Lurker

Ho ho ho, Lauren Kate, the author of Fallen, Torment, Passion and The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove was in Singapore to do some appearances!

I went to Lauren Kate’s first at the Serangoon Public Library. The other appearances would be at the books stores and the Jurong library for that day. Anyway,  I was early. Like, super early so I lurked around near the shelves standing around and reading children books where the Granny had alzheimer’s and couldn’t make her golden soup right (?!?) and that the children had to understand and stuff.  (I continued to read about lonely hippos having a party and some cat who wanted to be other animals but yeah, ok.)

Eventually near 12.30pm MPH and the library staff started to set up the place and I lurked more near the doors cause all the seats in the other side of the library were taken up by readers at the newspaper section and the other reading corners. So heck it, I could just lurk if I couldn’t sit somewhere.

These are her books! There was a discount going on and I hadn’t bought Passion yet so hah! I did it there since author appearances always meant some discount compared to a usual sale price anyway. If you wanna know more about these books, you can definitely find reviews online at Amazon or other sites. I haven’t read The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove so I can’t summarize it but here’s some points for those who HAVE read the Fallen series on what my take is since I won’t “review” it but tell you what I think:

Fallen – Daniel, you so romantic. I like you. Also Arianne and everyone else. Luce, you’re being creeped out but that’s ok. Also Penn, SADFACE. This is the first book, things are slow but I am sure the next one will be better.

Torment – Luce, you’re getting cooler now. Daniel, you’re being an idiot. Bye.

Passion – Oh my travelling boots! Daniel, you aren’t stupid after all! You’re just so bad at communicating verbally! Luce, you’re totally on to something here. WHAT IS WITH THE LIGHTS? I don’t know what to think! FWOOSH. FWOOSH!! WHEN IS RAPTURE COMING OUT? AHHHHH.

Yes. That is what I think of it.

Let’s get back to the appearance by Lauren Kate shall we?

It was a cool session! She had been told us Singaporeans would be reaaally quiet and subdued. THIS IS TRUE. For any session by any writer who comes here. It’s not that we don’t like the authors but everyone is always too freaking shy to ask questions or they don’t want to freak the author out cause they came all the way from wherever to Singapore! We just don’t want to freak them out with fangirliness (or fanboyism) and chill.

Sorta.

In her session, she told us that Cam was based on her husband! Oh my! Also that Luce was based on her close friend and that Daniel was based on some OTHER friend in school that has no idea that he was written in. Well, it was his description but not him, himself since apparently Lauren hadn’t talked to him that much. The next book, Rapture is being written but ungh if you checked the last pages of Passion, you’ll see it’ll be out in 2012.

So faaaaar.

No matter, she also explained how she got the idea for her books and that she had research done in university where she could ask her Prof about the angels thing. I forgot what the module is called but it’s one of those bible analyzing class where you learn more for literature! The story of Luce and Daniel first started out as just a normal love story but then she figured that she could turn it different and tadaaaaa, here we have the Fallen series!

Besides info on her books, she gave us advice to writers which I will paraphrase:

It’s easy to start but finishing is much harder. Don’t give up.

Lauren had written stories before but with the advice of her friend, she finished her first book (that’s not Fallen). She thought it was crap and shoved it somewhere but she DID finish it! It meant that she could finish one whole book which thus, leads us eventually to Fallen! There was a point where she thought it was crap too but then she remembered her friend’s advice and now here we have 3 books and counting (four if you include BoNH)!

So people, finish your stories. No matter if you think it is crap, just finish it.