Recap: Marie Lu Blogger Forum and Book Signing Tour

Last Sunday, I met the pretty and talented Marie Lu! She's not only good in writing heroes and villains, but she's soooooo good at drawing. We were able to see her draw her characters in action!

To sum up everything that we talked about, here are some tidbits of the blogger forum with Marie Lu:

• She didn't actually know she's writing a book for young adults until she gave her first draft of Legend to her agent. In fact, she never even heard of young adult before.
• She'd love to produce a picture book someday.
• Her inspiration when it comes to her characters' names:
• Day - optimistic side, always positive, thief with a heart of gold (Hans Solo, Robin Hood)
• June - named after the month of June, generous, intelligent, ambitious, a female Sherlock Holmes
• Legend was inspired by the real-life world dystopia (North Korea, etc.)
• When it comes to her writing process, she likes to draw her characters first to figure out who they are or what their personality is.
• From writing a dystopian novel to fantasy: she grew up reading fantasy books so fantasy will always be there
• When it comes to the process of writing the next two books on her Legend trilogy, there were no fan-reaction-inspired parts because she already sort of finished the books on her mind so she just watch their reactions hopelessly.
• The hardest book to write for her was Champion. Regarding its ending, she told us she loves bittersweet endings. Besides, there's no other way to end it and it's the ending she always wanted to write and she's satisfied about it.
• I asked her if she has an odd ritual that she do before or during writing. She told us that she cannot write without listening to music. But she doesn't listen to music with lyrics because it sort of distract her writing. So instead, she listens mostly to soundtracks and ambient sounds or to songs with a different language because she cannot understand them and it cannot distract her.
• She loves writing while inside the train. She said there's something about the sound of the moving train that is conducive.
• When asked who's the bigger rebel: Day or June, she answered: She said maybe Day because of what he does. But still, she went for June because she had to absolutely change herself for like, a 180 degrees.
• We asked her is she herself is a Day or June, she told us Day because he's emotionally driven and kind of paranoid, but then she said she's more like June because they were alike when it comes to panic, grief, romance, etc.
• Another thing about her writing process, the switching of points of view, she said it's not actually that hard for her because it has been her writing style for almost 10 years.
• On her latest novel, The Young Elites, she chose the villains as her protagonists. Of course, we asked her about that. She told us that she used them as her main characters because they are manipulative, cunning and doesn't care about what other people say. Plus, they're interesting to explore.
• We also asked her how does she manage to write in a very cinematic way. She said it's because she's a visual person and it has something to do with her background with arts. She loves to draw what she thinks about and write what she see.

Aside from meeting a wonderful author, I was also glad to see my fellow bloggers and pretty ladies of Pinoy Book Tours!

Kai of Amaterasu Reads, Hazel of Stay Bookish, me, and Kate of The Bookaholic Blurbs!

Kai of Amaterasu Reads, Hazel of Stay Bookish, me, and Kate of The Bookaholic Blurbs!

Kate of The Bookaholic Blurbs and I!

Pinoy Book Tours and Marie Lu PH with Marie Lu group shot

After the forum, we all took our lunches, made sure that we were able to catch up with each other's lives LOL talked about books we've read, and books we're waiting for. Then off we go to the public signing!

The crowd was H U G E. People started lining up 9am the day before! Here's a glimpse of the crowd:

There were also awesome readers who cosplayed the characters in Marie Lu's books! Lookie!

From left: Erielle,

Badass posters and bookmarks made by MarieLuPHIL. These were given during the public signing.

Marie Lu drawing one of her characters

I think all of us captured a photo of Marie Lu signing a shiny book. Here's while she's signing my shiny book! And of course, a photo with her!

Marie Lu's nails during the event. And look at those rings!

And here are the gorgeous nail arts by Nicole Lim of The Twins Read, based on the Legend trilogy and The Young Elites. You can check out Novel Nails Designs on Instagram and Tumblr for more photos!

Thanks National Book Store for yet another amazing event! Share your experience or recap on the comment section below. Check out the other recaps below:

The Bookaholic Blurbs

The Soul Sisters

Amaterasu Reads

The Lifelong Bookworm