in front of us. Now, I was a little upset that Glow was supposed to be dropped at 9:30 Tuesday morning, but when I got there at 9:25 there weren't any left. I may have mentioned that I wondered if it was even worth it to attempt heading back for the supposed 2pm drop of Glow on Wednesday. I may have been outspoken about this. (Sidenote: those who met me will attest to this - I'm a little outspoken at times, I'm chock full of um... less than appropriate language, and I don't care a wit about what people think of me. My personality doesn't appeal to everyone and I like it that way. It keeps the less fun people away) Anywho, turns out, this woman in front of us who has spent the last huge amount of minutes talking to us about The Hunger Games (obviously) and other topics that were less than um... professional, reveals that she works for the publisher that is putting out Glow. Ha! Yeah, so she tells me that she's got a copy of it on her desk and that she'll send it to me as soon as she gets back to her office. And goes on to say that some bloggers can be kind of, well, let's just say they try to hard. I, on the other hand, was obviously real and that's what really counts. So that was completely awesome. Anyway, the line moved quickly once it got going and I got to meet Ally! She said she liked my shirt, that it matched my eyes, which were her favorite color - green. How sweet is she? I don't think my husband even noticed the color of my eyes for the first couple months. Actually, I'm sure of it since he once sang Brown-Eyed Girl to me.
By 10:15am, I was loving BEA. Crossed in hand, Ally Condie is awesome, Glow publisher lady also awesome. Best day ever. Of course, I made the mistake of checking Twitter. How sad is it that some bloggers have to constantly embarrass the entire group? Tweeting about how bloggers are running and screaming? Yeah, I didn't see that, but why would you publicly embarrass everyone? Bloggers cutting lines? Didn't see that either. Saw a lot of older (ages about 60 and up) librarians and booksellers do it though and nobody was tweeting about them. I was embarrassed for bloggers in general. How petty. Way to make us all look like whiny jerks who throw each other under the bus to make ourselves look better.
So I was kind of pissed off. Because seriously, who does that? Obviously, I know who does that as I was following some of them on Twitter which is how I saw the drama-mongering. They have since been unfollowed. I like drama probably a little bit more than the next person, but tweeting about it when you claim it's happening right in front of you? Yeah, that's the equivalent of writing about someone in a high school bathroom stall, where everyone knows about it, but you never have to man up and face the person you're accusing. Grow some balls and confront the offender or keep your whining to yourself. Rant over.
I also got to meet Sara Shepard!! But missed Kate White, which was unfortunate since I'm a HUGE fan of her Bailey Weggins novels and desperately wanted to ask her if there was any chance she would continue the series in the future. I couldn't make myself wait in the Rick Riordan line since it was huge. I met him last year, so I was okay with missing him this time. And I walked passed the James Patterson line, never contemplating getting into it. I really, really wanted to meet him and missed him due to the huge line last year, but yeah. Something seems to be happening more and more at BEA: Big name authors in booths. This is dangerous. The lines wrap around many aisles on the show floor. They block booths other publishers have paid for and now no one can see. It just doesn't seem right. I wish BEA would somehow force publishers to put their big name authors in the autographing area, preferably ticketed. The publishers do their best to keep things in order, but the sheer amount of people just makes things chaotic.
I didn't make it to either after event on Wednesday. The dressing up and traveling was again just way too much for me. Of course, once dinner time came around, a group of us went in search of food - only to walk like 18 blocks through Times Square to get to Mars 2112 - the alien Chuck E. Cheese. The walk sucked, but the dinner was hilarious. We ate, we laughed, someone may have snorted. Aliens danced, our waitress may have mocked a few of us, and we were seated far away from any children - which was an inspired idea from the restaurant staff as none of us were very kid safe by that point. And yeah, not a drop of alcohol. That's right, my BEA was dry again.
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