Home » Discussion Forums » Blog Post Discussion » Signing Eve
| Signing Eve [message #43240] |
Wed, 06 July 2011 21:37  |
|
Signing Eve
Smooshes!
|
|
|
| Re: Signing Eve [message #43241 is a reply to message #43240 ] |
Wed, 06 July 2011 21:42  |
 |
 Julia
Messages: 531
Registered: October 2008
Location: Library School |
Senior Member |
|
|
| Quote: |
OH! YAAY! THE LOVELY SIGNING IS TOMORROW! I’M GOING TO LONDON TOMORROW FOR A LOVELY SIGNING! I WILL SIGNLOTS OF COPIES* OF PEGASUS** AND I WILL HAVE A LOVELY TIME CHATTING TO ALL THE NICE PEOPLE! I LOVE PEOPLE! I’M SO GOOD AT CHATTING, ESPECIALLY TO STRANGERS!
|
Like the line from A Fine Romance: "I don't have any small talk. I don't even have any *medium* talk."
| Quote: |
the ones who have travelled five hundred miles to tell me how much they hate my books
|
Clearly insane. First, to hate your books. Second, to travel to a booksigning to tell you that. Insane.
| Quote: |
the ones that feel that my feminism distorts my view of reality,
|
and this reminds me of a story one of my professors told about a course evaluation she once got: something to the effect of "great teacher, but watch out- she's a feminist". Oy.
| Quote: |
But tomorrow is going to be great, right?
|
YES. IT IS.
Also: http://make-everything-ok.com/
I truly hope you have a lovely time tomorrow: a hassle-free journey to and from London, a splendid turnout at the signing itself, everything.
[Updated on: Wed, 06 July 2011 21:46]
|
|
|
| Re: Signing Eve [message #43243 is a reply to message #43240 ] |
Wed, 06 July 2011 23:13 |
EMoon
Messages: 664
Registered: March 2009 |
Senior Member |
|
|
Best wishes for the signing: I hope you have only the best fans (and lots of them) and the whiners/complainers/nasties/nitpickers/advice-givers all stay home.
Wish I could be there, too, but...you'll do great and (whispering) "It will all be over soon..."
E
|
|
| |
| Re: Signing Eve [message #43245 is a reply to message #43240 ] |
Thu, 07 July 2011 00:23 |
 |
HorsehairBraider
Messages: 161
Registered: August 2009
Location: New Mexico |
Senior Member |
|
|
You have my vast sympathy. Working with the public is no picnic; mostly because you are assaulted with so much "free advice" it's not funny.
I'm a jeweler and when people see my work they say things like, "You should make Holstein cow jewelry! or "Jack Russel terrier jewelry!" or "Boer goat jewelry!" or... whatever. I have to restrain myself from leaning across the table, grabbing them by the neck and saying, "If I want your opinion on how I should spend my spare time, I will smack the crap out of you! So if I am NOT smacking the crap out of you, I DO NOT want to hear what you think!" but of course you can't say that.  Oh no. They're just trying to be helpful. (REALLY?! OK, I GUESS so.)
I suppose they really *are* just trying to help but it is so tempting to lean across the table and slap them. WELL! You can't please everyone. You just can't. I hope you can make it through with a smile. It's not worth even considering other people's opinions; the reason you are in your position is because YOU are the artist and YOU get to decide what you do, not them. That's what you get paid for. THEY are not getting paid. VERY IMPORTANT.
Now if *I* were there, I would tell you how grateful I am that you have written so skillfully and well, and so compellingly... So just concentrate on how well you have done and ignore any turkeys who show up. I think it was Dr. Seuss who said, “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” And two thumbs up, from me. I have not read Pegasus yet but already know I will love it.
