Fierce Reads Tour 2013 Houston stop

Last Friday I attended the Fierce Reads tour Houston stop at Blue Willow Bookshop.  The four awesome ladies that toured together were Ann Aguirre (AA), Gennifer Albin (GA), Leigh Bardugo (LB), and Jessica Brody (JB). I met LB and JB at the Teen Book Con in April and got books signed by them at that time. I’m not caught up with AA’s series and GA was a new author to me.  So I was able to keep to my sort-of-book-buying-ban (and I also didn’t want to stand in line Friday knowing my Saturday would be a long day being on staff at Houston Book Rave). (However, I thought GA was so awesome that I went home and bought Crewel on ebook.) I thought it would be fun to just go see these ladies and just hear the Q&A session. I’m glad I did! The ladies were hilarious! They fed off each other’s energies and kept being silly and entertaining. The moderator was really cool and asked really good questions. I took a lot of notes so I sit back and enjoy learning about the ladies of Fierce Reads 2013 tour.

Since Halloween was just the day before, the ladies were asked to tell us about their favorite scary stories. LB talked about the short story The Boogeyman by Stephen King that she read as a child, and told us that she didn’t sleep for two weeks straight after reading it. GA mentioned The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, and said she had to read it in the daylight. She also mentioned that the Blair Witch project scared her. AA said she is really susceptible to horror and when she’s scared she can’t sleep. And when she can’t sleep, she can’t write. And that is a problem when you’re a writer. She did say she liked Anna Dressed in Blood. She also told us she finds real life terrifying and told us about something I absolutely refuse to Google – the Jewel Wasp. Apparently this monster reproduces by tearing off a roach’s head and laying eggs inside it? She said something about it keeps the roach’s body alive while the eggs are incubating. CREEPY! I’m pretty sure she made that up. I refuse to find out for sure. No! You can’t make me. Feel free to look it up yourself and let me know lol. JB told us she doesn’t like to be scared and has a fear of giant whales in pools and little girls in closets. She told us that she has friend who made her watch The Ring and… get this… watched JB while she watched the movie! Can we say mean and creepy friend?? My college roommates made me watch Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time and I think they probably watched my reactions and tried to make me do the dance. So I feel your pain JB if you’re reading this, which you’re probably not.

The ladies were asked if they would ever have another author finish their story (I thought this was a really cool question and one I hadn’t heard before). JB told us about her project The Traveling Story, which is now on Season 2 – this is where one author starts and it gets passed around to several authors. AA participated in this project. LB said she would punch someone who tried to finish her story. Ha! GA said maybe she would trust her husband to finish a story she started, but that’s about it.

They were asked what they are reading right now, and this is a question I like to ask too. LB said she’s reading the history of Victorian slums and also These Broken Stars. GA is reading the 4^th book in the Outlander series (but she’s not sure how she feels about the series yet.)  I thought this was so awesome ‘cause I’m reading that series with Rose’s book club.  AA is reading Fangirl (I just bought it when it was on sale in ebook).  JB is reading Horde (of course she’s reading a book by a fellow Fierce Reads author), Prodigy, and research for her 3^rd book.

The authors were asked how they celebrate when they are finished writing. JB cleans her house and herself, because during that last stretch of writing, cleaning goes out the window. AA also takes a celebratory shower. Maybe writers are dirty? Hmmm. GA goes out into the light (apparently she writes in the dark?) and she buys pie. Any kind of pie will do. She loves pie. (She is like Dean Winchester.) (Then they started talking about pies and decided to go to the House of Pies restaurant that we have in Houston.) LB says she socializes with her friends, since she doesn’t get to see them while she in the writing bunker (what is that, exactly?). Also, she mentioned that she sometimes forgets that she can’t talk to herself when she’s out in public (because she talks to herself and her characters while writing).

They were asked where they would travel if they could go anywhere in the world. JB immediately said Hogwarts (yes, me too!) and then said or the Universal Studios fake Hogwarts. AA said Prague. GA told us she thought of the four coolest places in Europe, and decided to go there this summer. Lucky! LB wants to go to Japan and India.

