New York, Day 4 – Weight limits

It's my final day in New York City, and I'm writing this after the slightly harrowing journey from Manhattan to Newark Airport, which is actually in New Jersey. This is on account of having booked a very budget airline, which will whisk me across the Atlantic for a bargain price, but will then deposit me at Stanstead as punishment for my thriftiness, and require me to fly from Newark and not JFK.

I prepared for this by ensuring I could take trains here (having learned the folly of engaging with New York City road traffic last time), and bringing my own entertainment, being Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage and Manners by Therese O'Neill (both hilarious and informative), and Colleen Hoover's Maybe Someday in Audiobook (addictively sexy and romantic – curse your talent, Ms Hoover). Still, the trip involved duelling with the crowds at Penn Station, and wrestling my (by now) 20-odd-kg case up and down far too many staircases (along with public bathrooms, working elevators are also a rarity in NYC).

The reason for my heavy case is that I visited more bookshops today, including Book Culture on Columbus, Barnes and Noble at Union Square, and Books of Wonder. The latter is a specialist children's book store, and I have it on some authority that it's the inspiration behind the store Meg Ryan works at in You've Got Mail. My visit to NYC just isn't complete without a Meg Ryan movie reference, it seems. Sadly for my airline weight limit, I had gifts to buy and terribly helpful staff prepared to take my money.

I confess I bought six books and a book bag, my total spend being so stupendous that I qualified for an extra free book, and thus had to sit on my case to make it close. I regret nothing. But I do make an offering to the gods of baggage handlers (St Anthony of Padua, Google informs me) that my case won't pop like an overstuffed burrito before London. It was an excellent store however, including a rare book section where you could purchase a copy of Where The Wild Things Are, personally signed with a small illustration by Maurice Sendak himself, for $22,500. I stepped back from the case, just a bit.

Ah, Sophia Nash, we meet again ...

After Books of Wonder I proceeded to Barnes and Noble and, after a cunning hunt through the four floors, found The Paris Wedding, face out no less, in a nice eye-level position. This rounded my day off nicely.

So, now, I am waiting for my flight to London, binging on an expensive box of GuyLian seashells, which looked cheap until they added the tax and I did the currency conversion. I have attempted to prepare for the long commute from the aforementioned Stanstead by photographing Google map information (and purchasing expensive, consoling Belgian chocolates), which clearly is a foolproof plan with which nothing could go wrong.

Let's just say that the next blog may contain travel misadventures. Stay tuned.

This travel plan is completely clear and contains all detail necessary to make it door to door.

New York, Day 3 – Long distance

This is a relatively quick one, because it's pretty late. By which I mean, it's late on the clock but I am alert and blogging because timezones and melatonin. Today was my date for out-of-city adventuring, where I caught the subway to Queens, hired a car, and imbued with the confidence of last year's cross-country driving-on-the-right success, drove out to Shoreham on Long Island.

The freeways on Long Island are a little scarier than the I-40 I drove last year. Trucks are thick, and everyone (everyone) speeds. Still, despite one overly long wrong-way detour (which wouldn't have happened if the US would have a little more enthusiasm for public bathrooms), I made it out and back in one piece, so success.

The lab in its glory days

Today, the view from one end, about as close as I could get through the chain-link fence

This trip was to visit Wardenclyffe, the location of Nikola Tesla's wireless transmission station from 1901 to 1906. If you're not familiar with Tesla and this site, read the Oatmeal's amusing and enthusiastic recap, which also links to the campaign to save the Wardenclyffe site from development. Now, the museum isn't built yet, so all you can do is stand outside the fence and soak it up. Why did I bother to hire a care and drive three hours just to do that?

Partly, it's because it's just cool – to see a physical remnant of an amazing scientist from a different era. Too good an opportunity to pass up. The other part is that Tesla figures in the science fiction thriller I'm writing for my PhD. The story is an alternative history where Tesla goes to London instead of New York, but I wanted the sense of where he'd been in his "first life" to inform the "second" that's made possible with time travel. Ok, I'm done with the nerding about that. The trip out was 100% worth it.

Having sat in a car for much of the day, when I had the chance to have dinner with some lovely friends tonight, I decided to walk the 30 blocks to their place, and back. Between that and staying in a fifth-floor apartment, my fitbit is very happy with me.

Tomorrow is my last day in New York before I leave for London, and I intend on more bookstore visits. Stay tuned.

A wall of positive reinforcement from the fitbit, though my feet are sore.

New York, Day 2 – Bookstore adventures

“It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.”

— W. C. Fields

Wall art outside Strand Bookstore

One of my objectives in coming to New York was to see my book on an American bookstore shelf. I figured I couldn't take this moment for granted; it could be the only time in my career I have a book out in the USA. In the way of good travel, however, the decision to come led to some twists and turns of fate that made today a bookstore adventure.

It started this morning with a meeting with my wonderful publishing team at William Morrow, after which I asked for bookstore recommendations. One (of the very long list!) was Strand Bookstore, a three-floor wonderland of pages, including a floor devoted to rare books. This also happened to be the location of an author panel tonight called "Romance: it's complicated", featuring Sarah MacLean, Marie Force, LaQuette, Julia London, and Elizabeth Lim. Damon Suede excelled as the moderator, asking poignant and insightful questions (the above quote was one he raised during a discussion of the common misconception that romance is "simple"), and all the authors were articulate and intelligent.

I've never been so captivated by an author panel. They discussed the relationship between romance and autonomy, the nature of happiness as a subversive act, the correlation between the rise of modern democracy and modern literacy, and above all, the rejection of sentimentality as a label for romance. As the title suggested, romance has never been straightforward, IRL or in fiction.

The Romance: it's complicated panel. From left, Damon Suede, Maria Force, Julia London, LaQuette, Sarah MacLean, and Elizabeth Lim.

Despite moments of intense sadness (Sarah's apt comparisons between the foundling hospitals of historical London and the current children at the boarder horror makes me so upset I can barely type about it ... as I write this, Twitter is blowing up over the Corey Lewandowski belittling a child with Down Syndrome separated from parents at the border. I am at a loss as to what's wrong with us as a species in my rage right now.), this was an amazing group of authors, speaking in a spectacular venue, and with important things to say. As (I think Marie) said, love is a social issue. I can't imagine a time when that has been more true, both here in the US and in Australia. I feel very privileged to have been able to attend.

My book, with more inches than I could ever have hoped for. Super thrilling.

