Brodi talked about her road to success by doing her first ever PowerPoint presentation. It was a huge success! The crowd was laughing at her hilarity. (She’s really a very funny person. If she ever gets tired of writing novels, she should be a stand-up comedian or a writer for TV or movies.) She also showed us about a quarter of the rejection letters she received in the querying process for her first novel, Echo. She was “excited” to receive her first personalized rejection rather than just all the form-letter rejections. It was interesting to find out that that rejection was actually from Suzanne Collins’ agent and the agent rejected Brodi’s manuscript because he/she already had The Hunger Games manuscript on her desk getting ready to be published. After her presentation, the crowd was able to ask some questions. Some of the questions were:

• “Is it harder to write under deadline?” She answered yes.
• “Where did you get your idea?” She said that Sam, her husband, challenged her to write a heroine completely different from her first heroine. So, she thought of writing about a heroine who was broken yet strong. And, as she started thinking about that, she started thinking about why she was broken and Everneath was born.
• “Was the title always Everneath?” She said no. At first, it was Broken, then it was Underneath. Then, she and Bree Despain, friend and fellow author, decided to play with the words “forever” and “underneath” and came up with Everneath.
• ***spoiler*** “Did you mean to write a love triangle?” She said she doesn’t think of the book as being a love triangle. Cole is the villain. Nikki knows who she wants and it’s not the villain. ***end of spoiler***

After the questions, Brodi signed books. She started around 7:30 pm. My friends and I were the second to the last in the line and our books were signed around 9:40 pm. Two hours of signing for a debut author! Isn’t that incredible?! The wait was definitely worth it.

I’m so glad I was able to go and show my support for Brodi. I absolutely love her writing style. I’ve had a chance to read both Echo and Everneath and I love them both. I hope that one day Brodi can also publish Echo. But, if not, I’m sure whatever she does publish will continue to be fantastic.

Before the actual event hosted by the library, Utah book bloggers were invited to a meet-n-greet with Marissa Meyer. We got to sit down with her in a more personable setting and chat. We talked about our favorite books from last year, how she came up with the idea of Cinder, and a little about her writing history and routines. She’s been writing since she was 14 when she started to write fan fiction for Sailor Moon. She’s from Tacoma, Washington and just got married in October. Her husband and her publisher accompanied her on tour. It was a lot of fun to sit down before hand and get to know her a little bit in a more intimate setting.

At the actual event, she talked about Cinder and the future sequels. Each of them are based on futuristic retellings of a fairy tale. Cinder is based on Cinderella. Scarlet, the second book in the series, will be based on Little Red Ridinghood. Crest will be based on Rapunzel. And, Winter will be based on Snow White. Each book takes place in a different area of the world in which the stories are set, and Cinder will be the main character in each book, but she’ll encounter Scarlet, Crest, and Winter as she continues through her journey to overpower the Lunars.

Meyer said she pitched Cinder as a series because it was always meant to be four books. Even though a lot of fellow writers told her to just pitch it as one book and let agents and publishers decide, she didn’t want to deceive them by giving them Cinder, with its cliffhanger ending of sorts, and then be all like, “Oh yeah, it’s supposed to be four books.” Luckily, her agent and publisher saw the potential of the story and signed a deal for all four books.

She said she came up with the story as part of a contest. She wanted to participate in NaNoWriMo and noticed a contest with a prize of a walk-on role on Star Trek for the person who wrote the most words during NaNoWriMo. She wrote just over 150,000 words but still came in third place. But, a very early version of Cinder was the fruits of her labor so it wasn’t a total loss.

I’m excited to read Cinder. It sounds like something I’ll enjoy a lot and I look forward to the sequels as well. I really enjoyed meeting Marissa Meyer and getting to know her a little bit. All in all, it was a great evening with her and friends.

As far as the movie is concerned, I actually really enjoyed it. Yes, there were laughable parts (that weren’t meant to be laughable), but I still liked it. It’s the closest movie to its book, which I think has to do with Stephenie Meyer being a producer now. And, I’m really excited for the second one because I think they’ll do a good job with it (and add more action than the book has).

Before I talk about all the things that I loved, let’s get the few complaints I have out of the way.

