The time we were in a wedding

When I saw that Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner were going to be in Vegas, it immediately went on the calendar. Vegas isn’t too far away and once I mentioned it to Keiko and Michelle, we all decided to go. Annnnnd then I told Amie that we would see her and she was excited about it, so it was a sure thing.

As the day of the event got closer, Michelle was unable to go and Keiko was sick, so I wasn’t sure if I would be going alone.  Thankfully, Keiko was still going and we hit the road around 11am.

We got to Vegas stupid early and decided to go to Serendipity. As we were walking there, this guy stopped us and asked if we had 10 minutes. I said no and we kept walking. He said please and I said no. {Because I didn’t want to be in their murder van. Obviously.}

He said he was just trying to get married, but there wasn’t a girl with him. Just him. I kept walking and sort of shouted that there would be witnesses at the chapel.

We kept walking and then ran into a dead end and a garden WHERE THE OFFICIANT WAS STANDING. I asked if she was there for the couple and she said yes and explained everything. Namely how they had to get their own witnesses, so Keiko went back and got them. The officiant said that they were having a big wedding in April, but they didn’t want to wait, so they came to Vegas to elope and they weren’t going to tell anyone.

When they came back I apologized for being an asshole. I ended up being their official witness and took photos for them on the groom’s phone.

After the adorable 15 minute ceremony, we headed to Serendipity for delicious frozen hot chocolate.

The plan was to go to Shake Shack, so we went in that direction. Sadly, traffic was a nightmare, so we decided to head to the bookstore instead. We got to BN around 5:30 and I went right to the event area to see if it was set up. I saw Crystal and chatted with her for a minute before she started setting up the space.

Amie and Meagan came out right at 7.  Crystal introduced them and then started with questions.

How did it get started?

A: We’re as far apart as you can get. If you were going to drill a hole through the center of the earth, Meg is exactly on the opposite side of where I am.

M: The answer is the Internet. I assume all of you are familiar with fandom and fan fiction. We met online in a Pern fandom in 2005. We sort of instantly became best friends.

A: Shipwreck stories are so interesting. You only have yourself and whatever you have is all you’ve got to survive.

M: It’s sort of like disaster stories. You strip away power and comfort and that’s all you have.

A: From what I can tell, it means The Rock saves LA. We were just writing these stories for ourselves. Just for fun. It wasn’t until Meg sold her first story that we thought it could be something to avoid gainful employment.

M: We thought we would be done with Lilac and Tarver after a year or so, but we still weren’t done with them.  My agent {I think, I don’t know who it was} asked about what we were working on.

A: We put together 50 pages and he was like “stop everything and write that now.”

M: And it was a shock to see that they wanted 3 books.

A: We had a day to give them the synopsis for the other books. I was camping and didn’t take the laptop because we were camping.  I had to climb up a rock to try and get service to access my email.

M: Fortunately we came across a lot of things that we wanted to write about that wouldn’t have fit in one book.

A: We had these ideas and we were able to go there and write about them.

How did you pull them all together?

A: A fan told us that it was Titanic in space if the ship sunk in 15 minutes and Rose and Jack were shipwrecked on the island from Lost.

M: I like the Pride and Prejudice comparison. All three books have characters that are complete opposites.

A: The way the characters all weave together is like the Avengers. It might be Iron Man’s movie, but you’re going to see everyone.

Let’s talk about the covers.

A: They’re gorgeous and iconic. I can say that because we had nothing to do with it. The models really earned their money. The dresses are made from scratch. The green dress is 9ft long. By the time the third book came out, we were like “challenge accepted.”

M: We came up with this amazing description with LED lights and figured that they would never come up with it. And they did.

A: They won’t let us have the purple dress because of what we did with the green dress.

{Then they told the story of The Dress and then a story about Beth Revis being put in a headlock by her husband and being caught by the UPS guy}

How do you work the writing?

M: Lots of google hangouts. We text a lot, but if we’re editing, it’s important to see each other.

A: Meg has a specific face when she has a plot idea and when I see it, I know to be quiet.

Do you share the characters?

A: We split them. I write the guys and Meg writes the girls.

M: When Amie was a teenage girl, she was around a lot of teenage boys a lot, so it’s helpful.

A: If it’s a conversation, we’ll get on IM and actually have the conversation. It might be Tarver’s chapter, but Lilac’s dialogue is coming from Meg.

Who do you want to be cast as the characters?

A: The tv show is in development and when we were on tour for book 2, we talked about it and we were told that we really couldn’t.  When we said that we couldn’t talk about it, everyone was like “oh, come on.” So we did tell them, with the stipulation that they couldn’t tweet about it or tell anyone.

M: And as far as we can tell, no one did.

