Book Signing Report: REACHED by Ally Condie

Ally talking to the crowd!

Last night I was super excited to attend Ally Condie's launch party and signing for the release of book 3 in the MATCHED trilogy, entitled REACHED.

I am so very excited for this book, for the addition and the conclusion of Cassia's story!  Hopefully I will find the time to read it fast and get my review to you ASAP!  But I wanted to share with you the things that went on at the party, and the Q&A session.

First Ally talked to us for a while and here are the notes I got (please remember these are not all direct quotes.  I try my best to write them down exactly as she said them, but it doesn't always happen.)

Loved the stage set up and the bubble!  See below!

• I may be really emotional because it's the last book. 
• The one was special to me because it was the end.  I knew it always would be the end.  Even as it got longer and longer I knew there would not be a split to four books. 
• Xander gets his time on the page in this one. 
• Xander is a nice guy.  And writing the nice guy is hard.  The nice guys don't get the credit they deserve.
• My editor said at one point that it was good go see xander suffer, because the good guys always suffer.
• Xander is a medical official in this and I don't know a lot about medical things
• It's that moment when you think "Why am I writing about anything other than stay at home motherhood?"

Ally signing books!

• But I had two neighbor friends one a pathologist and one an immunobiologist that really helped.  They sent me photos and notes on different diseases.  
• It got to the point that I thought "what have I gotten myself into?, Have we gone too far?"  Especially when the pathologist sent me his great idea for weaponizing fish.
• Also Greg Burton a BYU professor who does a lot of work and research with the HIV virus helped me a  lot.
• So many people help me out.  Like a father of a childhood friend sending me picture after picture of himself holding different fish so I could pick just the one I needed for a scene in the book.
• There is nothing more exciting to an author than something she's written, something she's put out there being wanted. 
• Sometimes you write all day just for yourself. 

Then we listened to an audioclip of a part of narration from Xander's point of view, that was pretty much made of awesome.  And she did Q&A.  Here were some of my favorites!

The flowers Ally's husband bought her!

Q: The covers are complex and can mean many things, but what do they mean to you?
A: They are complex and I hope you can see something in them for yourself, but for me when I look at them I mostly see the things we talked about.  That they are the colors of the tablets green, blue and red.  That they symbolize her escape from that bubble.  Oh and by the way the model is the same in all the photographs and she is also the photographer, they are self portraits.

Q: Can you tell us about the movie rights?
A: Disney bought the movie rights and there are screenwriters but no cast yet.  People ask me who I would cast and I say I'm too old to know who would be good now, but I have ideas for the dad.  Like Nathan Fillion.  Nathan Fillion needs to be involved somehow.

Q: Did you know where you were going with the entire story before you started writing?

Me and Ally!

A: Yes and no.  I had a vague outline and plan, but as I write I deviate from that plan quite a bit.  For REACHED I had 150 pages of notes of things that needed to happen, be addressed or wrapped up.  I don't think it's the best method, but it's what I did.

Q: Are you going to write more?
A: Yes I am working on another YA that is set in the future/is a dystopia. But that is all I can say.

Q: When did you know you wanted to write?
A: I was always writing and telling stories but I never could finish.  So in High School I decided to become and English Teacher so I could be surrounded by stories but not wrote my own.  After I was done with teaching for a few years I thought maybe I'll try to finish a book finally, and I haven't stopped since.

Me and my friend Sara B Larson stuck in the bubble!

Q: Do you hand write or type your novels first?
A: I definitely type.  But if I do get blocked I pull out paper and write by hand.  It like restarts my brain.  (MPB note -- I loved this answer and how it ties in with words and writing and how that affects Cassia!)

Me trying to bust out of the bubble.

Q: Are there other creative things you like to do?
A: I'm really bad at everything.  But I say I am a great appreciator.  I love art, but I'm a terrible artist.  I love food, but I hate cooking, etc. So I have a lot of interests, but little talent.

Q: What is the hardest part of the process for you?
A: The hardest part for me is always revision.  But it is also my favorite part because revision is where the story becomes a book.

Q: Other than having your books published, what's the best experience in your life?
A:  By far, having my kids.  Even beyond my books they are the most important thing.

And then as you see we had a great time with the bubble cover photo shoot booth! It was so so cool! 

Ally as ever was WONDERFUL!

And now!  As reward for reading through all of that a surprise giveaway!  Ally also had buttons of the bubble photos on the cover, and I have a set of all three buttons to give away!