They say princes learn no art truly, save that of horsemanship. The reason is, the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a prince as soon as his groom. Ben Jonson
|
|
| | | |
| Re: Signing Eve [message #43249 is a reply to message #43240 ] |
Thu, 07 July 2011 01:51 |
 |
danceswithpahis
Messages: 380
Registered: October 2008 |
Senior Member |
|
|
Good luck! Everything will go well! Those of us not privileged enough to be in the London area will be hanging out at home rotating between our three costumes and wishing we could be at the signing. Hopefully everyone who is 500 miles away and disliking your writing will content themselves with a letter dropped in the mail instead of a visit to the signing (and then the letter will be lost mysteriously in the black hole that can be the postal system), and you will have more polite and enthusiastic fans who think your books are great without any of their advice and have left all of their manuscripts at home to be shared with someone else. And then you'll come home tired but happy at how well things went, and the hellhounds will eat dinner! And all of the bats will be outside rather than reading your Patricia McKillip novels or flying around your room.
| Quote: |
the ones that feel that my feminism distorts my view of reality
|
One of my majors in college was Women's Studies, and I got so many of these sorts of comments. I can't count the number of people who heard that I was a WS major and immediately asked, "So what I don't understand is, why do you hate men so much?" This despite the moderate but respectable number of close male friends I spent time with, and the fact that I very carefully refrained from ever making any jokes that would sound like putdowns of men, saying women were superior, etc. since a) I hate it when men do that about women, and b) I was trying to avoid the manhating image.
"Oh good! My dog found the chainsaw!"
-- Lilo ("Lilo and Stitch")
|
|
| | |
| Re: Signing Eve [message #43252 is a reply to message #43240 ] |
Thu, 07 July 2011 02:28 |
Jday
Messages: 1
Registered: July 2011
Location: Cambridge, UK |
Junior Member |
|
|
Dear Robin,
I'm so envious of your other fans who will be there this evening to support you.
I'm heading in the opposite direction this evening (to York, from Cambridge) or else I would love to be there too- only to make you partake in banal small talk and heaps of erudite drivel, of course, I'd never be there simply to tell you how much pleasure you and your books have given me over the years and to thank you!
I'm sure you will look stunning, what ever you choose to wear (will you be wearing the flowery All Stars? They are so beautiful).
***
I really want to chat to you about opera! I have always maintained a healthy distance from it, as my least favourite art form, but I have the ever looming possibility I may be producing an opera-singer-son (age 15, previously a chorister, to play Aeneas in November) who had a private evening of a rehearsal with Bryn Terfel and Angela Gheorghiu last night at Covent Garden and has come home SINGING!! And demanding Opera! I'm thrilled for him but totally dismayed at the prospect of getting to grips with the whole Opera thang, including the the appreciation of it and the cost! I need some nice, accessible titles (preferably short!) and also tips for viewing live things cheaply. I hoping, living in Cambridge, we may be able to tap into the University Operatic Society, which if there is one(!) should be reasonable?
Anyway, that is my own little panic. Your 'little panic' is far more immediate!
***
I wish you all the best for this evening and sincerely hope (and believe) you will thoroughly enjoy yourself ( at the start of ever race (I row) I ALWAYS ask myself "Janice, Why Are You Doing This?"; during the race I always think "Never Again" and at the end I <normally> think "Am I Still Alive? Yes? Brill! Let's Do It Again!)!
Tonight will be Your Race, and you will win! Enjoy!
Best wishes Jx
|
|
|
| Re: Signing Eve [message #43257 is a reply to message #43252 ] |
Thu, 07 July 2011 09:54 |
 |
blondviolinist
Messages: 1071
Registered: October 2008
Location: Midwestern United States |
Senior Member |
|
|
First, to Robin: I hope the signing goes splendidly, with lots of friendly people, and no nasty ones. (And AJLR is going to take pictures, right?)
| Jday wrote on Thu, 07 July 2011 02:28 |
I really want to chat to you about opera! I have always maintained a healthy distance from it, as my least favourite art form, but I have the ever looming possibility I may be producing an opera-singer-son (age 15, previously a chorister, to play Aeneas in November) who had a private evening of a rehearsal with Bryn Terfel and Angela Gheorghiu last night at Covent Garden and has come home SINGING!! And demanding Opera! I'm thrilled for him but totally dismayed at the prospect of getting to grips with the whole Opera thang, including the the appreciation of it and the cost! I need some nice, accessible titles (preferably short!) and also tips for viewing live things cheaply. I hoping, living in Cambridge, we may be able to tap into the University Operatic Society, which if there is one(!) should be reasonable?
