DTW tour: day ? - I'm still here.... somewhere

They drove from IN to Schuler Books!

Hey y'all!  I'm writing from Detroit mere hours before getting ready for a Zombie Prom tonight.  Yes, that's right -- ZOMBIE PROM!!!!  I can't tell you just how thrilled I am about this event and I promise to take pictures.  Yesterday I had a fantastic time up in Lansing at Schuler Books.  Krys and Whitney put on an amazing event (complete with pizza) and the crowd was just so great.  Earlier in the day I had a fun time at Haslett High School where the students grilled me on surviving the zombie apocalypse.  Perhaps it makes me a very strange person, but I always love debating various survival techniques.

Let me tell you, Lansing goes all out for St. Patty's Day.  Michelle (media escort) and I drove through Michigan State and there were green-clad students EVERYWHERE -- dangling from roofs, sprawled on lawns, furniture on sidewalks and lots and lots of green beer.  It was a gorgeous day so I totally understood the urge to be outside -- the entire place had such a festive feel to it.

Backing up a bit... Last week I was in NYC and apparently, it got quite windy.  So windy, in fact, that all modes of transportation were rendered inoperable.  I was supposed to fly out to Chicago on Saturday night and all was going according to plan when someone careened into the airport restaurant (I'd just ordered dinner) to say basically all flights were cancelled.  Yup, it was true.

Amazing publicists Kelly and Jessica totally kicked in and went above and beyond trying to reroute me (there was an event scheduled for early afternoon in Chicago I really REALLY wanted to make it to).  Of course, NYC had been canceling flights to Chicago all day so the earliest I could get there was Monday afternoon (just in time to fly to Detroit). So we decided I'd hop a train to Philly and catch a flight there.  I book it to Penn Station incidentally ending up with tickets on two different trains.  And then I wait.  With everyone else.

note the Eat, Prey Love sticker

I love this picture of us all staring up at the boards cause the girl in front of me is crossing her fingers so hard, clearly hoping the DC train boards.  When the board listed a track for us to board there was a quick cheer by the crowd and then crazy stampeding to the tracks (I'm surprised no one was crushed).  I made it to my seat and settled in.  And waited.  And waited.  For five hours.

Turns out, power was down on the tracks.  We were lucky to be in the station -- there were trains stuck out on the tracks with no power (which means no bathrooms - ick!).  After a while I realized how surreal it is to be an author who writes about post-apocalypse worlds to suddenly be in a situation where there was no escape.  Sure we were allowed to leave or go up to Penn Station, but there were definitely moments when I thought "there could be zombies up on the street and I'd have no idea."

There were plenty of people trying to find cars or flights or any other way out of the city who couldn't (rumor was the NJ turnpike was shut down).  Makes you realize how fragile our infrastructure is and next time a readers asks "would everything really fall apart that fast?" I can say "well, wind make it impossible to escape NYC!"

Also, I'd forgotten that when you throw strangers into a situation where things go wrong, they often become friends.  I ended up selling a copy of FHT to an Australian on the train :)

Me and adam talking zombies

Finally, we gave up and I stayed at a hotel and took a flight out the next morning.  When I landed in Chicago I went straight to my event with Adam Selzer, author of I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It.  Totally awesome book which I loved.

After that was dinner with a few very awesome and funny folks (and yummy food).  Yeah, I totally dug out my phone and shared pictures of my dog and cats.  I'm that kind of person, apparently.

On that note... it's time for me to prepare for the zombie prom.  You know you totally want to go!!  I promise to recap more soon!  Thanks to everyone who has come out to see me -- I've had so much fun meeting fans and chatting!  Y'all rock!