Claire Bidwell Smith

I’m leaving early tomorrow morning for NYC where I’ll be in publishing meetings all week. I’m feeling a bit frantic today — trying to get a million things done this afternoon during Vera’s nap and then more appointments and then trick-or-treating this evening. Our neighborhood should be really fun tonight and we’re looking forward to handing out candy. I think this is seriously the first street I’ve lived on my whole life that is going to actually get trick-or-treaters. We’ve got tons of candy ready, which I’ve been diligently consuming all afternoon in my pre-travel panic.

I’m so excited to go to New York. This will be my third trip there this year and I kind of want that to be the minimum on how often I visit NYC. It still feels like home to me in so many ways and I have so many good friends to catch up with, not to mention dreamy meetings at Penguin and such. Half the time I still can’t believe all this book stuff is real. Only a year ago I was in the middle of trying to stay positive in the face of the most recent agent rejection and trying to convince myself not to give up just yet on this manuscript that I really thought had potential. And now just twelve months later things are better than I ever could have dreamed. (Exciting book news still to come, I promise.)

That said, I’m still battling anxiety about leaving Greg and Vera for three days. It won’t be easy for either of them and I’ll miss them both.

We took V to a really cute little Halloween festival over the weekend and I took a hundred photos.

Happy Halloween! I’ll post more from NYC this week!