And of course, a little icing on this cake was that I did see my book on the shelf! My own micromoment of subversive happiness, amongst the mucky world we live in right now.

Tomorrow, I'm taking an excursion out to Long Island, so I'll post next about that. Stay tuned.

New York, Day 1.5

I'm writing this from a grotto table in the back of Mud Coffee bar, downing an oversize mug latte and waiting for a breakfast involving bacon. I'm in the odd, in-between day of polar-earth position time zone change where, like Byron said, morning has come and went and come and brought no day. Or at least, no sleep. The journey here was two flights racing the sun across the Pacific, split by a strange dash through the bowels of LAX, necessitated by the rules of US Customs which decrees that to fly on anywhere else, we all must queue, clear customs (a labyrinth of crowd control lines), collect our bags, queue, drop our bags back, queue some more, clear security again, and then re-board the same plane, just in a different seat.

The ensuing delay of all passengers making the onward trip to New York (for all other connections, leaving later than us, were given express cards but we were not) meant we were rather badly delayed. We thus missed whatever slender airspace window had been allotted to us and spent a good deal of time circling JFK, touched down late, and then spent some more time waiting on the runway.

By this stage, the pilot was announcing the "annoying delays" in increasingly bewildered tone. After that came another hour or so on trains and subways before I finally put my bag down. However, as I'd re-watched Gravity during the first flight during a patch of turbulence, I should be grateful for the safe arrival, however late. Watching space stations and satellites smash themselves to pieces around Sandra Bullock as she tries to make it back to Earth is a rather special experience while you yourself are ten clicks off the surface of said earth in a shaking aluminium and composite can. I can recommend it to everyone.

I elected this time to stay at an Airbnb apartment, reasoning that staying with a local would be a different and hopefully positive experience. My mistake was apparent soon after arriving, not because of my host (who is lovely, if erring on the strict size of house rules), but because it's New York, which means a tiny tiny apartment with one tiny tiny bathroom (I shall never complain about the size of my workers' cottage at home again). In a hotel, I never worry about how many times I might need to visit the bathroom because I sank two pints of soda water while waiting at a nearby bar for my host to arrive. I also don't worry too much about old and narrow sewerage pipes and how much toilet paper one might be able to use before it becomes a plunger issue.

Then there's the emerging First Rule of Airbnb, which is, We Don't Talk about Airbnb. That is, should anyone ask, I'm staying with "a friend", and though I intensely resent having to tiptoe around the clandestine subletting issue after having paid via a legit website every single time, I of course will not say anything about it. Except to the bartender across the street before said prohibition from mentioning Airbnb was made clear to me at this place. Ooops.

Let's say I survived the night, though much of it was spent not sleeping but listening to Story Club podcasts (and the comic stylings of David Cunningham), flicking through several hundred blocked TV channels, and fretting about what I could wear for the 31 degree heat when I'd packed for a Brisbane winter. When the sun did come up, the view out of the window of the fire escape stairs put me in mind of Vivian's apartment in Pretty Woman. Sadly, no Richard Gere in a limousine was waiting down the four flights of stairs. Probably because, a) I'm in the wrong city for the metaphor, and b) my loved ones are on the other side of the globe. So I walked several blocks to this café.

This degree of sleep dep makes me feel woozy. Hence the industrial mug of latte, though all the coffee in the world will not make up for having been too cheap to buy roaming (or local) data, and having left the comforting radius of the apartment wi-fi without confirming directions to the right subway stop for my trip downtown. That one I'm going to have to wing. I know I have to walk west. Really, what could go wrong?

Next time, I'm going to post about meeting my New York publisher, and adventures in New York bookshops. Stay tuned. For now, breakfast is here. :)

Shooting for 5 stars ... or why I decided to leave indie book review groups

NOTE: EDITED 28 March to add note about "minimum viable product".

I admire indie authors and have absolutely nothing against indie publishing - I republished my backlist as an indie earlier this year and every story you've heard is true: about how much work it is, how subject to luck it is, how long-term the game can be.

In that game, reviews - especially Amazon reviews - are like gold. All kinds of speculation abounds about the number of reviews you need to be treated well by the algorithm. Regardless of the truth of that, reviews definitely matter. Books without reviews are very hard to sell. Some promotion services won't accept your book without a certain number of reviews, and with an average above a certain number of stars.

So, it should be entirely predictable what happens next. Indie authors work out how to most effectively get more reviews.

This isn't a sock puppet story. Amazon has rules about that, and they also have rules about review swapping. And so when you enter reviewing clubs (mostly on Facebook) you'll find all kinds of elaborate rule sets designed to ensure that reviews are NOT swapped and that all is above board with Amazon. The groups vary enormously in how they run - some are only for "free" books, some require you to purchase the book. Some do monthly assignments, others keep a rolling review-last-post list, others just have open posts. The thing is, however they run, the rule sets usually include a policy about what to do if you don't want to give a book 4- or 5- stars.

And here, I ran into my problem.

The first book I ever reviewed, I couldn't give it more than 2 stars. I don't even know where to begin with the editing it needed. The site asked me to contact the author, which I did, and they were gracious about the feedback. That group's policy was if you couldn't give at least 3-stars, they preferred you contact the author first. That, I can almost be ok with - because at 2-stars, the book probably has huge problems that an author probably needs help with, rather than a flaming through the Amazon star system. But then this month, on a new group where I had paid for the books I was reviewing, I posted two reviews, one 3-star, one 4-star. Then next thing, I had a message telling me that in future, I needed to contact the author if I wanted to give a 3-star review (equivalent to "It's Okay" on the star scale), and give them the choice of whether to accept it.

I'm sorry, what now?

Look, reviews are the author's bane. Bad reviews are hell. But I have never in my life expected that I had the right to reply, let alone to silence a reviewer who wanted to give me a less than stelllar review. And yet here, in this club, the expectation is that an author can choose not to accept a review under 4-stars, anything less that "I liked it". What happens with a rule like this? I would suggest that predictably, reviewers feel pressure not to rate under 4-stars. Because then, you have to have that uncomfortable conversation direct with the author, telling them that their book was only "okay" in your eyes and asking if they're ok with that opinion going live. I'm not fine with that. I also highly resent being told to do this when I PURCHASED THE BOOK. I subscribe to the philosophy that someone who's paid to read my book can say whatever they want. That's just the nature of the industry. 