Then they were asked a very serious question: If you know you’re going to die at midnight, what would you be doing at 11:45PM? JB said she would be finishing watching her favorite TV show, Scandal. They would all eat pie and call family if they didn’t have time to fly home to be with their families. LB wanted to know if only she dies or if everyone in the world dies, and then it kind of fell apart from there.

They were asked how old they feel. LB said she feels like she is 80, and has always been 80 even when she was 5. She’s one of those “get off my lawn” people. GA said she feels 17. AA said she took a mental age quiz that told her she is 22, but her husband and son both got 40 and her daughter got 28 – so she’s mentally the youngest in her house. JB said she writes the age she “rested” at, which is 15. She also took that quiz and got the exact same age. GA took that quiz as well and was told she is older heh. Then she said she has two personalities, Mom Gen, and GenGen, who does stupid things.

A fun question they were asked was what might they have been voted most likely to ___. JB would be most likely to not be voted anything. AA would be most likely to serve on the Supreme Court.  GA would be most likely to stalk her ex-boyfriend. Then she told us she continues to stalk her ex-boyfriend because she married him. (Cute!) LB said she *was* voted most likely to star in a taekwondo sit com (because she grew up in LA and auditioned for funny shows).

They were asked what superpower would they love to have. AA would love to teleport (you and me both, have you seen the traffic here in Houston??). JB wants immunity to calories (I could go for that as well). GA answered that the superpower she wants is to not require sleep. She doesn’t want to have to sleep so much. (I don’t know about that, I love sleep!) LB told us something cool – if you choose invisibility, you’re the villain. If you choose the power of flight, then you’re the hero. LB chooses invisibility. Then they said that’s ’cause she’s Slytherin. Then we were told what everyone’s houses are:

LB = Slytherin

AA = Hufflepuff

JB = Ravenclaw

GA= Griffindor

(I’m a Ravenclaw btw, in case any of my readers are curious.)

Then things got serious again. They were asked what one day they would love to relive. GA said she should say it was her wedding, or maybe the birth of her children, but really it was the day she first walked into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios (seriously, I have *got* to go there!). Then AA told us that her Dad passed away so a day she would love to relive was when he took her to a Cubs game and it was a perfect day. Then everyone got all said and people started almost crying or maybe they were crying and no one else could answer.

So we moved on to if you were stranded on a desert island what three things would you have with you. JB would choose a boat to get off the island. I guess that’s enough. AA would have her kindle, a solar charger, and an emergency kit (good thinking!). GA would have a salt lick to help catch animals for dinner (hmm gotta eat). LB would have a water purification system, and a box set of Percy Jackson books.  JB then added she would have an iPad, a wi-fi router, and Liam Hemsworth (OK, you win this one).

They were asked their favorite color. JB said purple (yay, mine too!). AA said blue. LB said red. GA said yellow, even though she always wears black. She likes the color of the sun. Apparently she doesn’t get to see it much when she writes. She kept calling herself a vampire. It was pretty funny.

AA was asked what she is writing next, and told us she is starting a new YA series that is paranormal/horror/romance/nothing like she’s ever written before. She called it dark and creepy and also romantic. I’m intrigued and looking forward to it.

Since it was November 1^st, the ladies were asked to give NaNoWriMo advice. LB said to avoid looking at other people’s word counts because it is stressful. She said to turn off your inner editor and just start typing. Think about your questions for the scene you are writing. GA is actually on the advisory board of NaNoWriMo and she suggests using the forums (which at first sounded like she said use the force, and everyone laughed for a while). She mentioned there are lost plot threads, prompts, and a huge community to help each other. AA just said to use the force, and then we all laughed again. JB said don’t be afraid to write badly and to “let the crap flow” (which again gave everyone a laughing fit). She said rough drafts are all about word count. She also said a cool quote I liked – that you can’t decorate a house until you build it. LB said that you can learn more from a messy first draft than ten perfect chapters. I think this is great advice! Good luck NaNoWriMo participants!

This was a fun event and I’m glad I decided to pop in. Sound off Houstonians, who else was at this event?

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