Read More

Book Signing with Kiersten White

I was very excited to go to my first book signing in a long time.  I miss going, seeing the crowd, feeling the energy supporting the authors.  It has been far too long since I've been able to attend an event.

I love how much expression she uses.  I really do.  She's so fun to hear talk!

 And I am so happy that the event I was able to go to was for Kiersten White!  Book three in the Paranormalcy series, ENDLESSLY, came out on Tuesday and she did her signing here in Utah on Thursday night.  We are so lucky to have her come here to Utah!

She was saying something about 5...I don't remember what but it was the best shot I got of her whole face!

I missed  much of what she said because I was running late, but I did catch the Q&A.  It was pretty awesome.

Signing my book!

Here's what I learned:

Keirsten and Me!

1. Kiersten likes Pinky Pie because she weaponized her confetti cannon.
2. Natalie Whipple, critique partner and best friend (and author who's book is being published next year) of Kiersten kinda hated Kiersten in High School because Kiersten wrote a mean article about the prom decorations that Natalie had been in charge of.  Don't worry, they love each other now!
3. Movie rights have been sold for the Paranormalcy series, but Kiersten thinks (and come to think of it, I agree!) that it would make a better TV series.
4. Steve the vampire/poultergeist is named after a blog follower from England.
5. Fans of Kiersten's will not have to wait long for more from her!  She will be publishing two books a year from now on out for a while!  
6. (well this I already knew) Kiersten is adorable, so kind and just made of awesome.

Read More

Book Signing Report: Bree Despain!

Yesterday I was lucky enough to go to the launch party and book signing at The King's English in Salt Lake City for THE SAVAGE GRACE, book 3 in the Dark Divine Trilogy.

It was so great to see Bree again and celebrate this awesome book! Here's some pics and highlights from her presentation entitled "The End".

*Once again I am just going to type my notes as I wrote them as Bree said them...so this is paraphrased Bree. ;)

• Sequels are hard. The Lost Saint, I affectionately refer to as the book that ate my soul. But the third book has to be easier to write, right? Heh. heh. Yeah right.
• You spend your writing career learning how to write a first book, that took me 10 years. No one teaches you how to write a second or third book
• At times this book had beasty claws, fangs and got very bloodthirsty around the full moon
• One obstacle was there are so many strings that need to be tied up in the final book, things you have to complete
• Also third books have a lot more climax, 2/3rds of the book is climax
• All the characters you've introduced, not just the main ones, have to have their stories come full circle. Some will fail at thier goals, some will succeed, some will even die.

• The hardest obstacle to overcome in writing this book was saying goodbye. When I typed the last words from book 3 I would be saying goodbye to charcters that had been talking to me since a dark cold night in January so long ago.
• I put off writing the end. I kept turning in drafts without the last few chapters
• Well I finally turned a draft in, still without the last few chapters and my Editor said "I love the ending!" But that freaked me out, that's not the end! I said. He told me they were already doing copy edits and were going to print in 2 days.
• So i had one night to write that perfect ending, to say goodbye
• what I finally had to do was force myself to stop thinking about what the perfect ending would be, and just write what felt true for the characters.
  

• When I finished
  my husband bought me not just one kitten, but two! We call them the kittens Divine. Merlin is black and Avalon is grey.
  

Then Bree read from the book a little, and did some giveaways thanks to winners from a fairly hard trivia! I was shooting myself for not remembering a few of them since I had JUST read TSG not that long ago. She gave away some of the awesome Dark Divine Jewelry and some of the nailpolish with pedicure supplies, and then one person got her food of choice for writing, chocolate covered cinnamon bears.



It was so wonderful to see Bree again! I just love her smiling face, I love how much she cares about her readers, and especially I love her books. She's such an inspiration!

Alright, so that being said, come back tomorrow to see what Bree had to say for my interview with her! And there just might be something super super awesome posted along with that interview. ;)

Read More

Book Signing Report: Kiersten White!

We were so so lucky to have Kiersten White make a stop in Utah on her tour for Supernaturally. Really we have such a HUGE YA book following here in Utah that I don't know why EVERYONE doesn't come here. Cause we love you!



Anyway, for those of you unfamiliar with Kiersten, she is the fabulous author of PARANORMALCY and the sequel SUPERNATURALLY that just came out.



