Maureen Johnson and Stephanie Perkins

On Monday I got to do something I had been anticipating for a couple of months: see Maureen Johnson and Stephanie Perkins at Copperfield's. I cannot begin to tell you how much I admire these women, but I will try to convey their awesomeness as best I can.

My friends Ashleigh (who attended both LeakyCon and VidCon with me; she is my Padawan), Liz, Jaime, and I arrived at Copperfield's, all besides Jaime in pajamas, and in the case of Ashleigh and I, footie pajamas. Stephanie and Maureen had tweeted awhile ago that their book signings in the Bay Area were going to be pajama parties. Though I figured we'd be the only ones (which we were), I somehow convinced my friends to join the pajama party. A lot of people were staring at us. Suck it, I'm a nerdfighter, I don't care. After sitting somewhat awkwardly at the tables that were set up due to the fact that this was also a (free) pizza party, we met a few other nerdfighters. Meeting nerdfighters in the flesh is so exciting, and this is only the second time I have done so apart from cons. We even met some that had been at LeakyCon. It was good to know we weren't the only ones who flew to the other side of the country for a Harry Potter conference. As we were sitting there talking, Maureen was creeping around in between bookshelves. I did the Maureen Glare back at her, but she didn't notice. I'd heard one of the employees say that they expected 20 people at the most, but about 40-50 showed up. (For a small bookstore in a smallish town, that's quite a bit.)

So the time came for the event to start. The employee who introduced them forgot both of their names. She handed them water and a plate piled with gummy bears. Maureen was VERY excited about the gummy bears. Then Stephanie and Maureen looked noticed the pajamas that Ashleigh and I were wearing. They made us stand up and inquired as to where we purchased them. It was quite awesome. Now if I ever meet them again, I can say that I'm the girl who was wearing panda footie pajamas. 

Rather that leading a prepared talk, they opened up the floor to questions.  People had some great questions which led a great discussion. I will attempt to convey the sentiments of a few of the things we talked about, as it was really very interesting.

Maureen was asked why she decided to write a book about Jack the Ripper. Now, I already knew the answer to this because I got to hang out in Maureen's super secret book reading/discussion/party at LeakyCon, but I will assume that you have no idea why she chose to write about Jack the Ripper (and no, I'm not going to spoil The Name of the Star, that would be lame. She was on a Jack the Ripper tour in London and despite the fact that the tour guide was talking about "haunted" buildings, Maureen was bored. She couldn't understand how these ghosts could be so boring. So, she decided to create her own ghosts, and if you've read the book, you know they are anything but boring. 

When I picked up my first Maureen Johnson book, 13 Little Blue Envelopes, I thought, "Wow. If this wasn't so highly recommended, I would never pick up a book with this cover." A lot of Maureen's book covers really don't appeal to me; they're just so stereotypically girly so I assume they are about shallow girls. I don't feel like they match the content at all. Actually, I think The Name of the Star is one of the few good ones. I'm glad I got to hear her talk about this. Author's really don't have a lot of say in what their covers. It's all just marketing. They make the cover look like the covers of other books that have sold well to its intended demographic. Maureen said, "You might as well throw the cover away." She talked about her hatred of the butterfly on the British edition of The Name of the Star and how it has nothing to do with the content. (It was cool that Ashleigh and I could supply her said British edition, although now she thinks we've started a black market of Advanced Reader's copies.) Stephanie sounded really bitter about her covers saying, "I got the Sarah Dessen model." She wasn't dissing Sarah Dessen, but clearly wants something more original. Also, both the male models used for her covers were in their mid-twenties, much older than the characters they are supposed to portray. Also, the model for Cricket on the cover of Lola and the Boy Next Door has his shirt unbuttoned in a way that she says Cricket wouldn't do.  

It wouldn't be an author event if they weren't asked for writing advice. Maureen and Stephanie were very encouraging. Stephanie said that the best way to learn is by reading a lot, and when you are struck by an emotion, figure out what the author did to get you to feel that way. Maureen said that writing is a career path that is really open to everyone, publishers don't care whether or not you have a writing degree. She also pointed out that if you don't have a conflict, you don't have a story. As far as writer's block goes, Stephanie says that's really just procrastination in disguise. 

There are so many other things these witty authors discussed, but these are the things that really stood out to me and I'm sure I'm boring you if you managed to make it this far. I had a really great time listening to them. Maureen and Stephanie are such an inspiration to me.

