Good morning world and all who inhabit it! It is with great pleasure that I share with you my very first book signing experience! And it was AMAZING! I got to meet a lot of bookworms and book bloggers, and I got to meet Alex London himself! t was a BLAST. I was so hyped from the experience that I made a short video of it!
Bear with me while I blabber about some minor details before we head on to the juicy parts. I was with my mom during the event and we left the house at about 7:30. We are very near the venue, although it took us a good five minutes to hop on to an FX. Luckily, we were able to arrive at 8 AM and the line was still mindblowingly short! The early bird does catch the worm, and this experience proved that to me. Hahahaha! Ever since this event was announced I have been preparing for the worst since I saw what happened during the previous events (full malls, lines encircling the mall at 6 AM, utter chaos) but I was surprised (and relieved!) that this event was organized and not too crowded.
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| Taken from National Book Store's Twitter account. |
After registering, we were then able to pick our seats and I picked an aisle seat so that I could watch better. We were seated on those chairs from 9:30 AM up to the event itself! We survived by taking turns when going to the rest room and buying take-out so that we could eat on our spots. I didn't mind though. For me it was all worth it. You could see our spots below!
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| Taken from National Book Store's Twitter account. |
Some News about Alex London:
- He is going to be the newest writer of one of the 39 Clues! The series is called Double Cross but he hasn't come up with a title for his book as of now.
- He just got married last Saturday!
- He just finished writing his 15th novel prior to his arrival here in Manila. It is a novel for 8 to 12 year-olds about talking animals.
- His first book is a non-fiction book about children in war, with topics about child soldiers and refugee children.
- After writing 2 non-fiction books for adults, he started the Accidental Adventures series; a series for 8 to 12 year-olds, with rather silly titles like We Are Not Eaten by Yaks, We Dine With Cannibals and We Give a Squid a Wedgie.
- After writing the Accidental Adventures series, he wanted to write something “more dark, more intense and more action-packed” and thus, Proxy was born! Proxy is his 10th book, and Guardian is the 11th.
- He goes by different names with his different novels. He used Charles London for his first book (“Charles” is his first name) although he “didn't want a 10 year-old to Google Charles London and find this depressing heavy frightening book” so he followed J.K Rowling’s footsteps and used his initial “C.” combined with his middle name “Alexander” to form the name C. Alexander London for his books for 8 to 12 year-olds.
- When it came to Proxy, his publishers wanted to “differentiate a brand” and no longer want C. Alexander London (as people would associate C. Alexander London with his “silly books and funny adventures”) so they came up with a shortened version of his name, Alex London, which he pertained to as his “action-packed sexy name” (LOL!).
- He worked as a journalist and researcher in Africa a few years back, and it gave him the world view that “humans can survive horrible things” and that “humans survive by finding the humanity in each other” , which became a recurring theme in Proxy.
- On becoming a writer, he was always fond of making stories since he was 8 years old. He became a journalist because he figured it would teach him how to write, and it did. And after a rather long yet touching story about a boy he met at a refugee camp in the Congo, he decided that it was time that he "stopped writing about these children and instead start writing for them"; and that was how he started writing novels.
- In the first draft, Marie had a different name and the book itself had a different ending.
- After receiving great advice for Proxy and Guardian from Legend Trilogy author Marie Lu, London changed the name of the character to “Marie” in her honor.
- Syd’s skin color “brown” was deliberately vague in order to create a hero who was not white, since London thinks this was very common in YA books nowadays, and he “wanted every teen to be able to imagine themselves as a hero in this book”.
- On the other hand, Knox was concretely white to show how wealthy he is with the idea that Proxy was set in a world with no ozone layer left and only the rich could have the luxury to have protection from the sun.
- Syd wasn’t actually planned to be gay, but as London was writing Proxy, he sort of “came out of the closet” to him.
- Upon being asked if Proxy could become a movie, he told us to keep our fingers crossed for the next two weeks!!!
- He is currently not planning on writing a third book although he assured us that he is not done with the characters yet. He may write some things in the future like novellas or short stories.
- He follows this philosophy: “If I’m surprised, the reader will be surprised.” He tries to put the characters in situations of which he himself doesn't know how to get out of and see if they can get out of it.
- Another philosophy of his: “When in doubt, just blow something up”. If he doesn't know what to do yet, he produces action to make the plot move. Although, it’s not always just action. He compares the plot to music. Both have rhythm, and pauses are just as important as the action because it gives the readers time to catch their breath.
- On killing characters off, he, along with his other YA author friends figured out that they are actually “fueled by drinking the tears of teenagers”. But kidding aside, as much as it breaks his heart to do something bad to the characters, he had to it in order to show that although they hurt, they can also heal and they can heal each other.
- “Read. A lot. Read everything because that’s fuel for your imagination.”
- “Write a lot. Write every day and it doesn’t have to be good. You are allowed to suck at this because you are just starting out.”
- “Practice. The more you do it the better it gets.”
- "The most important piece of advice (and by far the coolest advice I have ever heard in my life!): Write your book. Don’t write a book for someone else. Don’t write a book for fame or fortune. Don’t write a book to chase a trend. Write the book that you mean to write and in an honest way that you can write it. There is no book that is too silly or too weird or too action-packed or too boring or too sad or too happy or too funny or too strange. There will always be a reader if you have written your honest book. There will always be a reader who can take that book up and say “Whoa. You too? I thought I was the only one.” And that is the power of books. But it only works when the writer is honest. And you might get a lot of rejection from that but just write the book that you mean to write. You can only improve your craft, but you can’t improve your honesty. Find that author’s voice and say it out as loud as you can for as long as it lives." (and that was the part where I gave a full standing ovation in my brain)
After that awesome and inspiring interview, it was finally time for the book signing! When my turn came, I was speechless for a few seconds that felt like minutes! Also, I gave him a card with some things I wanted to say to him. I told him that I knew I'd be too startsruck so I just wrote everything on the card.
Also, a random girl named Ima asked if I could give Alex her card, too, since she forgot to give it to him during her turn. So I gave it to Alex and I explained it to him and I never thought that he'd appreciate what I did for that random girl! XD So I think that's why this was the dedication in the first book...
While he was signing my Guardian, I just kinda blurted out that with all the Team Knox and Team Liam hype going on, I'm Team Marie! I just had to. Hahaha. I just thought she was so cool and all but she turned out to be the most underrated character among the four, so I wanted Alex to know that at least there is someone rooting for Marie. And Alex agreed with what I said and gave me a high five!!! #TEAMMARIE! My mom managed to take a very not-good picture of the high five, but at least she got one! That high five was the coolest!
And last but not least, a picture with him!
Alex London is definitely the coolest! His books are amazing and what I personally loved were his words of advice. They really changed the way I think about writing and I hope to apply them when I start my writing career someday! I hope to meet him again someday and I hope to attend more events like this one! I also got to meet a fellow book blogger I met on Instagram a while back. His name is Kevin and his blog handle is Tomebound. You should check it out! Thanks to National Book Store once again for hosting this marvelous event! There were many firsts during this event; my first book signing, my first time meeting an author, and my first time meeting fellow book bloggers! This event is certainly one for the books and I can't wait to attend more!