|
Robin can give you much better info about opera in the UK, of course, but I thought I'd give you 2 cents: When opera starts to scare you, remember it's low-brow entertainment! For the majority of its history, it has been the soap-opera/summer box-office smash film/rock-star concert of its day. (And had the massive ticket sales to prove it.) *Everyone* went to the opera, because it was fun! It had gaudy spectacle, and great music, and good stories. (Ok, well, maybe not that last part. But summer smash-em-up films don't often have good stories, and people like them anyway.) That's why virtually every opera is obsessed with love, sex, and death. All good low-brow entertainment is. 
For your first foray into opera, you generally can't go far wrong with a comic opera: Rossini's "Barber of Seville"; Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro," "Cosi fan Tutti" ("women are like that"), or "Magic Flute". For serious operas, some people advise starting with "Madama Butterfly," because it's not too long, and it has gorgeous music. I happen to think it's not the greatest introduction because the two main characters spend way too much time doing nothing except singing about love Oh, and I wouldn't advise any Wagner operas for a first-time opera person.
"Purity of heart is to will one thing." Kirkegaard
|
|
|
| Re: Signing Eve [message #43258 is a reply to message #43240 ] |
Thu, 07 July 2011 10:47 |
Birdie
Messages: 1
Registered: April 2011
Location: USA |
Junior Member |
|
|
Firstly: GOOD LUCK at the signing! I'm sure it will go fine.
aside from the nightmarish possibility that no one will come
Tons of your readers will be there tomorrow, and the rest of us will be sitting home enviously. The only reason that more of us aren't coming is because flights from various locations around the world are somewhat expensive. When I saw that you were doing a signing my first thought was "Must. Book. Flight. NOW". However inconvenient that may have been. Especially, as jrsygrl626 and equus_peduus so aptly put it, I would either faint on you or speak incoherently from excitement and waste the entire experience. (By the way, if you ever do a signing somewhere on the east coast of the states - preferably in Boston or New York! - I WILL be there!)
Sometimes you’re just not J K Rowling and that’s all there is to it.
But that's the best part. J K Rowling is brilliant of course, but then so are you. I can't even begin to list the reasons. I discovered BLUE SWORD when I was about 13, I think, and it has been a staple ever since. I am a Notorious Re-reader of beloved books, and ten years after I discovered it I still cannot travel anywhere without BLUE SWORD. (Every time I pull it out my family and friends, who instantly recognize the tattered book, say "Blue Sword again?!" I lost count of the number of times I've read it about five years ago around the thirty mark.)
Anyway, the point is, you, like Rowling, are a genius. All the more so because of your Girls Who Do Things. And the fact that you've created multiple, real, worlds and people. And that we can turn to your books time and again when we want to catch up with a friend. There will always be people who say that they could have done it better, but your readers are devoted and love you no matter what. Don't let anxiety about the signing get to you. (I am also one who is incapable/terrified of making small talk.) It will be over before you know it, and then you can go home to PEGII, hellhounds, and bats.
|
|
| | |
| Re: Signing Eve [message #43261 is a reply to message #43240 ] |
Thu, 07 July 2011 12:25 |
helbel
Messages: 37
Registered: March 2009 |
Member |
|
|
About to head off to the signing, so at least one person will be there (actually 2 as I'm dragging along a friend).
For any forumites: I'll be the one with blue hair, my friend will tower over me and have reddish curly hair.
