When the drove by the auditorium, there was already a line outside the door.
Excited and a little bit nervous, I parked my car and hustled over.
The line was about 60 people long, most standing, holding large bags that no doubt were packed with a books.
One boy was sitting, Wonderstruck on his lap, reading quickly.
Soon they let us in.
Tickets were taken, promo materials and signing numbers handed out, and books were available to buy.
I bought Hugo Cabret, even though I already have it (in NY though!) and headed into the auditorium to wait.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Brian Selznick!”
I was really excited but it was hard to see him.
He took us through the idea of Wonderstruck, where it came from, how long he had to work on it. “I do two pieces of art on a good day,” he said, “and the book took a year and half of research.” He met with lightning strike experts (“If you’re doing to call your book wonderstruck, you better strike someone with something!” he joked), experts on deaf culture, and did lots of research of the museums he used in his book.
As far as art goes, he showed pictures of his process. First it’s thumbnails, then it’s tiny TINY drawings that get put together in their sequences (“the main thing about these is that they’re cute.” he said), then he goes up a little bigger, then finally he draws the finished size, which is 3 by 5. He finds models to pose for the pictures and uses a lot of photographs as well.
And the writing?
He had a lot to say about that!
He began by showing us the first few pages of his book, with all the notes from his editor. Blue ink, arrows, and words were scribbled all over the pages! His ideas begin in notebooks, then he types up his basic idea and emails it to his editor, then it returns with all the blue marks. “I have to do rewrites and rough drafts all the time!” he said, after asking the kids in the audience if they liked doing rough drafts.
He said he’s a much slower writer than drawer, and that slows him down.
About being an artist? He said he feels bad about 98 percent of the time, like his work is not good enough. “But in that chunk of feeling bad, there are moments to feel good,” he said. “Sometimes I write a sentence I like. Or draw a nice picture.” He says he is still becoming an artist, and takes classes when he can, and often has to work 10-12 hour days to get all of his work done.
That’s one of my favorite things he said. He also admitted that when he feels frustrated or tired, he takes a nap. Usually he has writer’s block, and the solution comes to him when he wakes up. Hooray for naps!
Finally it was the time to meet him!
I was number 31, so had to wait a little while.
Once I got closer, I noticed how awesome his shoes were!
When it was my turn, I handed over my camera to man who was taking pictures for people.
Brian asked how I was doing, and I said great.
I told him that I LOVED his stories, and that someone else in my writer’s group had met him too, and I wanted a picture where I looked really excited to meet him.
“Well, what if we are both really excited to meet each other?” he asked.
I agreed that that was better.
And then the best part came.
See, I brought a ROCKSTAR print from home to give to him. Check out my etsy shop to see what I’m talking about. I wanted to give him something, and I thought this would be perfect.
“Um, I have something for you,” I said. “It’s a print I made that says Rockstar.” I hand it to him.
“I know it’s not very much, and you are so much more than a rockstar, but it’s all I had, and I wanted to give you something. I was going to bring you one that said ‘write, revise, repeat,’ but now I’m glad I didn’t.” (Remember he had said he didn’t like doing all the revising!)
He laughed and then said, “This is great! I love it! I’m going to frame it and put it on my wall to remind myself that I am a rockstar when I’m feeling down.”
I about fainted.
I know I stopped talking, because I wanted to tell him how I loved the white space around the characters in Wonderstruck and how I really appreciated hearing his process behind the book.
But I never got to that.
We did get out picture though!
I was SOO excited that I was walking super fast to get to my car and probably creeped out the family that was in front of me (looking back, I was kind of close to them!)
When I got in the car, I said, “OH MY GOD!”
I was still very excited about my art going on his wall.
On his wall where all of his CALDECOTT WINNING ART HAS BEEN!
Sigh.
Got back home and had to drink FOUR bags of bedtime tea (true story!) to be able to go to sleep.
It was so awesome meeting Brian!
and now I have two more signed books for my shelf:
Life is good.
Soon PiBoIdMo starts!
Check back for a blog post about the notebook I made for it!
until then, read and write on,
KE