Here's my re-cap of what she had to say (remember I try to stick as closely to what they said as my hand can write, but this is paraphrasing not full quotes)!

• SUPERNATURALLY is the second book in the trilogy. Writing it was harder. In our lives as adults I feel like I am in the second book in my trilogy. You have gotten what you wanted in your first book and you are finding out that sometimes you get more than you bargained for.
• Fortunately for you I do NOT do cliffhanger endings, so even though this is the second book, it has an end.
• I really love mythology. A current idea I am working on deals with Ancient Egyptian mythology and the daughter of and ancient egyptian god.
  
  
• Mythology is what we have used as humans to interpret our world around us, and today in the modern world we study these constructs to explain what it is to be human and to connect to each other.
• ENDLESSLY is the title of the 3rd and final book in the series
• "Thank you for being readers. Writers don't make best sellers, readers make best sellers."

Then she had a short Q&A (cause it was outside and we were all melting) here are some of my faves.



Q: Critique partners are really important -- how did you find yours?

A: I found mine through online communities, reading other writer's blogs etc. then developing friendships through e-mail. The most important thing about my partners is that we have different strengths so we can help each other in different areas of writing.



Q: What's your favorite letter in the alphabet?

A: I don't like "C". It's really kind of useless. It makes the "K" sound and the "S" sound, and we already have those. But I've always like "Q" and of course "K" for Kiersten.





Q: What is your revision process like?

A: I don't let myself edit as I go because I feel that editing brain and writing brain are very different brains. I enjoy creating and enjoying that. And then later I pick apart my baby. One big thing I do is read my manuscript aloud. You miss a lot when you are reading silently. Your eyes actually skip words and phrases. But reading aloud you catch a lot.



But my process is not your process. And I don't do it the same for every book.



Q: You wrote the first draft of PARANORMALCY in two weeks! Was the process harder for SUPERNATURALLY?

A: PARANORMALCY was just fun. SUPERNATURALLY was already bought before it was even written. And that was stress. I had already been paid for it, I had bought a car. I didn't want them to take my car away. It took me 6 years to get my own car! I thought there was no way I could write this book.



Writing under contract is much harder than just writing at your own pace, for fun. Whenever I had time I worked on it. The first draft was only about 50K words long, and after edits it was around 72K, so I had to add a lot.



I am very proud of this book though, because it was a struggle.





Regardless of what authors may say, we write ourselves into our books. Evie's story in SUPERNATURALLY mirrored my own life experience. I had finally achieved something I really wanted, but now I was questioning if it's all that it's cracked up to be. It was harder and came with trials I didn't expect.



Writing books is always impossible until you finish. And then editing is impossible.



Kiersten was such a blast to see. I am currently reading SUPERNATURALLY so I will review that as soon as I'm done! I can say so far I am enjoying it very much.

Read More

Book Signing: Carrie Ryan!

Last night I was SO priveledged to go see Carrie Ryan at my local B&N! Carrie is on tour for the third book in her zombie trilogy THE DARK AND HOLLOW PLACES.

I honestly didn't think I would ever have a chance to meet this fabulous author that I have been following on FB and twitter etc. Utah has an amazing author community, and many that are connected to Utah, but when I heard Carrie was coming it was a dream come true!

I hope more authors add Utah to their tour lists because it was SUCH an incredible night! I do have to warn you, this post is long. There was too much to talk about and I wanted you all to have all the info!



* I love the Vanna White pose in this one. ;)
First I have to say Carrie is amazing. She is INCREDIBLE! So personable, so funny and just completely amazing. She was writing down names and taking notes on the people she met as she signed and was just pure amazing. Here are my notes from what she told us all: *again note that these are my paraphrased notes, I tried getting direct quotes and sometimes they are, but not always exact.

• THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH begins about 150 years after a zombie apocalypse. THE DEAD TOSSED WAVES is a generation later.
  
• THE DARK AND HOLLOW PLACES is hard to describe. Like any final book in a series it should hit that point where the reader says there is no way the author can pull this together, but in the end it does.
  
• There is no kissing the zombies. Very big rule.
  

• The first question I get is "why zombies?" Like all good stories it starts in the 1980's.
  
• Her babysitter showed her Poltergeist and she was so terrified she didn't watch the end (to this day she has not seen it) and always hated horror stories.
• In her 2nd year of law school her boyfriend at the time (JP- who is now her hubby! And their first anniversary is on Friday, April fools! Congrats guys!) took her to see Dawn of the Dead.
• Like any good zombie movie someone lives, someone dies, and someone gets infected. And there is that moment when you feel empowered like "go world!" "we will survive!"
  
