Today I'm bringing you a little story, the story of how I went to a Veronica Roth signing, where I not only got two of her books signed but also scored a slightly awkward looking picture with her. This is kind of a big deal, not only because it was an author signing and those are amazing, I mean who wouldn't want to get their books signed by the person who wrote them, but also because book signings by authors whom I like and read never happen where I live since this isn't an English speaking country.
Anyhow, this is how it all went down:
It was a grey Tuesday, the date December 8th 2015, when I woke up with the thought: "Hey, you'll meet Veronica Roth today, literally the author of Divergent!" I first heard about this being a thing that will happen about three weeks earlier but, since I have the memory of a dead goldfish, I forgot about it until like three days prior to the actual thing, thank god for twitter reminding you of things.
The singing was supposed to happen at 5:00 p.m. so I decided that it would be a good idea to be there early, since I was sure quite the number of people would show up, so I decided to leave my house around 3:35 p.m., which was actually later then I had planned on leaving but per usual something had taken more time then I had planned for it.
Fast forward to 4:20 p.m. and me standing in the underground about to enter my final station and get out. There was a ton of people around me, and by a ton I mean if one more person would have tried to enter the carriage I was sure it would simply explode. Finally we rolled into the station and the masses, including me, poured out of the train, flooding the station and out onto the street.
The singing was happening inside the most expensive mall of the city, so I was looking forward to peaking into all those expensive shops that no one could afford buying anything from on my way out after the signing. According to the info page it said that the book store is on the fifth floor so I jumped into the elevator, despite having a love/hate relationship with those, and made my way toward said book store.
Coming early was definitely a wise decision on my side, even though it meant waiting in line even longer. Upon my arrival I noticed quite a line already forming toward the table for the signing. A friendly looking lady handed me a piece of paper with a number on it, 59, and I positioned myself at the end of the line. With my phone in hand I braced myself for the wait in form of 30 long minutes.
The closer we got to the signing the longer the line grew behind me, stretching across the entire level, counting surely around 100 or more people. Honestly, I couldn't see the end of it from where I was standing.
With a delay of about 4 minutes the signing finally began as Veronica Roth entered the room and sat down behind a shiny black desk, pens ready for signing while camera's flashed documenting the entire thing. Word quickly traveled through the lines: we would get two books signed and a lady would take our phone/camera to take a couple of pictures. The two books part was kind of weird, seeing as Veronica wrote 4 books, and the Divergent trilogy counts 3 books, logically, but I suppose they feared that the entire thing would otherwise take way too long.
It took a while until it was finally my turn. I admit, I was pretty nervous, then again, who wouldn't be? I was about to meet a bestselling author, someone I aspire to be one day, too. The entire thing went by pretty quickly, we exchanged a couple of sentences (Veronica is incredibly friendly!) while she signed my books, Divergent and Insurgent (I still hold a grudge against Allegiant but that's a story for another time), and then the lady took a picture of Veronica and I, which you can see below along with the signed books.
Then the entire thing was over and I was on my way back home. I'm really happy that I went there, that I got my books signed and a picture taken, especially since, as I mentioned before, signings by authors I like don't happen around here, like, ever. So, the next time you see an author holding a signing near you, go, it's worth it.
And this concludes this way too long story with way too many unimportant details. I hope you enjoyed this post, all the other previous blogmas posts, and I will see you tomorrow with the next christmas themed Cover Lust Friday post!
