Category: livejournal entry

OK, I’m mostly packed and sort of ready to go — no, not back to South America, though you know I’m already dreaming about that. What I mean is that tomorrow is the first day of the PITCH BLACK TOUR! I will be hitting the road with fellow vamp scribes Nancy Collins (Vamps) and Ellen Schreiber (Vampire Kisses) for a whirlwind five-city, six-day tour.

Just to refresh y’all’s memories about the dates, places and times:

Pitch Black Tour Dates

Saturday, Oct. 25: 2 p.m. at Anderson’s Bookshop in NAPERVILLE, IL

Wednesday, Oct. 29: 6:30 p.m. at Borders in REDMOND, WA

Please come out if you can! I would love to meet any and all of you. We’ll have trivia contests, readings, Q&A time and goody bags.

Should I survive to the end of the tour, I’ll return to New York City just in time for Halloween. This, plus the discovery of one last copy of Immortal: Love Stories With Bite, has inspired me to hold another contest.

Tell me your favorite Halloween costume!

Yep, that’s it. You can comment here or at my MySpace page, or email me through the website. (Please include your name and a contact email when you do so!) One winner will be chosen at random on Halloween, and that lucky person will win this very last copy of Immortal, the romantic vampire anthology so awesome NO ONE could find it in stores. 😉

ETA: I knew I was forgetting something! Check out the claudiagray.com website, in particular the extras page; there you will find new wallpapers and icons, some of which are ever-so-slightly spoilery for Stargazer. For fans who have read the book in Spanish or Catalan, you’ll see a few downloads with some slightly more familiar cover art. Hope you guys like!

Sorry this has taken me so long to post — I returned last week, but was promptly felled by an after-vacation cold, and then Flickr behaved very oddly the first, oh, five or six times I tried to upload photos. But they’re uploaded now (mostly — I’m at the monthly limit) and the post can begin!

Hi, guys! I am sitting in an internet cafe in Buenos Aires, killing a few minutes until the restaurants open (they start late here!) I am having the most wonderful time in South America. You are not going to believe the massive picspam you´ll see once I get back next week. My internet time is limited and brief, so there are a number of you who have written or friended me or something — I apologize for responding late and will see to everything when I return.

One bit of good news: We have sold the French rights to EVERNIGHT! I´ll let you guys know more about French-language publication plans before too long.

I haven’t blogged in a while now, mostly due to extreme naughtiness — not of the “Girls Gone Wild” variety, but more like “OMG, I am so busy, and how am I ever going to leave for vacation at this rate?”

Well, I’m still insanely busy, but I am still leaving for vacation today, so let me just hit the highlights:

* My hiking guide has had some surgery but is apparently okay and hopes to be leading hikes again in November. Yay!

* I have turned the final-final revisions of HOURGLASS in to my editor. Yay!

* I forgot my luggage locks at home! Boo.

* Otherwise, I appear to be compactly and completely packed for my South American trip, which begins tonight. Yay!

* The very cool people at TeachingBooks.net have a feature about author name pronunciation, and they invited me to take part. Now, I figure most of you understand how to pronounce “Claudia Gray,” which isn’t exactly a tongue-twister. But if you are curious to hear me chatting about the name for a while, you can check out the link here.

OK, I think that’s about it. I’m flying out this evening, so wish me luck with flights, transfers, all of that. Pictures when I return!

Sorry I’m posting this later today, guys — I had a big project to work on this morning, but I’ve finally got a couple of seconds to announce that the winners of the Immortal anthology giveaway are: Amy K., Lauren T. and the enigmatic speed reader! Congratulations, guys! I will be e-mailing all of you today to find out where to send your signed copies.

Thanks to absolutely everyone who entered. Seeing which Evernight lines were your favorites taught me a lot — plus, it was a lot of fun.

Still no word on Fearless Leader after yesterday’s hiking drama; I hope our club will receive an e-mail update before too much longer.

So, I got up early and met with the hiking group, as usual. Gorgeous day, with bright sunny skies. Our Fearless Leader guided us out to a park near Westchester, and after the usual orienteering speech, we set out. It was cool and quiet, very leafy, and promised to be a wonderful day.

We reached the first ridge, all of us chatting easily, when suddenly Fearless Leader stumbled on the path.

Then it was one of the moments where time just stands still — the rest of the group agrees this took perhaps two seconds, but it felt like forever — as he staggered sideways, his face turning white and blank, and then just fell, utterly limp, headfirst into a rock.

