Carrie Ryan isn't as dark or hollow as you might think...

Okay, so I honestly knew she wasn't dark or hollow, but since her book is called THE DARK AND HOLLOW PLACES, well... I was glad to know for certain that she is actually funny, and smart (a former lawyer!), and inspiring. I was lucky enough to go with Natalie Whipple to see her and get her new book signed last night. I'm so excited that more and more YA authors are coming to SLC to do signings! It is so fun to get out, meet new authors, and see all of my author/writer/book blogging friends in the community.

James Dashner (not only are they friends, they share the same editor), Carrie Ryan, Me, Natalie Whipple

Like I said, I adore going to author signings. I love meeting them, learning about their journeys--well, just learning from them period. Carrie was so inspiring. (Plus she is an absolutely amazing author. Her way with words is absolutely breathtaking. Who else could make a book about zombies into something so beautiful?)

She has an amazing story, but I won't give you all the details here. One of the biggest points she made that stuck with me is to make a plan, and stick with it. She made a ten year plan: she told herself she was going to write a book a year, and revise it, and submit it (be it to agents or editors) every year for ten years. Her goal was to be a full time author by year ten. She reached her goal around year six or seven. (hopefully I got the details right, I'm going off memory.) She (and I) firmly believe in the power of writing goals down, and doing what it takes to make them reality. If you haven't yet, go make some short and long term goals, and write them down. Then do what it takes to make it happen.

Beyond being smart and inspiring, she really lived up to Kiersten White's claim that she's funny. We were laughing the whole time. If you have the chance to see her, I highly recommend it.

Also, she may burn a book and then give it away.

Huh? Yeah, she used I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER by Dan Wells to block the projector while she was talking, and when she picked it back up she'd burned the cover a little bit. I ended up winning it (woohoo!) and Dan was there, so he personalized it for me. Here's what he wrote:

"Sara - this book was personally burned by Carrie Ryan. Dan Wells."

I love book signings.

Utah authors gone wild! (otherwise known as Writing for Charity)

I had the opportunity to go to the Writing for Charity Evening Extravaganza last Saturday night. Shannon Hale and a bunch of other local Utah authors have started this charity to raise money in order to buy and give books to underprivileged children. Children who may otherwise never own a book in their lives. This was my first year attending, and let me tell you--it was well worth it! Not only to help out the children, and having the chance to bid on some amazing gift baskets and prizes (my friend Stacey [who runs the book review blog mypileofbooks.blogspot.com] won a real "Bella's engagement ring" and I got a family meal deal to SmashBurger. Next year, I am bringing a checkbook and saving my pennies. They had some amazing prizes for auction that I really, really wish I had brought the money to bid on...). But if you need more incentive to come, you could have had the chance to see Utah authors gone wild. Completely crazy. Don't believe me? Then read on.

James Dashner and Shannon Hale (who is due with twins in a couple of months) were the co-MCs for the night. I think she first regretted asking him to help her when he pushed her out on stage and then continued pushing her all the way to the edge of the stage and nearly dumped her out of the wheelchair off of the stage. If that wasn't enough to make her question her choice in co-MC, I'm sure she really thought twice when he started auctioning off both of her placentas. Yes, you read that correctly. He used the word placenta multiple times in an auditorium filled with children and teens. Families galore. Oh, if only the inappropriate word usage ended there... (In all seriousness James did a great job with Shannon, and I'm sure she was thrilled with his MC-ing skills.)
Not to be outdone, Brandon Mull (New York Times bestselling author of FABLEHAVEN and the forthcoming BEYONDERS series) decided to relive his comedy skit troupe days. This particular skit was the best one IMO--a couple of the actors pretended to be different authors, "rewriting" JACK AND JILL WENT UP A HILL in their own styles. Brandon and the woman next to him acted out the different versions. They did the Shakespeare version, the Stephenie Meyer version which was awesome, the monster truck rally announcer version, and the picture is him just before he crashes to the ground, enacting the Edgar Allan Poe version. Which included this death scene where there was much flopping and thrashing on the ground. If only I'd known he had this kind of talent when I lived next door to him a few years ago. Our neighborhood/church parties would have been a whole lot more fun. Seriously, I was shocked (in a good way). He seemed so quiet and shy when I knew him back then. Just goes to show, you never know someone until you make them do improv comedy in front of an auditorium full of people.

The author panel was great. James got totally let off the hook for his placenta comments, because one of these innocent looking authors completely shot the placenta comment out of the water. Can you guess who? (From left to right this is James Dashner, Brandon Sanderson, Bree Despain, Sara Zarr, Ally Condie, Jessica Day George, Brandon Mull, and Shannon Hale.)


Did you guess one of these lovely ladies? Then you were wrong.
There, that's the guy. Yep, Brandon topped James easily. Just be warned that if you ask him to explain the difference between YA and MG you might get more than you bargained for. Mentions of "blushing crushes" versus "sexual attraction" (or something like that) may be tossed around quite a bit. (Which isn't a big deal, until you remember that young children were there. Lots of them.) But the best part was when he started talking about vaginal births. Yep, placenta wasn't good enough. Brandon knew the only way he could win was to bring up where the placenta comes out. (Okay, we have to cut him some slack, his wife did just have a baby a few weeks ago, so he's somewhat immune to those words right now.) Honestly, it was completely hilarious. And he definitely blushed a little bit.
Ally didn't do anything too wild or crazy. However, if you were to try and steal her favorite dessert ever (my brown sugar cookies) you better watch out. She'll go all ninja on you. Okay, not really. And my cookies probably aren't her most favorite dessert, but I know they're up there somewhere. Top ten?


(Side note: I just read the ARC of MATCHED. I wanted to see how different it would be from the pre-published mss I read a year ago. It is every bit as incredible as I remembered, only even more so--which I can hardly believe. Julie, her editor, just polished the diamond that was MATCHED until it is now so brilliant I can hardly stand to look at it directly. If this isn't on your TBR list yet, you'd better add it right now.)


The night ended in fist-fights, complete with knitted gloves.
It was touch and go for a while there, but luckily, the yarn was pretty soft, so no one sustained any life threatening injuries.




See? Who says Utah authors can't party? (Does anyone say that? I'm just guessing ...) Anyway, if this recap doesn't make you want to come next year and help the cause, I don't know what will.

And the winner is...

First, I have to say how interesting it was to do the contest the way I did. I used four different readers to judge and rate the pitches, and then combined the scores to decide an overall winner. I found it fascinating to see how differently each judge rated the various entries. However, only one person could win, and the one that got the highest overall score when combining all four judges scores was:



JAMIE!! Here's his pitch: Waking up in a coffin hungry for blood is only the beginning for sixteen-year-old Everly Blue. Things are about to get a lot worse.

So, obviously vampires are far from "over" - at least, according to my four readers! (Who varied in age by almost thirty years by the way.) Jamie please email me your query at sarablarson21 (at) gmail (dot) com and I will get working on your critique. Congratulations!

What did I learn from this? That different readers have different tastes, opinions, and reactions to the exact same pitch (or query, or book, or anything!) and that you need to write what you love, do it well, and find the person who loves it as well. Because someone will.

Coming up on Wednesday is my recap of the awesome Writing for Charity evening extravaganza I went to over the weekend, which included Shannon Hale (who is pregnant with twins, in case you didn't know, and on bedrest) nearly getting dumped off the stage (from her wheelchair) by James Dashner, Brandon Mull joining with his old comedy troupe to do some skits that included enacting a Jack and Jill death scene in Edgar Allan Poe style, and even more. You don't want to miss it. Until then, Happy Monday!