• At first, I really liked the scene in which the wolves spoke to each other. I liked the disjointed images Jacob saw as he was running through the forest and all the other voices in his head. But, as soon as Sam and Jacob started speaking to each other, the voices sounded weird, kind of like Darth Vader meets Optimus Prime. And, the voices sounded overly dramatic.
• The imprinting scene was … awkward. But, honestly, I don’t think there was any other way to do it and it’s a little creepy in its own right anyway.
• The dream sequence, like all the other dream sequences in the movies, was weird. It’s not how I pictured it and I didn’t like that they used the wedding guests instead of the immortal children.
• The makeup and wigs are still awkward and fake-looking. Poor Carlisle and the blond Denali vampires (other than Irina). Although, I did think Jasper looked better in this one than he has in the others, which is a plus and a miracle.
• I’m one of the fans that actually enjoyed the book. But, I knew the story was very cheesy and seeing those scenes on screen made the cheesiness more real.
• The wolves seemed less real in this movie than in New Moon and Eclipse. I’m not sure why, but the animation didn’t seem as refined. But, at least it wasn’t Lupin terrible.

Not too shabby, right? I honestly don’t have a lot of complaints as you can see because I thought they improved on a lot of things this time around (especially the acting). I absolutely loved the following:

• Even though the birth scene was extremely gruesome, it was actually my favorite part of the entire movie. It was seen through Bella’s perspective which gave it a disconnected feeling. I knew it was described as that bloody and horrific in the book, but seeing it come to life was a little surprising because I guess I didn’t picture it that horrifically in my mind.
• I loved Bella’s transformation. Watching the Photoshopping happen on screen as she turned from a mere mortal into a beautiful vampire was just so cool! It was really well done.
• They did an awesome job making Bella look as emaciated as she did while she was pregnant with Renesmee. I wish they could’ve applied that makeup awesomeness to some of the vampires.
• Normally, I hate added scenes in movies. But, I actually really enjoyed that the Cullens and wolves fought after Renesmee’s birth. It gives me hope that there will be fighting in the second movie instead of just talking and diplomatic solutions.
• I like who they got to play Renesmee and can’t wait to see how her aging process works in the second movie.
• I told my friend Debbie that I haven’t liked Robert Pattinson as Edward. He just never sat well with me. But, in this movie, whatever they did to his makeup or hair made him more appealing. Now, if only he’d shave his chest, then he may be perfect or as close to perfect as an actor can get to Edward.
• Aro became my hero in the short scene during the credits! He’s a grammar Nazi like I am!
• I loved Bella’s wedding dress.
• And, of course, as always, I loved Charlie. Billy Burke is the best thing that happened to these movies.

Overall, I was very happy with the film. It did as good of a job as it could with the storyline the book had. So, if you’re like I am and you liked the book, then I think you’ll like the movie. But, if you didn’t like the book, then I doubt there’s a chance you’ll like the movie either.

At the time of the book launch, I was about a third of the way done with an ARC of Crossed I had borrowed from my blogger friend Emily of Emily’s Reading Room, so I knew a little about what had happened. Luckily, Ally didn’t want to spoil anyone since the book had just been released that day and didn’t really go into great detail about the plot.

One of the things I enjoyed about the launch party was Ally’s vision for the setting. She said that as she wrote Matched, Southern Utah came into her mind whenever she thought about the Outer Provinces. She hiked in the slot canyons with her family almost every weekend while she was growing up, so the setting is very personal to her. And, as I’ve read about the Carving in the book, a very vivid landscape comes to mind. In fact, it reminds me of the episode of Man vs. Wild where Bear Grylls finds himself stranded in Southern Utah, which is the closest I’ve ever come to seeing that terrain up close and personal.

She also talked about how Matched emphasized poetry and Crossed emphasizes art. One of the 100 paintings that Cassia is familiar with is the one entitled “Chasm of the Colorado” by Thomas Moran. Ally was introduced to this painting by her mother and she felt it would be a good painting for the Matched trilogy because it represented not only the Outer Provinces, but also the wildness and unknown of Cassia’s adventure to join the rebellion against the Society.

Actually, if you’ve been following Ally’s blog tour posts for Crossed, you’ll notice that she talked about many of the things she had already or continues to guest post about on the tour. It’s all very interesting and I recommend you check those posts out.

Ally also was the keynote speaker at the Teen Book Fest at the Provo City Library last weekend. I went with a few of my blogger buddies: Suey, Jenny, Emily, and Enna Isilee. The teen book fest also had authors Elana Johnson, Robison Wells, and Kristen Landon. Unfortunately, due to lots of homework, I was only able to stay for Ally’s keynote presentation and the signing afterward. If you’d like a great recap of the other authors’ presentations, check out Suey’s post.