I expressed my discomfort with the rule, and in the conversation with the (admittedly lovely) admin of the group, it was clear they didn't really understand why I had a problem. Not posting the review doesn't increase the author's ranking, I was told. Well, that's obvious, but it also skirts around the fact that their books rating doesn't decrease, either. This is the book reviewing equivalent of academic publishing's Achilles heel - no one publishes negative results, so the published record is skewed towards studies where a positive result was seen. So too then with book reviews, and I'm so frustrated with buying indie books stuffed full of 4- and 5-star reviews and finding they aren't that good. Not just not-my-taste not good but poorly written, wouldn't make it out of the slush pile not good. I never understood what was going on there. Now, I wonder if it's just group and club reviews pushing up ratings by deterring anyone who thinks different.*** The admin told me it was totally my choice to give a poor review, just not every author wanted to receive a 3-star review, that's why I had to contact them. Yeah, really missing the point!!

So I did the only thing I can do: I made my choice to leave.

I'm not going to be part of it, this culture of reviewing books of fellow indie authors with the punitive demon of a no-low-reviews sitting on my shoulder. It's against every value I have of fairness and justice and honesty. Reading these books takes a good deal of precious time, as does writing a considered and honest review. If I've paid to boot, then I'm damn well going to be honest about it, and not be held to a rule that allows an author to say, "no thanks, that review's no good for my ranking". But on Facebook, you can't be anonymous. Your picture is right there next to the reviews you've done. I felt I had no choice but so say I couldn't subscribe to the rule, and to bow out. I'm not handing out my reviewing time under those conditions.

So, I wish everyone luck. Indie authordom is a tough gig, but no one is really served by setting up an environment like this. It encourages inflated reviews, encourages skim reading, encourages reviews as a currency, rather than as a reflection of the book itself. Direct interaction between authors and reviewers is always fraught, and in this case, see nothing but conflict. So I choose not to engage. I feel the better for it.

***after publishing this blog, I came across the concept of minimum viable product, through Peter M Ball's newsletter. Basically, this is the idea that you put out a minimum standard of product to draw people in, because raising it to the quality of a fully finished and refined product exceeds your capabilities/resources/patience. A lot of indie publishing, I suspect, falls into this category, either deliberately or through lack of knowledge for how to actually edit a story to a high standard. I've even had an author tell me directly that they'd had a lot of trouble with a book that just didn't quite work, but they'd decided to push it out there anyway just to see how it might do. Now, not every indie is doing that. But the fact that some (many?) are doing this makes the concept of not allowing low reviews even less palatable.

What other people think

On dealing with online judgement, with some great words to remember

Any writer will tell you that dealing with reviews is a tough gig. Issac Asimov is supposed to have said that writers "fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review."

We all have different techniques for dealing with it. Mine is to not read reviews (works most of the time, but sometimes I must to say, maintain this website). One other writer I know takes a pragmatic approach and says that as long as someone's paid for her book, they can write whatever they like.

But there's no avoiding the fact that the online nature of the world now means that what other people think of you -- your books, or just you -- can be right in your face. If you write romance, or you self-publish, that can be particularly sharp, because so many people think that it's fine to take a dig at you (including big respectable institutions, like this in The Guardian and this in The New York Times) and make fun of what you do because, I don't know, they feel morally superior or something like that. People who are in privileged positions will do it, even though it's really beneath them to be so petty. They do it anyway. I've had it happen to me so many times I've lost count.

When you're starting out on a new venture (as I am right now - can't share details yet, but I will) you're particularly vulnerable to that. And so I wanted to share with you this from the Barefoot Investor that landed in my inbox this week. As someone who's been through financial ruin due to predatory financial advice, I'm a keen follower of Scott Pape and his no BS independent stance, but please know that I don't have any association with him. This is just very timely and important to remember advice, I think. 

“Truth is, most people worry about what other people say about them.

Yet here’s the rub: if you’re doing brave things — working hard, starting a business, kicking arse with the Barefoot Steps — chances are you’re going to make someone around you feel uncomfortable. And they may try to bring you down a peg or two … back to their level.

If you listen to them — or worry about what you think they’d think — it’ll eat away at your self-confidence. And that will keep you in jobs you don’t like, relationships you’ve outgrown, cars you can’t afford. Worse, it’ll waste the precious time you have on this planet.

What’s the answer?

Care with both hands. I can count the number of people I care about on two hands — chances are you can too. And when you think about it deeply (and I have), these are the only people who matter.

If you’re being a jerk, or hurting people, or behaving like a Kardashian — they’ll pull you up on it. And that’s the only time you need to worry about someone’s else’s opinion. For the rest, just talk to the hand.”

— -- Scott Pape, Barefoot Investor Newsletter, 25 Sep 17

So, for all those doing brave things, carry on. If you see someone trying to be brave, lift them up. The world will be cruel enough. And don't be afraid to call out your friends when they behave like jerks to other people beneath them. Hard to do, but important.

The Paris Wedding Launch Party

I've been tardy in writing about The Paris Wedding's launch last Friday night, partly because the last week had been a terrible no-sleeping storm here (natural insomniac tendencies + the-wakeful-toddler) and I tend to forget the things that aren't immediate pressing deadlines. But, here I go!

I want to thank once again the wonderful cosplayers, led (instigated?) by my mother Isobella and my step-dad, Vic. They organised dual (the first time I typed it, I wrote 'duel') Australian and French flags, and berets and stripey shirts and colourful umbrellas just like on the book's cover - Vic even played quintessential French accordion music. I was really touched by the effort. Avid Reader once again excelled in events management with flawless organisation, the wonderful Krissy Kneen MC'ing, and my lovely publisher Rebecca Saunders leading the conversation. There was wine, and signing, and stories about Paris and writing - a very good time.

This all capped off a week in which The Paris Wedding and The Horseman have been in the iBooks top 20 paid books (at one point, 2 and 3 in romance). Some wonderful reviews have been coming in so it really did feel like a celebration. Thanks again to all.

Cosplayers bring the colour!

The official part! Me at left, Krissy Kneen centre, with Rebecca Saunders at right.

Signing table after the rush ... and a nice wine :)

Giveaway winner!

Thank you to all the readers who signed up for my newsletter in the last week. I'm very pleased to announce the winner of the giveaway is Jenni Brown in South Australia. Congratulations Jenni! A copy of The Paris Wedding and The Horseman are coming your way, so please check your email inbox for further details. Happy weekend everyone!