A: But Disney found out and on this tour they told us that we’re really not allowed to talk about it.

M: We can say that we have a showrunner and a production company and that the people involved are really into it.

A: They really get it.  {Then there was a story about Eric Balfour from Haven reading TBS and how he wouldn’t go to set when they called him because he was at That Scene.}

Favorite word?

M: Catastrophe

A: Longbottom. It’s a verb and it means to grow up really unexpectedly hot.

Favorite alien?

M: The Borg in Star Trek

A: The Doctor

Favorite Doctor, companion and episode?

A: Tennant. Episode is the first episode of 9 because I wanted it to not suck. And the second he stuck his head out and said “Run”, I knew it was going to be good.

M: I love Rose, but from a author point of view, I would say Donna. I hated her at first because she was brash and annoying, but then I grew to love her and when her part ended, I was in the closet crying and rocking back and forth. And that’s a lot of the reason why I wrote Lilac.

Least favorite word?

A: Moist

M: I’ll say deadline.

A: There’s never anything good associated with that.

Are you a pantser or plotter?

M: I am as far over on the spectrum of pantser as you can get.

A: I outline a reasonable amount. I know the beginning, middle and end.

M: We’ve changed a lot together. She forces me to think ahead and that makes us able to have twists. My “let’s just do this” opens things up.

Favorite action movie?

A: Die Hard 2

M: The Mummy, even though the archeologist in me hates it.

A: Meg did archeology in college and went on a dig.

M: I thought I would be writing in my tent at night by the oil light. Turns out I hate camping and eating out of a can. I wanted my cat and my microwave and to take a shower.

Favorite Avenger?

M: Black Widow

A: That’s really hard. I guess Iron Man because of the sass.

M: I love Tony Stark.

Do you have time to read for fun?

M: Yes. My goal is 52 books a year.

A: It depends on how you define pleasure. A lot of the time, we’re reading for author friends. I like to read things that aren’t YA so it’s less like my job.

Advice for wanna be authors?

A: If you finish a book, it’s already 99% better than other books because it’s finished. Get critique partners. Find someone whose work you would pay to read. And critique is tough.

M: The difference between a published author and an unpublished author is that a published author didn’t give up.

Is there somewhere that is inspirational for you?

A: There’s these hot springs in Melbourne and I bring everyone there and they solve their plot problems.

M: Hot water is just good. Travel. Seeing things you’ve never seen might not be what sparks what you’re working on, but it could be in the back of your head.

Do you ever change each other’s writing?

A: All the time.

M: But not behind anyone’s back.

A: And we both have fingerprints all over the place. To the point that we can’t remember who wrote what.

M: If we disagree, it’s usually because we’re wrong. We’ll sit down and discuss it and usually there’s another way that we didn’t see.

First round of editing, where do you start?

M: We sort of edit while we’re going. She wrote Tarver’s chapter and sent it to me. I left comments and sent it back then wrote my chapter and sent it to her.

M: Which I don’t recommend if you’re writing alone because you might never finish.

A: And I might spend time editing Meg’s chapter, but I still have to write mine so she can have it in the morning.

Do you write with music?

M: I like silence. I do make playlists to listen to for inspiration, but when I’m actually typing the words, I get distracted.

A: I listed to a band called Two Steps from Hell. They do movie soundtrack type stuff. I have particular plays lists for each book.

There were a few questions I didn’t get, but I was busy laughing and taking photos. The signing started around 8 and it went row by row, so I was first.

I apologized for the amount of books I had {only 5, but 3 posters too} and they started laughing and said no problem. I had my copy of TBS that I had preordered and asked Amie to sign it because it was sent with a sticker. Meagan looked at it and said that the inscription was something they didn’t write any more because it was too long.

As Meagan was writing in one of the books, she asked if you spelled junkie with an “ie” or “ee”. I said that my Twitter handle was EE, but IE was technically correct.

We chatted a bit more {stuff about driving safely and not dying because their events would become famous for death} and then Meagan asked who road tripped with me. I pointed to Keiko who was sitting down because she’s sick. Meagan said that because we came so far, we got a prize.

She gave us both necklaces with charms of a lilac and Tarver’s dog tags. The dog tags have Tarver’s middle initial {which has never been shared anywhere} and there are only 60 total. She apologized to everyone else in line.

There were a few more small conversations and then I thanked them for coming. Amie got up and hugged me and thanked me for coming. I said I would be weird not seeing her 84 more times, but that I would be ready to stalk her for Illuminae 2.

After everything was signed, we left and headed to Shake Shack before starting drive back to California.

I’m typing this up after being up for 22 hours and only getting 3 hours of sleep. Obviously I adore Amie and Meagan and you need to read their books immediately.  Now, I’m going to have some lunch and take a nap.