Ally talked again mainly about what she did at the launch. When she saw me at the event, she told me that she felt bad that I had to listen to her talk about the same things again. I laughed and told her that I didn’t mind.

Ally is one of the most gracious, humble people I’ve ever met. Seriously, if you ever have the chance to meet her, I’m sure you’ll find she’s super sweet and sociable. All in all, it was a great couple of events and I’m glad I could go and spend some time with friends and talking to Ally.

Unfortunately, I can’t embed it. But, here’s the link to the spot. (There may be a geographic redirect for people outside of Utah–annoying–so you may need to scroll down to the Live Interviews section and click the “What’s Next for Twilight Fan Club?”) My friends Danylle and Jamie were able to be there live this morning to answer questions after the spot aired. They represented our group well.

Once you watch the segment, come back and tell me what you think. I’ll tell you what I think right now, but don’t read it until after you’ve watched the clip. (I don’t want to taint your view, lol.) After seeing this, I feel like Yzma from The Emperor’s New Groove. “Is that my voice? Is that MY voice?” Seriously, is that how I sound? I think I may need to invest in a voice coach so I don’t sound so annoying. And, I may need to take a public speaking class so I can learn not to “um” as much as I do, lol.

It was fun and I’m excited that our group got our 15 minutes of fame and that we could mention and promote other local authors too.

PS–When I was being interviewed, I mentioned how we had the chance to meet other fans around the country and that we’re friends with much more than just our local group. But, it didn’t make it into the segment.

The one thing I realized I forgot to say, which may be okay since my post is already a few miles long, is that I have friends from all over the world because of Twilight and the Lex. I love those friends just as much as I love my local Utah friends and I hope I get to meet the ones that I haven’t met someday and see those that I have again. My friends are seriously the best!

Once upon a time, I didn’t like to read books but I decided to read a little-known book (at the time) called Twilight. The story intrigued me so much that I wanted to know more and I wanted to talk about it a lot. I couldn’t find anyone to oblige me–my husband couldn’t have cared less (not that I blame him) and my co-workers and friends liked the book but not as much as I did. I noticed on the back of the book that Stephenie Meyer had a website so I decided to check it out. From her website, I was introduced to the Twilight Lexicon, the premiere online fansite for the Twilight Saga.

I had never been compelled to find people who shared the same obsession as me before. I had never wanted to join an online fandom, not even with Harry Potter. (That was probably because I had people in real life to discuss the books with.) I decided to join the Lex thinking that I’d be bombarded by a bunch of tweens and teeny boppers and stop frequenting the fansite after a week or so. To my surprise, I found that there was a fairly large adult presence and many of them were from Utah.

About four months after joining the Lex, I was invited to meet some of these Utah women. We got together at a restaurant and I felt like I had met my kindred spirits. They aren’t kindred spirits just because of our connection through Twilight; Twilight was merely a vehicle that moved us all to the same point where we could meet. We’re kindred spirits because we were each looking to fill a void in our lives. We all have fulfilling lives through our families, school, jobs, church, etc. But, we needed something more … a way for us to be ourselves without wearing the wife, mom, student, and employee hat. This group gave us that.

We’ve now been together for a little over four years. Their friendship, love, and support has meant a lot to me. We’ve helped each other through different trials and adventures in each of our lives. I honestly don’t know where I’d be if I hadn’t found these wonderful ladies. My life definitely wouldn’t be as fulfilling as it is with them.

The reason for this post is that my friend Danylle was contacted by our Channel 5 News. Stephany Beshara, the producer of the morning show, is planning to do a Twilight week during the week Breaking Dawn, Part 1 comes out. She wanted to interview people who are fans of the franchise and who have had their lives significantly impacted by these books.

On Saturday, part of our group got together and three of us were interviewed by Stephany, including me. It was so much fun to talk about how we met, how our lives were changed by Stephenie Meyer’s books, how not only our group has become fast friends but how we have made friends from all over the world through the Lex and other fansites that we still keep in contact with, and what we’re doing now that the franchise is coming to a close. (We’ll be featured on November 14 or 15 at 6:00 am. I plan to TiVo it so I can download it and post it on my blog.)