Lola and the Boy Next Door

When I found out that Stephanie Perkins was releasing a new book, I was extremely excited. I read Anna and the French Kiss earlier this year and thought it fantastic. Thank you, John Green, for introducing Anna to Nerdfighteria. She's become one of my favorites. I bought the paperback for one of my IRL nerdfighter friends, and before I gave it to her, I read the the first chapter of Lola and the Boy Next Door which was in the back of the book. I read it within a few days of having gone to Mission Dolores Park (in San Francisco) for the first time, which is featured within the chapter. I had quickly established a connection with the book, but unfortunately had to wait another month to read the rest of it. It came out on September 29th. Here are a few thoughts on it:

Lola (whose given name is Dolores) Nolan lives with her fathers, Nathan and Andy, in the Castro district of San Francisco. She's a 17-year-old who believes in costume as opposed to fashion (think lots of sparke and an array of wigs), with a New Years Resolution of never wearing the same thing twice and aspirations to become a costume designer. Her parents don't approve of her 22-year-old rocker boyfriend, Max. Her best friend, Lindsey doesn't particularly care for Max, either, but Lola is convinced that everyone else just can't see how they were made for each other. Lola is very happy with life until a moving truck appears at the lavender house next door. Twins Calliope and Cricket Bell have become her neighbors once again after a two-year absence. Calliope is a seemingly perfect figure skater who had once been friends with Lola, but had become her enemy as they grew older. Cricket, a tall inventor with an excellent sense of style, is the boy who broke Lola's heart before the twins last moved away. The twins are related to Alexander Graham Bell, which is fun.

I adored this coming-of-age romance. It's very much about losing yourself and sort of hiding out (as most teenagers do at some point), only to gain a stronger, truer sense-of-self in the end. I gobbled this story right up, but despite my love for the book, I found myself not liking Lola in many parts. She was not very wise or kind in many of her relationships with the other characters. Of course, she is a teenager. In the end, though, I ended up liking her as she redeemed herself in a few ways. My favorite character is definitely Cricket. Stephanie is really good at creating cute, amazing, sweet, nerdy guys that are just my type, though I'd expect nothing less from the wife of a wizard rocker. 

As this is a companion novel to Anna and the French Kiss, Anna and St. Clair dropped in for a visit. I squeed with excitement when they did. It was like seeing old friends, except ones that happen to be fictional. But you know, fictional friends can sometimes be the best ones. (If you haven't read Anna, don't worry. It's not at all important to the plot.)

As a person who lives close to San Francisco, it was awesome to watch events transpire in several places that I had been. I'm not well-traveled, so this is a rare occurrence for me. Don't get me wrong, I love to escape to other places through novels, but it's nice to come home every now and then.

I would definitely recommend this book, which charmed me into staying up til 5 AM to finish. 

Scott Westerfeld

This week I failed to make a Book Challenge video, which is really lame of me because I had a lot of bookish things to talk about. You may be able to tell from the title of this post that one of those things is Scott Westerfeld, whom I saw last Thursday at Copperfield's, which is my local bookstore. The other things may come to you in future posts.

If you do watch my Book Challenge videos, not only are you wonderful for putting up with my inarticulate babbling and awkwardness, but you know that I am reading the Leviathan trilogy and have been impressed with its illustrations. You can check out a few of the illustrations here.  Let's be honest, though, you should really just read the trilogy so that you can see all of it. Though I'm about 100 pages from finishing the last book in the trilogy, Goliath, I highly recommend it. It is extremely clever and action-packed (really, there's hardly a moment without action in the whole trilogy), plus the characters are awesome. 

Anyway, like I said, I love the illustrations of these books, so I was thrilled to have the chance to hear Scott talk about why these books are illustrated and the process they underwent. Now, I've waited a week to write this and I have a notoriously bad memory, so I must apologize if my memory fails me in any way. Scott asked us to think back to when we were kids and handed our first book without illustrations to which we responded, "Where are the pictures?" and  the reply was, "Use your imagination." Well, Scott says this is bull, which I would have to agree with. Up through the the first few decades of the 20th century, all novels were illustrated, whether for children or adults. Illustrations were extremely influential. For example, Sherlock Holmes was drawn with a hat which became his trademark, when, in fact, the hat was never mentioned in the text. According to Scott (I've never read any Sherlock Holmes), the style of hat actually goes against Sherlock's character, but because of the power of illustration, that is what he became known for. In some cases during this period, illustrations were more important than text. There were many books, such as War of the Worlds, whose illustrators were written in a bigger font than the authors on the cover. Text was often made for the illustrations as opposed to the other way around. Once the invention of the camera came about, illustrations began to die out.

