Last month I had the incredible fortune to stumble upon an
opportunity to go to a Brandon Sanderson book signing in Houston. Originally I had been planning to visit
a friend in northwest Indiana in late January, but anyone who has The Weather
Channel knows that I should have scheduled that trip for another season. (I may live in an arid mountain shadow
that gets hardly any snow, but the 938 miles between my friend and me was in
the process of having snow and sleet liberally dumped all over the roads.) So unfortunately, those travel plans
had to be put on hold, and I was left with a week of vacation from work with no
real plan on how to spend it. So
far, the vacation was looking like it was going to be a dud.
I briefly thought about making it a staycation, but honestly
if I was going to hang around town, I’d rather just keep working. I decided since, going north in winter
was such a terrible idea and staying home sounded too boring and depressing,
I’d go south to Houston and visit my sister and brother-in-law. After setting up last minute travel
plans with them, I hopped on the good old Internet to look for activities and
events that were going on while I’d be there. I was slowly poking through various websites when I did one
of my compulsive twitter checks and saw a post by Brandon Sanderson about a
signing he was about to go to. Out
of curiosity I went to Mr. Sanderson’s website to see if maybe he’d be going
somewhere close to my hometown. As
luck would have it, he wasn’t going to be anywhere near where I live, but he was going to be in Houston the
same time I would be there. Finally, something lucky happened with
the vacation planning.
I sent the info to my sister and my college roommate who
lives in the Houston area, and suddenly Friday night’s activities were planned.
Before this, I had never been to an author signing. I’ve watched several videos on YouTube
of authors’ speeches prior to signings, but that was about it. I checked out the necessary details I’d
need to know about the signing and learned I’d need to buy a copy of his new
book Firefight from the host
bookstore in order to have anything signed. So after getting to Houston and taking a little nap, my
brother-in-law and I went to the bookstore to pick up my copy of the book and
get my number for the signing.
I’m going to take a moment here to give a shout out to the
host bookstore. The signing was
being held in a smallish bookstore called “Murder by the Book,” located in the
Rice Village area of Houston. It is
definitely one of the cooler bookstores I’ve been to in a long time. About the only bookstores I get to go
to anymore are Barnes & Noble and Hastings. They’re nice and have tons and tons of things. This small, local bookstore, however,
had such a nice and homey feel to it.
It is a bookstore that just focuses on the books people actually
read. If someone came in there
looking for a travel book on the forests of Albania, they’d be out of luck, but
if they were looking for a suspenseful thriller, a page turning mystery, or an
epically epic fantasy, this place had whatever you needed. Plus the staff was super cool. If you’re ever in Houston and looking
for a neat place to spend some time, trust me swing by this place. It may not have as much as a B&N,
but seriously, who really needs an Albanian travel book.
Ok, back to the stuff about the signing.
So the night arrives and my sister and I meet my roommate at
the bookstore. The festivities
were set to begin at 6:30, but when I was buying my book the cashier said they
would start setting up at 5:00.
(If you really know me, you know that I’m also someone who is
compulsively early to everything.)
So of course, I’m there a little before 5:00. It wasn’t that big a problem though. As I mentioned earlier, it was a cool
bookstore with a lot to look at, plus I was able to spend that extra time
catching up with my buddy.
The even starts and Mr. Sanderson walks in. I’ve spent a lot of time listening to
Mr. Sanderson’s Writing Excuses Podcasts, watching his BYU creative writing
lectures on YouTube, and reading his books (all of which will be blogged about
in the near future). So to say I’m
a bit of a “fanboy” when it comes to Mr. Sanderson would be accurate. So when Mr. Sanderson arrived and
casually walked in, I actually found myself a little star-struck. Holy
shit he’s seriously like 15 feet away from me! I never get star struck. I’m the kid who asked Barry Bonds (before the big steroid
stuff made him a societal pariah) if he wanted my autograph when I met him at
Disney World. I will admit though,
I had to work extra hard to keep my composure.
The event started off with a quick mini-lecture given by Mr.
Sanderson. During his talk he
spoke about a time when he told someone he was a writer and they immediately
followed with the, “Oh, so you’re unemployed,” remark people love to give. Well in that instance, Mr. Sanderson
just sold a book and was a comfortably employed author. But then he made the comparison of
writing as a hobby to playing basketball.
If someone plays basketball in their driveway, no one ever belittles
them because they’re not in the NBA.
As an amateur writer myself, that was a particularly good message for me
to hear.
He then held a Q&A for a little over an hour where he
answered questions about his writing process, gave tips for other writers out
in the audience, definitions of words he’s made up, and about his little fan
fiction project. Some of you may
have heard of it. He finished
Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.
Then we started the signing. The process was very organized and efficient. We lined up ten at a time according to
our numbers we got when we purchased his book. (I was 102, so I had a bit of a
wait.) While you were in line a
staff member would ask you if you wanted your book personalized when it was
signed (ummm yeah!) and when it was your turn, you handed your phone or camera
to another staff member,(do people still have standalone cameras anymore?) and
that person would count to three while Mr. Sanderson was signing your
book. He would look up; you’d look
at the camera, and boom you have yourself a new Facebook profile picture. While your book was being signed, you
could ask Mr. Sanderson more questions.
Pretty simple.
It got to my turn.
At this point I’ve had over an hour to think of a question to ask
him. However, I was sitting pretty
close to where the signing was going on while I was waiting to get in line so I
heard the majority of people’s questions and his answers. A lot of what I had to ask had been
answered before I got there. So
when I handed him my book, and he asked if I had any questions, I just told him
all I had was more of a comment. I
then told him that I’d watched his BYU creative writing lectures online and
that his lessons had helped me a great deal with my own writing.
He looked up with a big, genuine smile, and said “Thank
you.” We exchanged a couple more
words about writing, he gave me my book, and I started to walk away. Well, while we were talking and I was
wowing him with my praise of his work outside of his actual books, we both
missed the photo opportunity. He
was super cool though and let me come back to make sure I got my picture.
Then I waited around for a while until my buddy was able to
get his signed. Of course my buddy
spent his time up there asking a New York Time’s bestseller about
video games.
Overall, it was an amazing experience. While I was there I was able to meet
someone whose work I admire greatly, I was able to see a great friend and catch
up, and I was able to stop pouting that my original vacation plans fell through
due to weather.
Book signings are definitely something I’m going to actively
look for in the future. Obviously
any Sanderson signing will require no convincing for me to attend, but I’d
really like to experience signings from other authors. I got to learn a lot about Mr.
Sanderson’s writing process at this event, so I think it would be really cool
to attend events for other authors to passively pick their brains a bit
too. The coolest part about this
signing event was that as I looked around, everyone was having a great
time. It’s not just something for
nerdy writers. Nerdy readers would
love them too.
So if you’re ever in your local bookstore and see an ad
promoting a book signing, I definitely recommend going.
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