The Paris Wedding launch and giveaway

I'm very pleased to confirm that my publisher, Rebecca Saunders, will be the official launcher for The Paris Wedding! We'll be having the launch party at Avid Reader (a truly awesome independent bookshop in Brisbane) in West End on 7 July 2017, 6 for 6:30pm. Avid always put on a fantastic event, and it's free, but you'll need to click here to register for numbers. Come and find out more about behind the scenes writing The Paris Wedding, enjoy a glass of wine, and celebrate with us. I'll be signing books, and feel free to bring previous books along, too.

And now to the giveaway ... to celebrate the launch, I'm giving away a personally signed and fresh off the press (literally - I got the books yesterday!) copy of The Paris Wedding, plus a copy of The Horseman. To enter, simply sign up for the newsletter (if you're already a subscriber, you're entered). Entries close 16 June 2017, 5:00pm AEST and the lucky winner drawn at random. Good luck :)

If you can't make the launch, you can check out the upcoming library events - I'll be answering questions and signing books there too.

Outtakes (yes, there will be underwear …) and Superlatives (USA C2C #9)

I'm back safely in Australia now, negotiating the final jet-lag and reintegration to regular life that comes after trips (boo for that). So, for the final blog in my USA research trip series, I thought I'd do a whimsical and quick list of outtakes (embarrassing moments, gaffes, and hairy situations mostly exempted from the other blogs) and superlatives. Here goes.

At the start! ...

Most embarrassing moment

The walk from the hire car drop-off to the airport terminal in Nashville is a fair way. It involves lifts, and road crossings. I passed a lot of people on that walk. Of course, when I dropped off the hire car, the last thing I did was to reorganise my bags (read: frantically opening compartments, stuffing in junk that had spread through the car, and hauling out stuff I wanted in my carry-on), in preparation for check-in. It was only when I got to a seat inside the terminal and looked down that I realised I'd left a zip open on my bag. On a pocket that faced down. The pocket where I'd put my underwear. So, of course, all the contents were merrily showing themselves. I'm surprised there wasn't a marked trail of underpants along my route. So, note to self: check all bag pockets are closed, unless you want all of Nashville International Airport to know you have leopard print underpants and a purple G-string.

Most expensive mistake

Taking Uber from Manhattan to JFK airport. It's close to USD100, and it took over 1.5 hours. Pile up on the freeway, which seems a regular occurrence. While actually on the Uber ride, I learned about the AirTrain, which costs $7.75 ($5 for the airport, and $2.75 for the subway connection), and would have taken an hour. That one hurt, especially as it was a very near thing me making the flight at all. Note to self: always investigate mass transit.

Biggest save

Catching the car hire company overcharging me USD200. When you drop a car off at a different location to the one you hired at, they charge you a one-way fee, which is pretty hefty (USD500, and that was a cheap one). That's enough hurt on its own. But the company tried to charge USD700, and were really (politely) insistent until I pulled out all the paperwork. Note: always bring paperwork with all charges highlighted!

Nearing the end - slightly more ragged ... hopefully wiser!

Most unexpected awesomeness

Being given a fresh first edition copy of Michael Crichton's next (probably last) book Dragon Teeth, while in the New York office of my US publisher. Note to self: always indulge in fangirl moments. Sometimes good things come!

As runner-up, the historical site park by the Arkansas River in Fort Smith. Really lovely in the twilight. Note to self: always go to the places that are not accessible on Google street view. They are invariably completely different than imagined.

Scariest moment

For a few seconds I thought I had turned down a freeway off-ramp (somewhere in Texas). I saw a sign that said "wrong way go back", and a big truck coming towards me. It actually wasn't. I was on the right road, and the off-ramp (with oncoming truck) was actually alongside. The "Wrong Way Go Back" sign was a tad too rotated towards me. Did a great job of scaring me half to death though. I don't know what the note to self is here ... trust self more, maybe.

Biggest bust

Times Square. Not really a square. Bright, garish, loud and congested. Lots of hustlers. Note: not worth it.

The unassuming delight of tasty late night pizza.

Best food moment

Tie between The Bar-B-Q Shop in Memphis (best ribs) and Prince Street Pizza in New York City, which was a random find one night. I had one slice. I should have had two. It was crispy but chewy, tomato-y and cheesy and yum. Will go again next time I'm there.

The enormous and strange contents of the Memphis Pyramid

Weirdest thing

The enormous fishing/hunting store inside the Memphis Pyramid, complete with floating boats on a lake, a cabin-style hotel, and towering ceilings. Incongruous but weirdly amazing.

That's it! I'm still processing everything I learned and absorbed during the 3200 km drive and the last leg in New York. It was quite the Odyssey. Next month I will begin editing the book all this informs and hopefully by then it will all make a bit more sense.

All the Good Things (USA C2C #8)

Books, books ...

Today was my last day in New York, and as a very special final reason for being here, I had a meeting with my US publisher Lucia Macro, who will be publishing The Paris Wedding. Visiting a publisher is always less like going to an office and more like going to a candy store. The Hachette offices in Sydney have always been like that for me (books everywhere) and HarperCollins in New York is no different. It's way downtown, on Broadway quite near the World Trade Centre, and has books, everywhere, books, including a floor for children's publishing where such immortal favourites as Where The Wild Things Are and Goodnight Moon looked out from the shelves. I know both of those by heart. It was very special to stand in a place like that.

... all the books!!!

We wants it, this precioussss ...

Of course, I spotted a good deal of amazing adult titles as well: Rachael Gibson's many novels, a few of Neil Gaiman's, gosh dozens of others …  there was even a SECRET CUPBOARD FULL OF BOOKS with a sign that said to TAKE WHATEVER YOU PLEASE (***honest, this was true, except not really a secret) and then I rounded a corner and saw this: (Cue fangirl moment)

For anyone who doesn't know me, Michael Crichton's books were a huge influence in my life. They got me interested in reading again in my early teenage years, and I've read every novel he ever published (excepting one or two of the early, pseudonym ones). I've also re-read a number of them over and over. Needless to say, it's a special case of fandom, which is something I am not for just about anything else (except horses, and Michael Biehn's work in the 80s). You know how you're supposed to remember where you were when you heard that Princess Di had died? Well … I remember where I was when I heard Crichton had died, sadly far too young. That should perhaps tell you enough.