Many members of my group have moved past Twilight while others, like me, still enjoy the Twilight Saga (mostly in book form). But, none of us can deny the impact these books have made on our lives. I’ll always be grateful to Stephenie Meyer for facilitating a way for me to meet these wonderful ladies.

(Fortunately, when I met these lovely ladies, I had just started blogging. I’ve been able to document most of our adventures, including our trip to Forks with other Lexicon members and our many author parties.)

I enjoyed listening to each author. (Though, I have to admit that Michelle and Moira were the funniest and craziest.) The library put together a panel so that each author had a chance to answer the question at hand and so they could sift through all the questions and answer the best ones. Some of the questions asked were these:

• Where do you get your inspiration?
• Have you named your characters after people you know in real life?
• Are any of your characters like you?
• How many books did you write before you got published?
• Was your book always intended to be a series?

There were others, but these are the only ones I can remember. When asked the second question, all the authors quickly donned a look of consternation and said, “No. Not at all,” while simultaneously nodding their heads. Becca Fitzpatrick finally admitted that Patch’s real name came from a boy her younger sister dated. Elana Johnson and Moira Young both said that their main characters are their “anti-self,” meaning that they gave their character the qualities they wish they had. Most of the authors had written numerous novels before selling their first book. Michelle Hodkin, on the other hand, has only written The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. And, only Michelle Hodkin intended for her book to be a series. The other three all wrote their novels as stand-alone books, but their agents and/or publishers insisted on making them into series.

After the panel, they each had lines to sign books. When it was finally my turn to have my book signed by Michelle Hodkin, I gave her one of my blog cards. She recognized the character in my avatar and said, “I know you! You’ve been tweeting to me. I love book bloggers! They’re my friends!” It felt really cool to have her recognize “me.”

After the panel, there was a small get together with Michelle Hodkin, Elana Johnson, and Moira Young with all the book bloggers who wanted/could attend. (Becca Fitzpatrick was supposed to join us too, but her line was too long and she spent the entire time signing.) Emily from Emily’s Reading Room put it together and it was fantastic just to be able to chit chat with the authors in an informal setting. I got to speak with all three authors on a more personal level, which I absolutely loved because it made them more real. They all seem like such genuine people!

My friend Suey from It’s All About Books, tweeted after the event: “@jenni_elyse I vote for you to get the ‘best mingler’ award! I need lessons! :)” I was a little surprised by this because I’ve never thought of myself as a good mingler because I’m always worried that I’ll have nothing to talk about. I told her that I just butt into conversations, which works for events like these, but not so much in real life. She later said that I acted as if I had no fear. I can honestly say that I’ve never thought of myself that way!

It was such a great evening. I really enjoyed getting to know Michelle, Elana, and Moira better. And, I enjoyed listening to them and Becca Fitzpatrick during the panel. I also enjoyed hanging out with my blogger buddies, meeting a few of my blogger friends in person, and making new blogger friends. (Click the picture to zoom in and see who everyone is.)

I was really worried I wouldn’t be able to go because I wasn’t feeling very well and I was in no condition to drive. Luckily, one of my blogger buddies, Diana from Diana’s Amazing Book Adventures, offered to go with me and drive. (Corey said he would’ve gone with me, but lucky for him his services weren’t needed.)

I was really impressed with the launch party. Tess read an excerpt from With a Name Like Love and answered some questions. I asked her if she was able to choose the title of the novel or if the publishing company did that. Usually, the author has very little say in the cover and the title because the publisher uses them as advertising for the novel. Tess, however, named her own novel. She said she patterned it after Because of Winn Dixie. She had a few criticizers along the way regarding the title, but she really wanted it to be different so that it would stand out more. Personally, I like it, and after hearing the excerpt from the book, I think it fits the story really well. I also asked her if she was working on anything else. She said she was working on a bit of a Western and she gets to use phrases like cowboy up. It will be fun to see that novel published as well.

The party was also set up like a carnival so it would be fun for the entire family. There was a prize wheel everyone got to spin, a candy counter, a station to make book thongs, and a signing line. She also had a poster showing the different iterations of the cover for With a Name Like Love. (Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of it for this post.) And, The King’s English was there selling books for those who didn’t have a book yet, which included me.

I really enjoyed the launch party. It was so much fun to see all the love and support there is for Tess and her book. I’m also glad I was able to go to show my support. I can’t wait to read With a Name Like Love as it sounds like an incredible story of love, friendship, family, and overcoming obstacles.