Scott decided that he wanted his novels to appear like one that may have been produced in 1914 (when they are set), so he worked with illustrator Keith Thomson. It started with Scott writing a few chapters then sending them to Keith who would illustrate and send them to Scott who would tell him what he wanted tweaked and changed. After awhile, though, Keith got to a point where he had illustrated everything Scott had sent him, but he wanted to keep going. Scott told him to go ahead and just draw some things and it got to the point where he was changing and adding scenes in his books to include the things that Keith had drawn. They were both really enjoying themselves and took it all to unnecessary levels of detail. Scott would make rudimentary models and send pictures to Keith who came back with full-color artwork that fit exactly what Scott wanted. They worked together to create a detailed cross-section of the Leviathan, creating sections of the airship that Scott loved so much that he re-worked them into the text. A lot more was created than could fit into the books, so The Manual of Aeronotics will be released next year, consisting of mostly art (that I believe he said would be in color) and short descriptions.

To wrap up his talk, he showed us a bunch of amazing fan art and people doing cosplay. Scott has some seriously talented fans. There was a specific reason he did this, though. He was proving his point that illustrations do not hinder imagination, they simply guide it. Personally, I would love to see the revival of the illustrated novel.

During the Q&A time, of course he was asked if he ever suffers from Writer's Block. He said that he doesn't really have that problem because he writes at the same time everyday, not allowing himself to do anything else during that time. He said that when given a choice between staring at the wall and writing, writing is probably going to come out. The consistency of time helps his mind and body to know that it is time to write. During his daily writing time, Scott also goes back and edits everything from the last four days, so that by the time the first draft is done, everything has already been edited four times. I will definitely be keeping these habits in mind.

Scott is hilarious and a really talented guy. I got to briefly meet him and have my copy of Goliath signed. Despite the fact that I was at the back of the line and he had done a lot of signing at that point, he was extremely nice to me and endured my awkwardness. I will definitely be seeing him again if he comes back to my town, and I will absolutely be reading the rest of his novels. 

And So It Begins

As a person who enjoys writing and spends A LOT of time on the internet, it's a bit surprising that this is the first real blog I've ever had. I blogged a bit on MySpace back in the day and I have a Tumblr, but as I said on my Twitter earlier, that's mostly for reblogging gifs of Matt Smith's lovely face. So I'm starting a legitimate blog with, like, my thoughts and stuff. Don't expect anything witty or profound, but do expect a lot of commas, I like them too much for my own good.  The rest of this post will pretty much consist of why I am blogging.

Writing has always been something I've enjoyed and has come pretty easily to me. I won first place in a writing contest in my school in first grade. I wrote really dumb little stories throughout my childhood, including at least one about my Beanie Babies. I know. Embarrassing. In seventh grade (2001) I started writing my first novel which was about a lonely girl whose parents died in the attack of September 11th. It was terrible and I only got through about 5 or 6 chapters, but it helped me to escape reality. Later that year, I befriended a girl who wrote a lot of poetry, so I decided to try my hand at it. I recently came across the poetry I wrote from about ages 12-15 and they were the most ridiculous and emo things I have ever read, but that was my outlet when I had no one to talk to and wasn't sure who I was. Though I'm terrible at research and analysis, throughout my school career I've been able to throw together an essay the night before and still get an "A" or "B" on it. Once I get lost in my writing, it starts to come out like word-vomit. It's not always brilliant or even coherent, but it's something I enjoy and don't allow myself to do enough in a way that is recreational. 

A couple of days before November started last year, I decided to do NaNoWriMo. Just in case you've been living under a rock and don't know what that is, it is National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write an entire 50,000+ word novel during the month of November. A lot of people on the internet participate in this, so I decided it seemed like it was worth a try.  I wrote a 50,530 page novel with 2 days to spare. I felt so accomplished, especially considering only 4 of my 14 writing buddies completed their novels. It may have been a ridiculous story about a girl (who was essentially me) falling in nerdfighterlike, but I had a lot of fun doing it. During the whole month and after finishing, I was very secretive about this project. Many of my friends knew about the novel itself and I posted a few Facebook statuses about my involvement with NaNoWriMo, but if people asked me about the plot I didn't tell them. If people asked, I'd blush then tell them as little as I could get away with revealing. I've always been very secretive about my writing. I have a bit of social anxiety as it is, but when we'd do peer editing in school, my heart would race and I'd silently freak out about the fact that other people were reading my personal thoughts and ideas. Most of the time I'm not even comfortable with the thought of my teachers/professors reading my writing. I'm not really sure why this is; I don't remember a time when someone was particularly critical about something I've written.Whether it's due to extreme self-consciousness or being part of a very critical family or something else entirely, I don't know.

All of that to say that I want to start writing and getting comfortable with sharing it with people because I keep thinking more and more of writing novels and maybe even one day publishing one. Not that this blog is going to really be "creative writing" but any writing helps. Perhaps no one will ever read this blog, but the fact that I'm putting myself out there is a step in the right direction. If you are reading this, I really appreciate you for helping me get over one of my fears.