Posthumously, two more of his novels have been released, but those have been out for ages, so I was really surprised to learn several months ago that another was coming in May. I've had it on order. So knock me down when (after my fangirl moment) I was offered a copy on the spot. YES. It's very carefully wrapped in my scarf now, so that I can at my leisure read it on the flight home. It's a hard cover, with cut pages, and gloriously beautiful maps on the inside covers. I'm very rarely thrilled by material objects, but this is one of those occasions. It's the spinkles on the chocolate sauce on top of the cherry.

Speaking of food, after all that excitement, I got to enjoy a lovely lunch with my publisher where we talked about so many things - New York, Australia, publishing, politics. A great time was had, especially by me. My publisher took a great deal of time out of her day to show me around and do lunch, so a huge, huge thanks for such a generous gesture. It made my whole week.

After that I had to head to the airport (that story in the next blog) where I am now sitting, eating skittles (because metaphorical candy stores can be followed by actual ones) and wishing there was a Starbucks or something like it on this side of the security gate (JFK is not known for its friendliness). Ahead is about another hour of waiting, then a shade under six hours to LA, two hours of layover, and 13 or so hours back to Brisbane. It's a long way home, but no regrets at all about coming. None at all.

I'll Have What She's Having (USA C2C #7)

I started the first day in New York City fairly late, courtesy of a flight that landed after 10 pm, a terminal remodelling project that had relocated cars a bus-ride across the airport (and into a hell of gridlock), and the usual 24-hour New York traffic. And yet, somehow, despite all the people yelling into phones in ten different languages, the sirens and the honking (wow, the Olympic sport honking!) this city manages to be exciting. Perhaps anxciting, but still.

Reuben, the go-all-day sandwich

I remember reading once about why cities are such dynamic places, and important for innovation and change. Putting a huge number of people together in one place facilitates exchange of ideas and cooperation. The outcome is not only diversity of citizens, but of the ideas and businesses and inventions they produce. It's the cliché of opportunity. New York feels like the kind of place that long ago crossed the critical mass for being dynamic and now sits, with the few other super cities of the world, in a class all of its own.

Being up late, I figured I would start the day with brunch at Katz's deli. If you don't know about that, all you probably need to know is that the famous fake orgasm scene was filmed there. I saw Katz's on the foot network last year. Think sandwiches with stacks of sliced meat, delicate corned beef and pastrami, served with pickles and condiments. The walls are covered with photos of the famous. So it wasn't a surprise when I walked in to find a film crew working for Food Nation. It was a surprise when they asked if I'd be on camera. My mission: bite the sandwich, say "mmmm".

Haha, it was great fun, and got chatting to food writer David Rosengarten, who was helping out with the crew. David is obviously a passionate New Yorker, I left with tips for a great dinner venue and some insider neighbourhood information for my research.

From there, I went walking. All the way downtown to the Brooklyn Bridge, through Two Bridges and Tribeca, before catching the subway to Central Park.

Central Park is where New York excels itself. Where else could you do so much within the body of the city itself? I watched a baseball game (I know nothing about baseball, but it was exciting), climbed rocky outcrops, listened to a jazz band and found a zoo, and that was barely a quarter of the distance up the park. It's a necessary counterpoint in what is a mega metropolis, with all the pressure that brings.

Manhattan, Central Park and baseball ... a quintessential NY moment  

It's coming up to dinner time now, but I'm not hungry (I shouldn't think so after the half a cow Katz put on my brunch sandwich) so I'm going to head up to Times Square, and then one last research item to check off. Tomorrow morning, I'm meeting my publisher downtown, which is super exciting. The only thing more exciting is the lovely feeling of soon going home.

I Like Your Accent (USA C2C #6)

Yes, this is Nashville - life size replica of the Parthenon. As you do!

I'm sitting in Nashville airport waiting for my flight to the big apple. It's like airports pretty much everywhere, except there's more than the usual number of people with guitars on their backs. And in the process of ordering my venti Starbucks shaken tea (I have to do something to balance out the amazing food), I heard something I've gotten a lot in the past few days: "I like your accent".

For serious?

To my ears, I sound like Olivia Newton John in Grease: painfully, broadly, nasally Australian, while everyone else is smooth and southern, owning every stereotype you could care to name, because this is the place to do it. BUT it does have the advantage of making me sound different, so people talk to me. Spontaneously. Where'r you from? Haha! My unintentional lure works!

And wow, have they been interesting folk. Like Tony, a trucker I met at a truck stop (he helped explain the fifteen varieties of peanut butter snack in the vending machine), who has seen all the back roads of America, and whose brother runs a NY foodie magazine. And Doris, who showed me the Wightman Chapel on the Scarritt Bennett grounds in Nashville, where Dr King Jr spoke in 1957, and who sang (most beautifully) to demonstrate the chapel's acoustics. She also set me up with lunch in the dining hall. Wonderfully generous. And Damien, a USAF pilot who flies fighter jets and who I just met in Starbucks. I mean, wow. This is the thing that I love most about travel (after the travelling itself) … it makes the world so much bigger. More possible. And yet smaller and more understandable.

RIBS. Half dry, half glazed, all amaze. Get in my belly!

Of course, I don't mind the food either. I didn't mention this yesterday, but on my way through Memphis, I stopped at The Bar-B-Q Shop for lunch (after a little white-knuckle interstate off-ramp negotiation). I think I saw it on the food channel a few months back. OMG, the ribs, and the hospitality. Delicious in a way I can't explain, and I didn't need dinner. I probably don't need to eat ever again. Go there if you're ever in Memphis.

Tomorrow I'll be in New York City for the final two days of my trip, so it's goodbye to the South. Thanks for having me. It's been grand.

Connections and layovers (USA Coast2Coast #5)

Today, I finished the long drive from LA to Nashville, a distance of 2000 miles (3600 km). It's a little further than driving from Cairns to Melbourne, on the coast road through Brisbane and Sydney. Doing that in four days didn't leave much opportunity for exploring off-interstate (unfortunately). I would have loved to dive off into New Mexico or Texas, or just about anywhere. Instead, I made the most of the places I stopped. Last night, that was Fort Smith, AR.

Twilight by the Arkansas River

After the relatively dry expanse of the western states, it was instantly refreshing to come over the Arkansas River. Fort Smith sits in a loop of the river, and has a long history. I met lovely people here – I mentioned yesterday the staff of the Central Discount Pharmacy, and after that post I went out to the Fort Smith National Historical Site, where I've set a small scene from my next book. The sun was going down and the visitor centre was closed, but that was fine with me. I was just there for the riverside of the park.

