On May 9, 2008, three phenomenal authors in their own right (E. Lockhart, Lauren Myracle, and Sarah Mlynowski), came to Books & Books for the book they wrote together, How to be Bad. This is what happened:It all began when my dad on his way to pick me up he got the huge bag of books and clothes as well as safety pins from my house. (Lorena, you can thank him for the way to pin up your sleeves. Lol)
He picked me up, we went to Julie's physical therapy, my mom picked Lorena up, and drove us to Books & Books, not much else to say about this part of the day.
When we got there, we went to go eat something. Like mostly every time, we didn’t know what to eat. Once we finally decided on Mexican, we had to choose between which one, since there are two in the same block of each other.
Oh, and Lorena and Julie had an Avatar discussion on the way which I popped in and out of. We got our food and ate.
(It was actually more like an argument since I am for Zutara and neither Erika nor Julie like Katara.)
Once we finished, we left and went back to the store, where the band area was already being set up and Emily was there. I waddled over with my too heavy bag, and we showed her the shirts we made and said we’d figure out which was hers when we changed. She LOVED them and thought we did a great job. I had my mom buy me How to be Bad in hardcover and then while she was paying for it and a few other books, Lorena and I went into the bathroom to change. I changed into jeans and one of the shirts and realized I could have my mom take our clothes with her, but then Julie came in and I figured she was probably already outside leaving. Then, I started talking to Lorena about how many books I had to get signed and she didn’t believe me, but then she took a look inside the bag… paused and had to look through it to see them all. But then I realized something! Frogs and French Kisses, where was it? I knew my mom was reading it and quickly dialed her number; she was just pulling away, so she said she’d turn around and come to the front. Julie had just changed and I grabbed the clothes we changed out of, and ran out of the bathroom with Julie looking slightly insane. Lorena was left in the bathroom to watch our stuff alone.
(-Insert whimper-)
I was impatient and told Julie to call our mom again, but then her car pulled up. I ran over to it, took the book out of the trunk, dumped the clothes in the trunk, took her bookmark out and threw it in the window (It was some receipt thing she needed) while she was saying goodbye… Lorena was waiting for us when we got back to the bathroom; she wasn’t very fond of us leaving her there by herself.
(YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN!)
Then, we exited the bathroom, making sure Julie watched her finger (Read the Melissa Marr post from 10/8/08, if you have no idea what I'm referring to). When we got outside, I gave Emily her shirt and asked where we could put our stuff. So, I put my extremely heavy bag of books behind the counter with everything else.
Emily asked us to put up a few flyers on the café doors, which actually had more complications than you’d think since I was still in my rushing mood and Julie continued to put them up the wrong way. (I’ll admit I put it up wrong the first time).
Then, I’m not sure what we did… I think we just walked around a little and then we bumped into (not literally) Emily with Sarah and E. They LOVED the shirts and immediately took pictures of and with us. Lauren at the time was finishing up her next book and would be joining us shortly, that’s what E. told us. Then, Emily brought them to the café, but there didn’t seem to be any tables, so she said we’d take them to the antiquarian room. While they were walking, Emily told me to get three chocolate chip cookies.
In the meantime, Lauren came and hugged us because of the shirts. Then, she saw the cookies and thanked us again. She reached over to take one, but Sarah said she wanted to film them. We sat down with Sarah and Lauren and E. Sarah said that she guessed she wasn’t going to be getting any footage and let Lauren take a cookie. She said something to the effect of that they were good and thanked us again. I said something to the effect of “We didn’t spit it them” (in reference to the author tracker) Lauren kind of looked shocked and confused, then E. said something like “She can never remember what she posts on the Internet.” Then, E. asked her what she did exactly to the cookies and Lauren went on explaining how she had a bar of chocolate that wouldn’t break. She tried everything, so ended up biting off bits and putting it into the batter. It was hilarious. I can’t remember everything we talked about, plus it would make this even longer than it already is going to be. Lauren told us that we should do something as an opening act for them, though we couldn’t really think of anything. Overall, they were all three amazing!
During this time, a girl was in the line to buy one of Sarah’s adult books with her mom. E. and Lauren told her to come over and Sarah signed it (before they bought it). And Sarah asked the mom if she knows what’s in the books. The mom wasn’t sure and asked what the age was supposed to be for. Sarah said something to the effect of that it was more for older readers, though it really depends on the girl. The father was there and then gave Sarah and his daughter a look and looked uncertain about the book. Sarah had already signed it and the parents bought it for the girl. Though the mother was also telling Sarah how her books got her daughter into reading, so it was okay, plus the girl did seem like she could handle it.
We also started talking about How to be Bad, which Emily and I were the first readers they met who had read the book, so I can feel special. So, I told them that it said “easy passes” instead of fastpasses, which I think they were surprised that no one noticed that before. Also, that a few things only Floridians would notice, but overall, that I really liked it.
There was more talking. Sarah and Lauren saying that they really wanted us to send them a shirt. There was humus and quesadillas (funny due to us just having Mexican), Lauren showing Lorena her macbook air, Sarah getting the video camera and showing Lorena how to use it (though it turned out Lorena knew what Sarah didn’t even know), E. taking pictures.
(Lauren was asking me about DASH and what I wanted to major in, so I was explaining that I wanted to do something along the lines of animation, so she rushed out her MacBook Air to show me Big Bunny, and Teen Girl Squad, though we couldn’t get online so we ended up taking pictures on Photobooth. In the meantime Sarah overheard I was in film and asked me to film parts of the signing for her.)
It was then time for the talk and questions. Eventually they were all together and we went to the courtyard. Emily introduced them to the crowd outside and then we went in the other side of the store where the chairs were all set up for the event. There were a couple rows filled, mainly by younger readers.
Emily began by introducing themselves and thanking us (making us stand up and show off our shirts). Then, they each read a section from the book and afterward began answering questions. It was really nice.
(I was filming the entire time, with epic panning XD though I’m sure Sarah didn’t want that much footage “SORRY!”)
Afterward, they went to the other side of the store to begin signing. I did the post-it thing (putting the book flap on the cover page and writing the name that it will be signed to on a post-it and sticking it on that page).
Lorena, Julie, and I started bringing stacks of books from the other side’s register in order to be signed for stock… there were a ton of books.
Once they began signing stock and everyone had left, I went to get my bag of books to be signed. I basically knelt in the middle of the floor, trying to organize it by author. Someone (I think Sarah) said something to the effect of “Look, she brought all of our books.” Then, we went up to them. I started with Lauren, had her sign hers, then went to E., and finally Sarah. I kind of felt bad that I had so many books…
(A bit after this Lauren said she wanted to take some pictures with a giant teddy bear in the children's section and she wanted Julie to pose with her so of we ran to get the pictures. One of the pictures I commented that the bear looked like a pimp the way they had positioned him but no one caught what I said. XD)
After they signed our books, we just stood there and talked to them while they signed stock. They all three signed the How to be Bads and their other books. Sarah was extremely happy when she saw that they had all of her adult books for her to sign. As an example of how nice they are, Lauren realized that she hadn’t signed any Eleven, Twelve, or Thirteens, so she actually asked if they had any, so that she could sign more after all the signing she had already done. Sarah and E. did the same thing, though obviously different books. For Sarah, it showed that they had Bras & Broomsticks and Frogs & French Kisses in paperback, but no one could find them and then we found them up top were they shouldn’t be, right next to where the signing was taking place, which was ironic (this was in the adult section).
After that, we took a couple more pictures with them, said our goodbyes, and Lorena’s parents picked us.
-Erika (With comments by Lorena in red)
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