It's quite surreal when you consider it. A week ago today I was preparing for a transatlantic journey - and now I'm back, writing on my computer as if nothing has happened. But it has. A lot has happened. I've been to New York, I've done a signing, I've been to a Doctor Who convention and I've been surrounded by men in cowboy hats - and not in a good way. And I get a week rest before I start the next trip...
So Tuesday the 27th I get up at stupid O'Clock in the morning and, after kissing Tracy goodbye, drag my unfeasibly heavy, packed with copies of From The Pages Of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula': Harker suitcase to Heathrow. For the first time in a decade, I live in London while travelling there which meant that rather than drive to my father's, drop the car off, go to the station, catch the Heathrow Connect etc, I could hop on the Central Line outside my house all the way to Ealing, and from there straight to Terminal 3 of Heathrow. In principle, the journey takes about an hour and a half, door to door - unless, like me, you only discover that you're not at Terminal 3 (and in fact you should be at Terminal 4) as you arrive. Still, I managed to check in with time to spare and settled down for some breakfast and a hopefull catch up with both Ben Templesmith (also traveling to New York) and the lovely wife of celebrity chum James Moran (and celebrity chum herself) Jodie Kearns, who was going to Dublin.
Of course, I soon discovered that neither of these people were in Terminal 4. I was in the 'naughty boys' corner, it seemed. So I resigned myself to looking at overpriced tat and then boarded the plane. Continental are cheap and cheerful - I have my own media player so I always bulk up with TV shows to watch and I'm not a massive fan of airline food, so I pretty much vegged out until I hit Newark, making my way into town via the Newark Liberty bus. I wasn't staying in my usual stomping ground this time, as the Milford Plaza had lost out on price to the Mayfair Hotel which proved to be cheaper, nicer, friendlier and had free wifi in the lobby. Which was well needed, as pretty much the moment I arrived I had to read, proof and re-edit the about-to-go-to-press Doctor Who #6.
After I freshened up I watched some US television and was stunned to find Liberace in a gold cape talking Spanish at me. I have since been informed that he is a Spanish horosope / psychic guy for New York. He's like Doctor Strange, in gold lame.
He scared me. Enough to go to the bar.
The plan was to go to the Lansdowne Road bar and drink with some good type people, but the Zuda crowd were in the neighbouring Pony Bar, owned by the same guys, so the evening was spent flitting between the two, with the excellent company of Kevin Colden and his lovely wife Miss, Neil Kleid, Marc Bernardin who (as some of you might have seen on Twitter that evening) had issues with the fact that I felt that Han Solo was cooler than Lando Calrissian (Marc's entire life is built around the fact that one day he will get the dream job of becoming Lando's pale blue cape, and will be able to travel to Star Wars conventions, draped around Billy Dee William's neck), Rick 'MTV' Marshall, Jimmy Aquino, both Peter and Bobby Timony (and respective wives) and Ron, Kwanza and Dave of Zuda, among others. And there were a lot of others.
Suffice to say that there was a lot of drinking.
Wednesday started with work, editing a PDF script followed by lunch with Michael Wright and the aforementioned Zuda guys in a Greek restaurant where Ron Perazza could prove to me that there was such a thing as cheese on fire in a restaurant, I caught up with Dan Didio and Bob Wayne while back in the office before I hopped across the road to Random House to see Tricia, my Pride & Prejudice & Zombies editor, who showed me some utterly utterly awesome finished pages. It comes out the first week of May, and it looks incredible.
From there I went to see Rick in the MTV offices and was shown a soon to be put up video of David Tennant from this years SDCC talking about Doctor Who while looking at Doctor Who: The Forgotten, which gave me professional pride and fanboy squee at the same time, and then I hoofed it down to Jim Hanley's Universe where Vito Delsante had arranged a Doctor Who signing, before my visit to the Doctor Who New York guys.
As ever I enjoyed seeing Vito, I don't see him enough, and I really enjoyed the signing, as I was beside Nick Tapalansky and Alex Eckman-Lawn, signing their new book Awakening. Which is brilliant, by the way.
