BOOK SIGNING: CLAUDIA GRAY AND MADELEINE ROUX IN MANILA 2014.

Where I relive the experience and share all the feels before, during and after meeting these fantastic authors WHO ARE BASICALLY LIFE.

Well, while am at it, let me go ahead and write down this recap of the awesome bloggers' forum I attended yesterday, October 18, 2014. Claudia Gray and Madeleine Roux, both New York Times Best Selling Authors, just had forty five minutes of Q and A with us bloggers and then they signed our precious books. It was so much fun! Plus, I haven't seen my blogger friends in a while and I miss them which makes it double fun!

Gaaaah. Madeleine Roux is beautiful. Like, beautiful beautiful. I can't stop staring at her. I want her House Baratheon dress and hair! Gaaaaaah. Did I say she's beautiful? Really, I think I found my girl author crush because yessssss she's THAT beautiful. She really is. And Claudia Gray is as beautiful and utterly hilarious! They are both very kind, sweet and friendly! I was able to record the entire Q and A and here are what we've learned from them:

Madeleine:

🔼 She does her hair using a beard trimmer. She didn't have time to put some designs on the side of her hair though.
🔼 Madeleine did get scared while writing her books.
🔼 She's a huge gamer. She loves strong supporting casts in games, when their stories are rich that they don't get much time to develop, she likes to incorporate that to her stories. She hopes that their interesting back stories would be something that comes across in her stories.
🔼 Michelle Gagnon is her best buddy and if she would do a collaboration, Michelle is on top of her list. They have different styles and she loves it.
🔼 Creepy Carnival or Haunted Asylum? No clowns so she would choose Asylum.
🔼 She didn't visit actual Asylums while writing Asylum but she had done a ton of online research. Her college buildings are also old and there are places she's been to that she would kind of feel the history.
🔼 Choosing photos for her novel is a collaborative process with Harpercollins.
🔼 You don't know how much social media comes with the job and how guilty she feels when she's not working are 2 things on top of her head that not all people know about being a writer.
🔼 Future of YA: She would like to say what she's writing next. :) A lot more blending of genres, on a serious note.
🔼 She started reading young and she started writing when she wrote a zombie-survival book she enjoyed so much was in college.

Claudia:

🔼 Claudia said Bianca probably will win in the Hunger Games because she can't be killed.
🔼 She would blurb her book like how they modified if for A Thousand Pieces of You "Orphan Black meets Cloud Atlas."
🔼 The magic in Spellcaster series requires a memory before it can be casted and she really wanted an emotional element added on it. Also, we could expect a lot of Asa (Ey-sa) from Sorceress.
🔼 If she would have to jump on a different dimension, she don't think she would go somewhere else.
🔼 Difficult part of the writing process? Differs from book to book. For ATPoY, it was figuring out how the Firebird would work.
🔼 She's always been a vampire/gothic fan and she wrote a whole lot of fanfic for Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and that's the genre for Evernight series. For Fateful, it is inspired by an artifacts exhibition about Titanic.
🔼 If she was born in the 17th/18th century and then suddenly transported to the 21st century, she would be very excited on hoe far women have come.
🔼 Future of YA: Together with Madeleine, they would rule YA :) But she thinks more diversity.
🔼 She's working on another book under another genre which she can't talk about yet but she finished the draft for the sequel of ATPoY. She also loves Scifi so much and she doesn't think she's done writing paranormal stories yet.
🔼 She's also a young reader and she wrote a hole lot of fanfiction of Superman and Lois Lane.

#PHYABookBloggers with Claudia and Madeleine!

After the Q and A, the book signing began and a lot of selfies happened! I was so starstruck looking at them up close! And did I say I love Madeleine's dress and hair? And Claudia's glasses are gorgeous, too!

Signed goodies by Claudia Gray

Signed goodies by Madeleine Roux

After the forum, we went to the public signing in Glorietta 1 and met the unbelievably gorgeous and sweet (and jetlagged) Sarah of Harpercollins! She's a gem!

Thank you Chad for taking the photo and Sab of The Book Eater for lending your phone!

Here is also the video of both authors giving their message to Filipino fans!

With the hilarious Claudia Gray!

With the gorgeous Madeleine Roux!

Yesterday's event gave me so much feels -- being accomplished is one -- that thanking National Bookstore for this opportunity would never be enough. Am so grateful I have my blogger friends to share this overflowing enthusiasm over fictional characters, world buildings, fantastic authors and books. Realizing I get to live this life doing what I love most brings this intense satisfaction in my heart.

To all the wonderful people of National Bookstore, Harpercollins then Madeleine and Claudia, thank you for making life so much better.