• A lot of zombie stories it's about getting from point A to point B. Point B is better than point A, but the problem isn't gone. They haven't solved the zombie problem, they haven't cured them.
• Carrie kind of learned a love for the genre here. She wanted more and watched more (but still shunned other types of scary stories). She loved the idea of survival.
  

*this picture is of me with awesome Utah authors and writer friends that came out to see Carrie! It was an incredible night! I LOVE the Utah author community! Here is Top L-R, Ally Condie, Elana Johnson, me, Brodi Ashton, Bree Despain Bottom L-R, my writer and blogger friends Chersti and Jenny!

• It wasn't long after Carrie was practicing law that she knew she wasn't in love with it.
  
• She asked herslef, If I could do anything, what would that be? And the answer was write. She wanted to be an author.
• Made a 10 year plan and was determined to be invested for 10 years. She would write, and write and write and submit and if after 10 years nothing had happened she would move on. But no matter what rejections or hardships she got, she knew she could hold on for those 10 years.
• Carrie started writing out some Chic Lit, and romance and when NaNoWriMo came along she had to start a new novel. After talking with JP that ended up being a zombie story that became THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH. Four months later she had an agent and sold the book!
  

*Another amazing Utah author in attendance Jessica Day George, always willing to strike a pose!

• And here is some notes on how Carrie came up with the idea for Forest of Hands and Teeth.
  
• I read an article on the over fishing of wild Tuna and how in the future Tuna will be rare. It made me think how in one generation something common can become rare.
  
• There was a story my grandmother told me about her prom. She wore purple tights that matched her dress. Back then colored tights were a brand new thing. One of the chaperones called her a harlot and asked her to leave the dance. Her mother was also a chaperone and had an awesome one liner come back.
• This story made her 1) realize how strong the women in her family were, that this was the stock she came from and 2) she forgot the line. And that made her think that in one generation we can not only loose things outside of ourselves, but we can loose our family, our history, ourselves.
  

*This is James Dashner with anther attendee of the signing who brought James' book over. James was thrilled because this was the first time he had seen the line "New York Times Besteller" on the top of his book!" James was also hilarious in the Q&A portion. With so many authors present he asked Carrie "Who is your favorite Utah author?" Oh James, ever the comic. It's why we love ya!

• I'm a survivor. I want to throw the world at my characters and I want to see if they will survive, because if they do, I can.
• I am fascinated by people who line in the most untenable circumstances and don't just live but they thrive.
• Then Carrie gave some advice on writing: She said if you want to write, you have to write! It is one thing to want to do it, to talk about doing it, to blog about doing it. And another entirely to sit down and actually do it. But once you experience passion for something how do you not live it?

*This is some of those same author and blogger friends, add my good friend who came with me to the signing (in her awesome zombie shirt) and one other writer/blogger friend I know I have met and I can't think of her name! I STINK at names. Sorry awesome zombie to my right! We as you can see are being zombies. I like how Jenny is about to eat by brains!

Then Carrie did some Q&A time. Here are some of my faves.

• What is your favorite book ever read? A: Oh that's like the most impossible question ever. Um, I'd have to say at the top of the list is THE THINGS THEY CARRIED by Tim O'Brien, and THE DEVIL'S ARITHMETIC
  
• What are you working on now? A: I am doing edits for my summer 2012 release that I can't tell you anything about. It is as of right now untitled. JP titles all of my books, and we're waiting...

*This is Carrie signing my books! I love this part! I feel like a kid in a candy store!

• Is there a movie in the works for FofHandT? A: We have sold the movie rights, I have read the script and it is good. Right now they are interviewing directors. But I don't know what that all means really as far as when/if it will be made.
• Do you have any good writing advice for someone just starting out? A: People will tell you write what you know. I think write what you know means the emotional connections you feel. Capture those moments that mean the most to you and use them.

This is me and Carrie. She is SO amazing and so cute! I will hopefully be getting some swag from her in the future for a giveaway, but until then PLEASE check out her books. They are creepy and beautiful and I have very much enjoyed them and how much they make me think.

If you are interested here is my review for THE DEAD TOSSED WAVES. I look forward to reading and reviewing THE DARK AND HOLLOW PLACES.

Read More