From there I hit Doctor Who New York with top chums Barnaby, Jill (ex-CBLDF) and Daniel (current CBLDF) and drank a lot of red beer until about four in the morning with people including David, Gemma and Kevin. I then managed to grab a cab home, where I went to bed. They gave me a mug. This time I managed to keep hold of it.
Thursday was the long day - I got up, checked out, went to the airport and flew down to Orlando, Florida where I was attending as a guest of Hurricane Who, arriving about 4pm where I was met by the wonderful Jarrod Cooper and a stretched limo. Very nice. Hurricane Who is the first Orlando Whocon in almost two decades, and it was always going to suffer from 'first con syndrome' - but I have to say, I loved every minute of it. The crew, the guests, the fans, brilliant. the only downside was the hotel itself. who didn't seem to give a damn about the guests and, when my good friends Salina and Jessica found their room broken into and their items stolen, informed them that it wasn't the hotel's fault, as they'd obviously left the door open.
The door, that is, that was hard to keep open at the best of times. And an excuse that even the sherriff didn't believe.
But apart from that blip, the bland lunch options the hotel arranged and the 'Dog Grooming' exhibition that shared space with us, the convention was one of the smoothest I've ever seen. Thursday night was the launch party in the local pub and I got to spend time with Rob Shearman (who I always enjoy talking to) and meet Colin Spaull, an actor who's voice is right there with Ian McKellen and John Hurt for 'voices you want children's books to be recorded by'. I even told him that eventually when Tracy and I have a kid, 'Uncle Colin' will be the man we phone.
It was also good to catch up with Simon Guerrier and Toby Hadoke (and his lovely wife Catherine), Tammy and Katie (from Torchwood Babiez), Tara O'Shea, Jason and the Big Finish guys and the other people I knew from February's Gallifrey One - the list just goes on. As did the convention, thankfully.
I was on several panels, we launched From The Pages Of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula': Harker and sold out of all the copies we brought and the trades of Doctor Who: The Forgotten were sold out in the dealers room in just over an hour. I talked about writing, comics, I performed 'Just A DWNY Minute' with Barnaby and Jon (who showed us what a car covered in bacofoil looks like - don't ask) and saw the Sarah Jane Adventures that had Tennant in.
I attended a pool party in suitable attire and indeed swam in shirt and waistcoat, lest I destroy the branding. Well, I swam for a little while before realising that there's a reason why swimming in clothes is harder than swimming without them. And by that I mean swimming in shorts, not skinny dipping. Get your mind out of the gutter.
I met lots of new people and I found myself a Third Doctor action figure to go with my collection of 'characters wot I have wrote' toys. I tried calamari and didn't like it. I met Louise Jameson and told her I loved her more in Eastenders than as Leela. Although Leela in Eastenders would have rocked. So many things. Nicole the Booze Leprechaun from Gallifrey made a surprise visit. Chip from Two Minute Time Lord was there.
I had a great final night dinner with Nicole, Tammy, Jim, Zach, Salina, Jess and Berkley, where we sent Jason Haigh-Ellery a Strawberry Daquiri. So little time to write about them all - but I'm sure that stories will appear here and there and YouTube footage of the panels will arrive. And I'm really sorry for anyone not managing to sort an intervierw out in time with me - it was a little hectic!
And then it was Monday. Go home day. I said goodbye to the people staying a little longer and was taken back to the airport where, via Houston, I came home. Texas was a three hour stayover, and I spent it admiring hats and moustaches. Everyone seems to think that they're Cowboy Magnum P.I or something. Most amusing.
From there it was a flight to London that I managed to sleep through most of, and now I'm home, catching up on emails, finishing the third DoppleGanger book adaptation and writing issue #9 of Doctor Who.
I have to - I can't sleep until normal sleeping time otherwise my bodyclock will go out of whack - right before I screw it over again next week when I go to India...