On my way there, I happened to meet a wonderful group of primary school teachers celebrating the retirement of one of their members. They were looking for someone to take a group photo, but we were soon talking and it was lovely then to chat with them. They embodied the generous hospitality I've found in the south, and after travelling on my own for a few days, they really lifted my spirits. Thank you, Lana, and all your group!

After that, a short walk over the hill took me to the bank of the Arkansas River. At sunset, despite the proximity to the interstate and downtown, it's a tranquil place, inviting reflection and quiet. There's a moving monument for the Trail of Tears. I sat there for a long time, thinking about what it might have been like to leave the home you love for a horrific journey to an unknown place. How would I feel if I could never go home? It's too awful. And yet, these things are still happening in our world. Twilight lingered there for a long time, and then it was dark, and I went back.

Tomorrow, I have most of the day in Nashville for research, time for a breather from highway driving, before flying to New York in the evening.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz … (USA Coast2Coast #4)

Jet lag is a special kind of torture, one that has snuck up on me in my late 30s. It turns everyt thought into a foggy mess. Before the Paris trip last year, I hadn't ever experienced it. Just seemed to be able to force myself onto local time by sheer force of will (or, with my spritely twenty-something endurance). But ten years later and after two years of baby-induced sleep debt, there's no longer any reservoir, and I've always tended to insomnia anyway. So odds were probably against me.

Kia, killer of all the road bugs ...

I didn't sleep on the flight, which left Brisbane at 10 in the morning, and landed in LA at 6 am. After that, I've had two broken short nights. You know the deal: sleep an hour or two, wake up, can't get back to sleep, repeat. So today, I had to stop twice for naps at rest stops because I was seriously concerned about nodding off. Not good. Don't want to end up like the bugs on my bumper. So after checking in here in Fort Smith, AR, I googled a local chemist for pharmaceutical intervention.

Twenty minutes later I'd met a fabulous group of southern women who'd been working in the pharmacy for over 30 years, had free pens, my sleeping aid, and a dinner spot recommendation. Nice. And east Oaklahoma / west Arkansas is just spring beautiful – verdant forests with soft foliage, yellow and purple wildflowers on the roadside. But I'm going to keep it short today. Dinner, research checklist, then straight to sleep.

Spring beautiful

Mild Culture Shock (USA Coast2Coast #3)

A friend of mine once described moving to the UK as "mild culture shock", the combination of all the little things that, in an otherwise seemingly similar-to-home country, led to the displaced feeling of not belonging there. Mild culture shock is sometimes the worst, because you go in expecting to be able to navigate effectively – you speak the language, you've seen the place on TV. You haven't prepared yourself as you otherwise might have if you were going to, say, Vladivostok.

I had a similar experience in New Zealand a few years back, and I found a useful barometer was the weekly political satire/comedy show 7 Days (like Good News Week, or Mock The Week if you're British). Getting jokes about politics and culture requires actual integrated knowledge of that culture. When I arrived in NZ, I got about 30% of the jokes. By the time I left, it was closer to 70%. Not perfect, but then I still hadn't shaken the feeling of "not home". It's a paradox perhaps that "not home" is half the point of travel, and simultaneously the source of angst.

I thought about this a lot today on the long drive from Winslow, AZ to Amarillo, TX (880 km). Much of the country is flat plains, which while quite majestic in their own way also do a great job of inducing driver fatigue. It was after a fuel stop that I realised I was actually dreading pulling into service stations, because while they look like servos at home, the protocol is completely different and navigating it still brings me stress. So, to occupy myself on the next leg, I made a catalogue of all the little things that make up my experience of American culture shock. I've put the list down at the end, in case it helps someone else (feel free to comment more!). Sadly, I haven't found a version of Good News Week to test my cultural barometer (the TV in the motel last night induced me to watch at least three episodes of Say Yes to the Dress, so I'm staying away from cable).

In any case, after today I'm roughly half-way to Nashville. The part of Texas I've just come across is full of wind turbines (to the north) and fields to the south. It's a little incongruous to see the vast wind energy infrastructure in a state famous for oil, but I guess that shows how things move on. The wind is roaring through, and there's dust devils all over the fields. Amarillo is full of pickups with big growly engines, and I was quite excited to see people driving said growly pickups while wearing cowboy hats; feels extremely authentic! And that's the thing about culture shock, I guess – the same things that are disconcerting are also things that make up the fabric of somewhere else.

Tomorrow I'll be driving across the rest of the panhandle, and across Oklahoma, right in the meat of tornado alley. Just have to channel my inner Bill Paxton. There's a happy thought. In the meantime, I'm going to go in search of some kind of BBQ.

A short list of Australian/US mild culture shocks:

• Petrol stations. You must pay first. Having a foreign credit card (which won't work in the bowser because I don't have a US zip code to enter) that means pull up, get out, go into the shop where you either a) guess at the amount you'll pay so they can authorise the card for that amount, or b) pay a guessed amount of cash. I say "guess" because I'm always filling up, not putting in exact. Then, you go out, pump the gas (see next point), then return inside to collect change, or an accurate receipt for the credit card (which will credit back what you didn't spend). This means if you want to buy anything else, you have to do that in a separate transaction. So, lots of double handling. This whole process for some reason I find stressful.
• Petrol pumps. They have only one nozzle. You push a button to select the fuel after picking up the nozzle. Some have vapour recovery, and won't pump unless you've formed a seal with the rubber boot around the nozzle. If in doubt, read all the signs on the bowser.
• Indicators on vehicles are red, not orange. Harder to see. Weird.
• Toilets are shallower, and filled with a wide bowl of water to a rather alarming level. Careful knack required when flushing.
• Default switch "on" position is up, not down.
• Biscuits + gravy = soft scones + white sauce
• Driving on the right. Makes it slower to process the right place to be at the right time; tend to drift to the right in the lane, I think because I'm used to my body being to the right of the centre, not the left.
• Trucks put their hazard lights on when they're going relatively slowly uphill. Never seen it in Australia and took me a while to realise what it meant.
• All the logos for hotels, petrol stations, and eateries are different, so brand recognition is about zero. Doesn't sound like a big deal, until you're travelling at highway speeds and trying to work out whether the upcoming exit has what you need. Same deal for most of the brands in the supermarket.
• Tipping. If you watch videos on how to tip on YouTube, it seems like you are tipping everyone. The reality of being here is that I'm still working out who you tip and who doesn't. In restaurants and cafes, sure, though not in big chain stores it seems. Taxis and Uber seem to be appropriate, too. But I've had a couple of people who were super helpful refuse a tip, even when they'd done something beyond their job description. Still confused on this one.
• Tax. Most prices are listed without tax, so you pay more once you reach the counter. For example, all drinks at maccas are $1 (huge posters display this), but at the counter in one place, I paid $1.10.
• Super, super polites. I'm getting ma'am a lot. It's not at all a bad thing, but nothing like home!

