Saturday, May 21, 2011

Meeting Sarah Dessen

Well, I know that I'm two days late on my update on meeting Sarah Dessen. Thursday turned into a crazy busy day with work and picking up the house and packing for my impromptu trip to Denver for the weekend. You see, I drove my old car back to my parents' house and decided to stay a while. Or at least for the weekend. So that's where I am now--writing this update before we head out shopping!

Meagan and I left Lincoln at 4:45 for our adventure. I drove the new car and loved it! We only got a little lost in Omaha, but eventually made it to the library by 5:50. There were already about 10 people waiting by the door to get in. (It started at 7.) We had seats right in the second row, almost on the end, and by 6:50, there was hardly standing room. I would say there were probably about 200 people there. She was a delight. She read from her new book, which I don't have because it's hardcover and I want it to match the rest of my paperbacks, but after hearing the first chapter, I've decided to just buy it and not worry about it. She talked about her inspiration for the book, which came from many different places, and then did some questions and answers. There was a wide variety of ages there, I would say, so she got lots of different questions. People asked about how she felt about the movie, How To Deal, which is based on two of her books, what her writing process was like, where inspiration comes from, etc. She was very funny and seemed to be very down-to-earth, and she was also very gracious to her fans. I learned that she recycles her characters, too, because she said a lot of girls were asking for sequels, and she didn't want to write them, so that was a compromise. I had never noticed that, but after I went through one book, it was so obvious, I didn't know how I missed it!

After she did a brief trivia game, which Meagan and I didn't do too well on, she did a book signing. The lady in charge promised us we would be first because she would dismiss by row, but there was a mass exit and we didn't want to get trampled, so we stayed seated. That mean there was a crazy long line, and so we just sat in the room until they started picking it up. We went ot and the line was still really long, but a nice woman and her daughter let us cut them in line so Meagan wouldn't have to stand for so long. Even from our "line cutting point" we were in line for about 50 minutes. But it was worth it--we got our books signed (I did This Lullaby, my favorite, and Meagan got the new one, What Happened To Goodbye) and a picture, and she was very nice in person. Then we headed home, with only a stop at McDonald's for dinner. It was such a fun night, and despite all of the waiting,it was so worth it. And we got some good talking time in, too.

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