Initial reaction, which again took maybe one second but felt like forever: all of us standing shock-still, repeating, “Oh, my God. Fearless Leader? Oh, my God.”

It takes that second for your brain to wrap your mind around the new circumstances. Five seconds ago, we were walking along a shady path with a completely chatty, alert guide; now we were on a path in a park that we’d been warned was difficult to navigate, with a guide who was unconscious and had been even before he smashed his skull against a stone. Out of cell phone range. What to do?

Luckily, two women there either had had first-aid training or were remarkably clear of mind, as they quickly removed his glasses and started getting his backpack off his back. I knew there was zero I could do there, so I said I’d go back to the beginning of the trail; we’d seen some campers nearby and thought they could maybe get help, or that down there we might get reception.

Three of us set out, one of whom fortunately was a runner, who quickly left us in the dust. Another hiker (Eva) and I just kept hurrying down. The part that’s going to haunt me for a long time was about five minutes into this, when we heard the hikers who had stayed all begin to scream. We just hurried faster.

The runner (Adae, though I am guessing at spelling) managed to reach another hiker who happened to be a doctor, who then went past us on his way to help. We hung around for the ambulance, at which point we were reunited with the rest of the party; it turned out that, while we were going for help, Fearless Leader had briefly stopped breathing and turned blue (cue screams). Had he had a stroke? Was he about to die?

We went to the hospital and found out that, apparently, Fearless Leader was beginning to regain his wits and was answering questions appropriately, joking with the people who went in the ambulance with him, etc. We were immensely relieved. The kind volunteers at the Mt. Kisco hospital drove us to the Metro North station so we could return to Manhattan.

In brief: No hike due to emergency, in which I was mostly useless. But it has at least inspired me to find and take a CPR/first aid course — you really never do know.

Today I went to the doctor to get my travel vaccinations for my upcoming trip to South America. (Two weeks from today, I’ll be on my way to Chile and Argentina!) While the nurse was giving me the preliminary once-over, I remembered a scene in a doctor’s office in Hourglass (i.e, book three) and thought, I should double-check a couple of details while I’m at it. The nurse really got into it, I have to say! So when you guys read that bit, you’ll know where all the info came from. 🙂

Remember: You have until midnight EST Sunday night to enter the Immortal contest! Send me your favorite quote from Evernight, either via MySpace, my contact form on the claudiagray.com site or a comment at the post linked above, and you’ll be entered into the drawing. Three winners drawn at random will win autographed copies of the vampire romance anthology Immortal, which is sort of available at Borders stores.

This weekend I’m going hiking, and the brand-new digital camera is coming along for the ride so that I can get the hang of it before I head down South America way. Yes, it’s the return of the hike pics, next week! Stay tuned.

I have received many e-mails about this from fans in Spain, so I am happy to report that Stargazer will be released there in February 2009 — in other words, a whole month before it comes out in the United States. You guys will be good with the spoilers, right?

Right?

::crickets::

Also, it turns out that there’s a brand-new foreign rights sale — Mondadori has picked up the rights for Italy. No idea on release dates there or in Germany yet, but I’ll let you guys knows when I do.

And the website has been updated; if you’ve followed this LJ, you’re probably familiar with most of the new information, but you can get a first look at next summer’s anthology, Vacations From Hell.

Don’t forget — you still have a week and change to enter the contest to win a copy of Immortal!

I went to a party last night for the premiere of “True Blood.” Although this was not my most hotly anticipated new show of the year (that prize would go to “Fringe”), I was obviously interested. Vampires! Anna Paquin! What’s not to love? Then I read some iffy reviews and was less sure — but I still checked it out.

The next day, I’m still not quite sure what to think.

We can announce them at last!

The Pitch Black Tour, featuring me, Nancy Collins (Vamps) and Ellen Schreiber (Vampire Kisses) will be coming to:

Saturday, Oct. 25: 2 p.m. at Anderson’s Bookshop in NAPERVILLE, IL

Wednesday, Oct. 29: 6:30 p.m. at Borders in REDMOND, WA

There’s going to be a special website for the tour and everything — I’ll let everyone know as soon as that goes live (probably around the end of this month.) I can’t wait to meet you guys!

Meanwhile, don’t forget to enter the Immortal contest, to win your free autographed copy of Immortal: Love Stories With Bite.