Stay above fifty! (USA Coast2Coast #2)

“Trinity: You always told me to stay off the freeway.
Morpheus: Yes, that’s true.
Trinity: You said it was suicide.
Morpheus: Then let us hope that I was wrong.”

— The Matrix Reloaded

• 35 mph = 56 kph
• 50 mph = 80 kph
• 75 mph = 120 kph

The correct answer is "keep right"

A couple of days before I got on my flight, Speed was on TV. I rarely watch anything on the teev these days, so the fact I caught it seemed liked a sign. Of what, I'm not sure. Now, I love Speed. I even use it in teaching narrative structure because it's very nicely structured. But before I arrived in LA, I sometimes struggled with the plausibility of the plot. I mean, how far does Dennis Hopper's bad guy thing his plan is going to get? There's only so much road. I thought a bus driving at 80 clicks for a couple of hours was far-fetched.

Yeah, well, LA is a tad more vast than I gave it credit for, and the motorways go on and on forever. And there can be traffic jams at stupid hours, like at 5:30 this morning when I was driving out of the city. One-hundred percent gridlocked not moving jammed. Insane. After that was thick, thick fog in the mountains, fog that made the rising sun into a gold coin, floating disembodied from, well, everything. Fog so thick you could barely seen anything, except the lights of the trucks in front bleeding through as little dabs of red.

Finally, I made it out into the spanking-along interstate, turning off onto the I-40 before I accidentally ended up in Vegas. Despite the constant stream of trucks, it was a relief to be out on the open road. Driving in LA put me very much in mind of the freeway chase in Matrix Reloaded. I bet the screenwriters had LA in mind when they wrote it, even though I think it was shot in Sydney. Haha, Sydney, you're such a n00b. There's no photos of my driving there because, well, that would have been suicide. 

Driving on LA freeways is exactly like this, except with fewer cool Ducatis

Anyway. From there, came lots of pale ribbon roads across wide valley floors, disappearing into the distant smoky mountains. Felt like real progress to be eating each leg up. A flash of the Colorado River was an incongruous, icy mint blue, and then came the border. As soon as you enter Arizona, the speed limit goes from 70 to 75 mph, but let's face it, most people are doing more than that, and there's a constant left-right ballet as you pass trucks and then pull right again so that all the non-trucks doing 90 can pass you.

The only safe-ish shot of the road is a boring shot of the road

So many trucks ...

A dust devil chased the highway, crossing over and fizzing out just as we were on a collision course. That made me pause. There's signs up at the truck stop about dust storms in this area. I knew they can get bad storms roaring through these plains, and Flagstaff has even had an out-of-season snowstorm in recent years. It's up in the hills there, with pine forests all around. Once you spit out the other side, though, all the snowcaps are in the rearview and it's just exposed plains, and the wind today is roaring through. Roaring. I'm nowhere near Tornado Alley yet, but you have a sense of being at mercy of the elements.

At least by the time I hit Winslow, I was fairly into the right-side driving thing. It's still a conscious effort, but I'm no longer terrified by left turns. I've checked into a motel room smelling strongly of air freshener, and only slightly less strongly of cigarette smoke. The sun is bright and harsh. It's not unlike outback Queensland in the winter. Bright clear days and dangerous sun. Things still happen that I don't understand. Like trucks putting their hazards on while they're still driving. Really need to google what that's about. Still, success.

Tomorrow, will be crossing New Mexico and entering Texas, and listening to the end of the audiobook that's kept me company today – Colleen Hoover's November 9. Incidentally, it's a love story about a writer writing a love story, with lots of meta references to the tropes of romance, and the characters happen to live in LA and New York. I didn't know that when I picked it out. A coast to coast story for a coast to coast story research trip. Very nice.

USA Coast2Coast Day #1 – Spaghetti Junctions

Driving in LA is much like driving in Sydney, except bigger, faster, and with more palm trees. There's freeway onramps that instantly become offramps and if you're not savvy enough to change lanes at top speed before this arrangement ejects you, you enter a compulsory Mr Squiggle on the road map trying to get back again. Entering a worse area of gridlock is compulsory in such cases. Then there's the hotel that the GPS insists you've arrived at, except it's across a concrete road partition and you're on the wrong side. Note: This will require forty minutes of corners, lane changes and spaghetti manoeuvres to correct. You can then collapse in a grateful heap on the lobby floor, because now you can stop chanting, "keep right, keep right, keep right!" under your breath.

The hire car company will fail to have the GPS you were told was "confirmed", and ask if that's "ok". To their credit, they will bend over backwards to find one if you present the right shade of colour-drained face. Staying awake for 24 hours will assist with this. However, you will also be required to pass the "but the one-way drop fee is $200 more than you were quoted" hurdle. Once that's done, though, you can finally be on your way. Just be sure not to put the weird footbrake on (because the rental people left it off, and you have no idea what on and off is with it, so you put it on and drove down the road with the car alarming at you.

You will arrive at Santa Monica Pier under the most broiling of skies, with rain spatting down and the ocean all angry, and far too early for a coffee and not at all like a carnival. You'll catch yourself thinking that this looks a lot like the Gold Coast, until you look up at those hulking mountains and realise it's not just another city, but another continent. That you just flew over that huge expanse of Pacific, and everything you love is such a long way away. Everything will be vast, and the road and the city go on and on. But there's rest to come, and you got here in one piece – and met some interesting people along the way, and there was chips and the best ice-tea ever. And a few laughs about the sign in one of the bathrooms. And tomorrow you'll drive across the mountains and see what's on the other side.

Really, how could all this go wrong?

I'm usually a really mellow traveller. I like long-haul plane flights (ok, except with a one-year-old). Half the fun … well, maybe not fun, but allure? challenge? of travelling is the little hiccups along the way. The slightly bigger hiccups make good stories – like, how I ended up at a birthday dinner an hour late and covered in tyre grease (I'll save that one for another time).

