(sorry for the poor quality of he photo my phone sucks)
This evening I had the wonderful opportunity to go listen to Chris Colfer speak at the DMA. He was sweet and excited and so so funny. I jotted down a few notes and thought I would share a brief rundown of the event while it is still fresh on my mind. Enjoy!
- Chris started off saying how glad he was to be back in Texas because where he is from, Clovis, CA is actually known as “Texas, CA”. Once a year they have a rodeo and people in town start to wear boots and cowboy hats, they replace Adele with Reba McIntire and speak with southern accents and then when the rodeo is gone they go back to normal and “never speak of it”. It was funny and had the crowd laughing.
- Chris also mentioned what a great week it was for him because he had a movie coming out (the kids gasped, obviously knowing nothing about AbFab) and he just learned today that TLOS is #1 on the New York Time Best Sellers list!
- During the trivia portion he asked people to tell their names and ages “even if you think they were too old to be here.”
- One of the trivia questions was, “What is Cinderella’s and Chance’s baby’s name, “And no it isn’t Blue Ivy.” (He dead pans most of his jokes and it is really humorous).
- A little kid asked why he picked the characters he picked to write about. Chris said he chose his favorite characters and characters that he had questions about growing up, like “Why does Mother Goose rhyme? Because she is a boozer!”
- Said Red was his favorite character to write because of the ridiculous things she says. “My friends say I am the most like Red. Which is a sad thing to hear from your friends.”
- Each book takes about 3-4 months for him to write and he likes to take breaks in-between so he doesn’t get writer’s block and get mad at himself for his writer’s block.
- A little girl right next to me asked about his process working with the illustrator. He was impressed with this question (the girl was so articulate and adorable!). Chris said that Brandon Dorman would get the first 10 or so chapters and start the art then they would email back and forth about what needed to chance or be done. “Bless his heart for dealing with me!” Chris said that he was very particular about what he wanted - the first email he sent back to Brandon was really long, “Rapunzel’s tower only has one window!”
- His favorite book to write so far was “An Author’s Odyssey” because it is the only book he knows of where someone gets to meet characters they wrote (Conner and Alex travel to a world Conner made up). “It is based on my experience as a screen writer and seeing your characters come to life.”
- When asked how long it took him to come up with the title, “The Land of Stories, Chris said, “Not long”. He wrote that title when he was eight because he needed a title to save the two sentences of the story he’d written on his mom’s computer.
- Said that writing he first book was crazy because he was also having Skype meetings about his movie, “Struck By Lightning” and he was on a Glee tour. “I’d write under the stage on tour and then go sing ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ run back and write a sentence go sing, ‘Somebody to love’ go back and write, slap on a leotard and then go sing ‘Single Ladies.” (He said all of this fast ad frantic and had us all laughing)
- About a The Land of Stories movie, “I think it is defiantly going to happen”
- Favorite part of being an author? “When a little kid comes up to you and talks to you about a character like they are a real person. I had one little kid give me a note and ask me to give it to Froggy.”
- On that note the child who won the costume contest had the most adorable Froggy costume ever, I have a picture but I don’t feel good about posting a random child’s photo online. Trust me it was cute, had web feet and Chris loved it.
- Chris read from his not-yet-published 6th book, a passage that was “written” by the Fairy Godmother. There was one part that I love, it encouraged everyone to be storytellers because, “Story telling is making something from nothing and making something from nothing is the definition of magic.” �
