So this will be a lengthy post with a lot of recap about author's I've recently had the privilege of meeting. I think I'll do this in chronological order. That seems like a good way, right? Funny story, I didn't realize, until I started this post, how long ago I stopped blogging. I was looking for the pictures from when I met Ally Condie, author of the Matched Trilogy (Matched, Crossed and Reached), but kept running into pictures from Christmas. Then I realized I met her all the way back in NOVEMBER. God that feels like forever ago...Okay not funny, or really interesting so I'll just move on.
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Anyway, Ally was great to listen to. She said we could take as many pictures as we want but not video because why else would people come to hear her speak if they could just look online for a video? Somehow I don't really think anyone thinks like that, but to each her own, I guess. Ally made it informal and was more open to questions than giving a long spiel. 
What I found most interesting about her explanation of the books is that she wanted to use more modern poems than the ones she ended up using in the books because of the cost to use poems "by people who are alive" vs. authors who are deceased. Meaning it cost a lot less to use copyrighted things from dead authors. It made me wonder how significant the effect was in the books.
She also talked about her inspiration for the setting of Crossed, which was Utah where she's from. She said most apocalyptic movies are shot there and that criminals like to use the mountain region because you could hide in there forever. I've never read a book that used this setting before so I thought it was cool that it was based on a real place.
She explained her inspiration for the Matched world was talking to her husband about Proposition 8 (where residents of California voted on whether or not same-sex couples can marry) and the conversation made her wonder what would happen in a world where the government chose who you had to marry. Judging by the inspiration, I don't think the government allowed for same-sex marriages in her world....
No I haven't read Reached yet, still. I'm not in a hurry because the series was just Ehh for me. I think it's for a younger demographic but I'll get to it one day.
So, there were a lot more people at this signing than the Fierce Reads Tour, surprisingly. I guess I didn't figure the books are a popular as they are. My Bad. Either way, I'm always at least an hour early to these things because of anxiety issues (not a terrible anxiety issue, right? What I mean is, if you had to choose one, timeliness wouldn't be so bad). I got good seats --long story short.
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Now, I'm back more in the present. I had a busy fun filled time seeing three different authors in one week in February. IT WAS GREAT!
Let me get to it. On Tuesday of my author filled week, I met Marissa Meyer author of the Lunar Chronicles (Cinder and Scarlet so far). I finished Cinder at the day of the signing. I've had it for a while after winning it from a giveaway so this kicked my butt in gear to read it. And...I really liked it! I don't like when the narrators in stories change so we'll see about Scarlet.
On to Marissa. I have to say she was one of the nerdiest authors I've met. This is a compliment! One nerd to another. She's obsessed with Star Trek and Sailor Moon in particular.
She actually began writing Sailor Moon fanfiction which lead her to enter a Sailor Moon writing contest where she had to choose from two different elements for the book. She decided on science fiction and fairy tales (you can see where this is heading) about Puss in Boots because Sailor Moon has a lot of talking cats in it. She got second place out of two. However, this got her going on the science fiction/ fairy tale route. She has a dream about Cindrella where instead of Cindy's shoes falling off as she runs up the steps, it was her cyborg foot. Marissa decided to use this idea in a NaNoWriMO contest (where you write 50,000 words in a month) with the idea of Cinder in mind. In order to win a spot on an episode Star Trek, she had to have the biggest word count in a contest in her region. She got second place by only a thousand words (she wrote over 150,000. Whaaaaa), unfortunately. But good for her because she got the ideas for the first three books in the Lunar Chronicles. Yes, so she's that geeky and it was great! I loved her enthusiasm. She was the first author I've seen to read from their book. She read a section of Scarlet in Scarlet's POV. However, the most interesting part of the night was that I got to have dinner with her, her husband, another author from the DC area and her book tour host guy (ehh?). Plus me and five girls from a book club I joined through ForeverYoungAdult.com. It
was her birthday so we went to a fancy French (to celebrate Scarlet) restaurant. She was super sweet and so was her husband who took off work to go on a two week tour with her. It was her actual birthday so it was really cool of her to spend the time with her fans.
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| Us at dinner! I'm on the left of Marissa by two seats. |
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So that's two authors down, three to go! In Part Two, I'll talk about meeting Stephenie Meyer (author of The Host and the Twilight series) plus Max Irons and Jake Abel form The Host movie , Kami Garcia (author of Caster Chronicles) and Lauren Oliver (author of the Delirium Series).