There is no such thing as too many books, only inadequate shelving
|
|
| | |
| Re: Signing Eve [message #43265 is a reply to message #43245 ] |
Thu, 07 July 2011 20:05 |
 |
Black Bear
Messages: 3216
Registered: September 2008
Location: Indianapolis, IN USA |
Senior Member
[Moderator] |
|
|
| HorsehairBraider wrote on Thu, 07 July 2011 00:23 |
They're just trying to be helpful. (REALLY?! OK, I GUESS so.)
|
Well, or they're trying to make conversation, and all they can think to do is make a remark that invites your response very directly ("No, I hate terriers. Yes, that's a great idea. Oh, I tried that once and no one bought any of it.") This is a sort of advanced version of the tongue-tie, I tend to think. Or at least this is my response when people try to tell me how to do my job. All the time I get "Oh, you should do an exhibit on X!" or "Why didn't this exhibit have Y?" and I think well, this is why I'm doing this professionally and you are not--I can see 30 different reasons that X would be a terrible exhibit, and if we used Y we'd get sued. But I look at the opening remark as their attempt to find something to say that connects the museum-goer with the museum-worker (or the jewelry-wearer to the jewelry-maker, or what have you.) If they push at it, well, THEN I give them the sod-off eye. But first one's free.
(Naturally, this does not include ANY person who thinks its ok to start a conversation with an author by saying "I really hated your book" or "Why didn't Harry marry her horse?" or any number of advanced stupidities. Those folks can go take a long walk on a short pier.)
"The time is always right to do what's right."--MLK Jr.
|
|
|
| Re: Signing Eve [message #43267 is a reply to message #43265 ] |
Thu, 07 July 2011 23:26 |
|
danceswithpahis
Messages: 380
Registered: October 2008 |
Senior Member |
|
|
| Black Bear wrote on Thu, 07 July 2011 20:05 |
| HorsehairBraider wrote on Thu, 07 July 2011 00:23 |
They're just trying to be helpful. (REALLY?! OK, I GUESS so.)
|
Well, or they're trying to make conversation, and all they can think to do is make a remark that invites your response very directly ("No, I hate terriers. Yes, that's a great idea. Oh, I tried that once and no one bought any of it.") This is a sort of advanced version of the tongue-tie, I tend to think. Or at least this is my response when people try to tell me how to do my job. All the time I get "Oh, you should do an exhibit on X!" or "Why didn't this exhibit have Y?" and I think well, this is why I'm doing this professionally and you are not--I can see 30 different reasons that X would be a terrible exhibit, and if we used Y we'd get sued. But I look at the opening remark as their attempt to find something to say that connects the museum-goer with the museum-worker (or the jewelry-wearer to the jewelry-maker, or what have you.) If they push at it, well, THEN I give them the sod-off eye. But first one's free.
(Naturally, this does not include ANY person who thinks its ok to start a conversation with an author by saying "I really hated your book" or "Why didn't Harry marry her horse?" or any number of advanced stupidities. Those folks can go take a long walk on a short pier.)
|
That's a helpful way of looking at it, Black Bear. I know sometimes when feeling shy it's easy to think, "Anything, anything to say, just so I don't stand here looking like a blooming idiot... Oh no, why did I say THAT?" Esp with strangers; sometimes you blurt out the most unexpected things.
(I have to laugh when I get this with my current job, though. In the past I worked for small organizations where I might at least possibly be considered to have some sway in things. Right now I work for a large -- thousands of employees -- governmental agency, w/ everything bound by careful laws. So when the know-just-enough-to-be-dangerous types tell me, "You know, you guys should really do it MY way," I always think, "And even if I agreed with you, what makes you think I can do anything about it?")
"Oh good! My dog found the chainsaw!"
-- Lilo ("Lilo and Stitch")
|
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Re: Signing Eve [message #43333 is a reply to message #43305 ] |
Sat, 09 July 2011 22:37 |
marycontraria
Messages: 9
Registered: March 2011
Location: Canada |
Junior Member |
|
|
My copy of Beauty bears the following inscription, in the handwriting of my high-school-best-friend:
Dear Leith,
Happy no-reason-at-all day!
Can I have my copy back now, please?
Love, Alissa
...true story. But I'm still a little bummed, because her copy had a way nicer cover than my copy. I got one of the "Bad Romance Novel" editions. 
[Updated on: Sat, 09 July 2011 22:38]
rosa rubicundior, lilio candidior
|
|
|
| |
  |
Goto Forum:
Current Time: Fri May 24 12:04:33 EDT 2013
Total time taken to generate the page: 0.22628 seconds |
Members
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
