Last Thursday, I had the chance to meet Marissa Meyer, the author of Cinder, at the Provo Library. I’ve wanted to read Cinder ever since I saw the cover. (I know I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I love it!) When I found out Marissa Meyer was coming to my library, I was really excited. Unfortunately, with everything going on, I haven’t had a chance to read Cinder yet, but I do plan to read it soon.
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.
