Oh my God, I’m so tired. Not to complain, because it’s been lovely meeting so many of you (actually, that’s the best part).
But there’s no jet lag recovery time on book tour. As you might have observed while watching Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List or Tori Spelling: Home Sweet Hollywood, they do just sort of expect you to get off the plane and be over it, which if you’re an insomniac like me is a bit difficult.
But honestly, London has been fab. The Waterstone’s Piccadilly signing couldn’t have been more fun, with hundreds of you showing up and many of you bearing letters and gifts, which was too kind, Hannah, Juwi, and cute girl from Smithers BC whose name I have back in my hotel room but as I’m currently I’m on my way to Bath I haven’t got it with me (possibly temporary psychosis is setting in due to the sleep aids). Thank you all!
And my signing at the Dover Girls School was also very entertaining, at least for me, as for one thing, it was in Dover, and there really were white cliffs:
And for another I got called to the headmistress’s office. But it was just to have tea. D’oh!
Here I am accidentally revealing the end of Princess Diaries 10 while at the school. Oops!
The Meg Cabot Ambassador’s party later in the evening was a great success (in my opinion). So many well-dressed young ladies!
If you would like to be a Meg Cabot Ambassador, all you have to do is check the www.megcabot.co.uk website in November when they ask for new recruits, and if you’re chosen, you’ll receive early copies of my books in exchange for chatting them up to all your friends. What could be more fun? Well, maybe seeing some British sheep:
Like I said I’m on my way to Bath now to speak at their 2nd annual book festival which I hope will go well. Or at least better than the speech I had to give last night, which was at a sales conference for some lovely book people who didn’t tell me it was a formal event (the men were in tuxes, the ladies in evening gowns), so of course I wore jeans. They also didn’t tell me the other speaker was Lord Attenborough (you might recall he directed the film Ghandi, among other things, like, oh becoming a lord). He waxed eloquently about his intimate friendship with Princess Diana and the deaths of his daughter and granddaughter in the tsunami whilst I sat at my table thinking, “*&%@! I have to go on after this, and talk about the Princess Diaries? Freaking shoot me now!” Sadly no one obliged.
Fortunately Anthony Horowitz, whom I didn’t even realize I was sitting next to, went on before (HE got the memo about formalwear, somehow), and gave a brilliant talk with many witticisms. Everyone laughed uproariously. Which just made it worse that I had to go after him because I had no speech prepared other than the one in my head which I’d written BEFORE Lord Attenborough, and so when I got up there I tried to change it around a bit to make it more full of pathos and witticisms, a kind of combination of Anthony’s and Lord Attenborough’s, which was of course a disaster. I found myself wondering, midway through as the lights beamed on me, and I was rambling away about Topshop (it’s a store in England kind of like a high end Express–I’m not joking, that’s really what I found myself talking about) what would happen if I just ran away. Or started to cry.
Even with Power Point, you can still suck (obviously this wasn’t taken at the same event. Note I’m not wearing jeans).
So you see, life on the road is VERY VERY HARD (don’t even get me started on my blisters, caused not by new boots, but the allegedly comfortable Nike Airs I bought for the plane. I curse you, Nike).
And now before I go I do want to let you know about an exciting non-book tour event that’s taking place right here on the web, so you can all participate. As you know I was thrown into quite a quandary by the Sarah Palin thing because records show she’s interested in banning books and though I love when people try to ban my books, because book banning violates every principle on which this country was founded (freedom of speech etc) and makes Book Banners look like total communists (communists routinely ban books), let’s be honest, there are even more serious issues than Book Banning at stake in this election.
That’s why I’m totally psyched to actually be supporting Barack Obama (big support for him on this side of the world, let me tell you. BIG!!!) and also to be part of a new site developed by Maureen Johnson called YA FOR OBAMA.
YA for Obama is a community of YA writers and readers and friends who have joined together because of our commitment to our choice for Future United States President, Barack Obama. We think he’s the right person for the job.
From the site itself: This is a social networking site, which means that when you join (it’s free! easy! takes about a minute!) you can do LOADS of stuff around here. You can make your own page, contribute to the forum, upload your own photos and videos, and make friends who support Obama as much as you do. (Presuming you do. You probably do if you join. Even if you do not support him, you are still welcome! We don’t ban people whose opinions are different than our own! Wnlike SOME people)
There’s going to be LOADS of amazing stuff going on. Pretty much every single day, there will be a new blog post from an author. (And we have some amazing authors, like Judy Blume, Michele Jaffe, John Green, Scott Westerfeld, Megan McCafferty, Cecily von Zeigesar, Holly Black, Libba Bray . . . the list is way too long to put here.) Visit EVERY DAY. For more info, go here.
You know your site has made it when it’s already been made fun of by Jossip!
Now those of you who aren’t old enough to vote have a place to come and hang out (besides your local party headquarters, where you SHOULD be hanging out whichever candidate you support every spare minute of your day, volunteering, stapling things, putting together pamphlets, helping them with their phoning and emailing…but you’re already doing that, right? I mean, that’s what I did every election year when I was your age. Well, okay, my mom made me, but still. It was actually quite fun. Maybe they don’t need you now but they will closer to election day. And don’t forget, local politicians need help, too. Think globally, act locally).
And don’t think you can’t make a difference just because you aren’t old enough to vote! Anyone who thinks they can’t obviously hasn’t seen Charlie Wilson’s War (one of the most excellent movies ever).
This movie is based on a true story, and Charlie Wilson is a real person who, when he was a kid, got into a tiff with a neighbor who was a local politician.
Well, that neighbor poisoned Charlie’s dog. In revenge, Charlie, who wasn’t old enough to drive, nevertheless took it upon himself to “borrow” a truck and take it over to the less affluent section of town on election day and rally the residents there to vote. He physically drove the people from that side of town to the voting booths himself, and just casually mentioned as he did so that his neighbor, who was running for re-election, had poisoned his dog.
Of course his neighbor lost that election.
Now, I’m not saying that anyone should do anything like that! I only mention the story because it shows how a kid can make a huge difference in an election by motivating older people who might not otherwise care.
Sadly, there are a lot of people like that in our country. I meet them all the time—they honestly think their vote doesn’t matter, when every vote does! Especially in this election.
So visit Ya for Obama for ideas on how you can make a difference in this election, and then get out there, and get to work!
Look, if I can work my butt off selling books in another country while totally sleep deprived after having humiliated myself in front of Lord Attenborough and still write this during a two-hour car trip strung out on Dramamine after like four hour’s sleep on the way to a huge signing with my feet throbbing, you can convince a few old people to get out there and vote for someone.
Especially someone who isn’t going to ban books and who is going to make sure women continue to have a choice in their own reproductive rights, and who, oh yeah, is also
More later.
Much love,
Meg