This time, heading tomorrow to the US to research The Lucky Escape, I'm jangly, and I've been trying to work out why. Partly, I'm sure it's the intense coverage of politics in the last few months, and the pervading uncertainty of travelling there, no matter who you are. After all, Mem Fox, right?

Partly, it's because I'm having to travel without a certain small person. It's just not possible for this to be a family trip, and I'm very uncertain how that will pan out. It's a lot to ask of everyone here.

And partly, it's friggin small print. Let me explain.

A few days back I noticed one line in my car hire reservation (in the six pages of terms and conditions) saying that I would need to present TWO credit cards to hire my hire. Two. I don't have two. After several calls and emails to the company in Australia – three people, three different answers – I eventually got up early and called LA. Four calls later and I learned they knew nothing about this two card requirement. Who knows how it got onto my agreement, but apparently I'll be fine with my one credit card. Finding that out, however, took two days, during which I had plenty of time to imagine being abruptly stuck in LA with no car and no way of hiring another one, while my tight road trip deadline slipped unattainably over the horizon. I would end up having to fly home at great expense with none of my goals met. I don't consider myself a catastrophist, but I started to wonder if maybe I was.

“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.”

— Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Of course, the trouble with these little niggles (even when resolved – there was another one about whether I'd applied for the right visa. I had, but more hours imagining disaster) is that you wonder what else you've missed and not covered off. In the usual vein I'm used to travelling (where even if you get stranded, it doesn't matter so much, like when the whole family came on the Paris research trip last year) this doesn't bother me.

But introduce a reason you need to be home on time, when you said you would be (refer back to previous small person comment) and that looks rather different. Oh, so that's what responsibilities can look like. It's a nasty, nauseated, blotchy-faced feeling. And out of my control.

One thing that I'm learning in my PhD (you enjoying all these segways?) which is about understanding the brain science of storytelling, is that we are all about anticipation. These big factories we haul around on top of our necks spend a lot of time trying to work out what's gonna happen, and what the consequences might be. Even when we can't really do a darned thing about it. Great when the consequences seem minor. Not so much when they're big.

So, how could this little 3200km road trip go wrong? In myriad ways. But I'm trying not to think too much about that. It is truly, mostly, out of my control. So I'll attempt to channel my old unflappable self. One thing at a time. If you haven't heard from me by Sunday, though, something might be up ;)

Control your damn dog

I've been digging graves. I don't usually talk about stuff that makes me rabidly angry on this blog, but I've been digging graves. This is because about an hour ago, while we were out, a dog from down the block got into our yard and killed two of our chickens. Our neighbours cleaned up and called us. Our other neighbour caught the dog and took it home. And I dug the graves and now have to explain to my two-year-old where his favourite chicken has gone.

The thing that make me so rabidly angry about this isn't the fact that our chickens are dead. Sometimes you can think about that as bad luck. Chickens aren't the smartest animals, or with the best defence mechanisms. I don't blame the dog, it was just being a dog. But this dog was in our yard, and is actually well known to me, because almost every day it comes past our house, off its leash, being yelled at by name to leave-that-alone or keep up or something else. The owners regularly think it's fine for the dog to be bandying about the streets uncontrolled, even though it regularly rushes our fence. And today, it escaped its yard and had enough time to get to our place, and kill our chickens and be taken back before it was missed. This is part of a much wider problem I see of the privileged dog owners who have every excuse for why their dog is off the leash, or otherwise not controlled. The ones who think it doesn't apply to them, even though controlling your dog is the expectation and requirement of owners in this city.

Surely I'm just emotional at this point. Blogging on anger. Making too much of it. Wasn't this just bad luck, something random that could happen to anyone? Well, no, actually. This is just one of many. At Christmas this year, my then under two-year-old was knocked down by a dog at the beach. The owner was so far away they didn't have a hope of controlling that animal. Didn't say anything to us, didn't care. At the same beach were two other dogs, also off their leashes. The beach is signed for dogs on leash, but people don't care, because what's going to happen? They go every day and do what they please. The year before, at the same beach, my disabled younger sister was also knocked down by a dog. At the time, my mother wrote to the council. They expressed surprise, promised enforcement. I wrote again at Christmas, and received a stock reply.

There's more. I sometimes now (and often a few years ago) walk the tracks at Mt Coot-tha. And every time I do I see a good number of dogs off their leashes, despite the fact there are many people on those trails, and many other dogs. On my most recent walk there with a friend, a lady coming down the mountain with her off-leash dog saw my friend hesitate and merrily called out, "Oh, don't worry, he's fine!" My friend replied, "He might be, but I’m not." See, it's not about you. It's not about how fluffy and cute and well-behaved you think your dog is, they can scare other people. And you don't know what's around the next corner. What are you doing to do if something happens? What possible control do you have?

On a walk with another friend a few years ago, my friend has his dog on a leash. An off-leash dog came along, attacked my friend's dog, and then the owner abused my friend like it was his fault. I was gobsmacked. On another occasion, an off-leash dog jumped up on me. The same dog had jumped up on my friend a month before and torn her shorts. When I told the owner the dog should be on a leash, he offered some total BS story about recovering from back surgery and not being able to pull on a leash. THEN LEAVE THE DAMN DOG AT HOME, YOU TOOL. Honestly. These are not one-off incidents. They are happening every day. I've written to council about Mt Coot-tha, too. Stock reply. Nothing changes.

And then, I'm digging graves.

So control your damn dog. It's not about what you think your dog is capable of. Your dog is not a small person. They can strike fear into other people, and they're capable of causing injury and death. You don't know what's around the corner, or who will be there, so you should have that leash on regardless of who you think is around. The chicken-killer is a smallish, fluffy-eared brown thing. The owners probably think it's too cute and small to be a problem for anyone.

The owners put a note in our letterbox. They could understand our distress, they said, because they'd lost chickens over the years too. Except they don't get it. They don't get that they're part of this privileged set of people who think that their dog doesn't have to follow the rules. That they're somehow exempt on grounds of cuteness or well-behavedness or smallness, or whatever other BS excuse you want to have. One of the owners was cleaning up feathers when we arrived home. I asked them to leave. I'll clean up the feathers, thank you. I'll dig the graves, and put our poor chickens' still-warm bodies into the earth. I don't need you to clean up, and to offer reparations. I need you to keep your dog on a leash, and in your yard.

And for anyone else who currently doesn't do those things and thinks it's just fine, because their dog would never hurt anyone, that goes for you too.