We made the following post a year ago, and it still seems appropriate, especially since Stephenie is flying home in time for Mother’s Day.

The success of The Host signing Tour continues. Last night Stephenie was in Frisco, Texas. She now heads home for a break before doing a local event at Changing Hands Bookstore, where you can order signed copies of any of Stephenie’s books, and then on to Salt Lake City. 

Alphie and Pel will be at both Salt Lake City events. We’ll give a full report. So if you’ve got a great The Host tee shirt, hat, poster, have named your newborn twins Jared and Ian, etc. look for us outside the event. We’d love to feature your creativity on the Lexicon.

Also despite rumor to the contrary, Elvis left the building...er…wasn’t actually there.

Later we’ll have a full report from Lexiconer BethG

We mentioned yesterday how today’s LA times would have never seen before photos.  If you live in the LA area, it’s well worth getting a copy of the paper. For those of you who don’t live out in sunny Southern California, we offer you the next best thing.  Thanks to Twilight Obsessed for the heads up and to Christal for letting us link.

The Dallas Morning News is also covering Twilight. They feature local band The Bella Cullen Project.  Thanks to Ally for the heads up.

The IMDB now has Twilight as a featured trailer on their front page.

Melissa Rosenberg, who wrote the script for the Twilight movie, was kind enough to take time out of her busy schedule (When you read the interview, you realize that this lady has multi-tasking down!) to tell us about writing the movie script.

Some highlights include:

"There’s nowhere I’d rather be than in a room full of talented writers, breaking story together. But it can also be a little like being crammed onto a submarine during wartime."

"And of course, Catherine, whose work I absolutely loved, so I was a little intimidated meeting her. I went in and talked about how I thought the book could be structured. We discussed many different options, but the one thing we all completely agreed on was that the book was our bible. We would not veer off it."

Here’s the interview. Thank you again to Melissa, and thank you to Cocoa for acting as our interviewer.

Twilight Teez still has great tee shirts, but they are now expanding their jewelry business. They previously brought you Bella’s bracelet, he only officially approved version of the bracelet authorized by Stephenie Meyer.  Now they are creating a new product, Bella’s engagement ring.  They have a survey up and need your help so they can make some decisions on where to go with this product. Chime in and give your opinion on their survey.

Tired of Twilight videos being all over the place? Chris and Geo over at Twilighters have come up with a great solution. Introducing TwilightTube!  Kudos to Cris and Geo, check them out!

We mentioned earlier this week how Stephenie was featured on NPR’s Fresh Air. Well, now there is a link. Thanks Adalia.

The LA Times has an article on the Twilight Movie. EDITED: We have been given a tip  that the Sunday LA Times print edition will have an exclusive, never seen before photo. So, if you live in the area, it’s worthwhile getting the paper.

So we got to the Signing at 4:45pm & the doors weren’t set to open until 6:00pm, the event not starting until 7:00pm. So we had some time on our hands.

When Sarah, JT & I got there, we were pretty close to the front [Picture of Line In Front of us Which is surprisingly short] [Picture of Line Behind us The line went behind that half wall & snaked around the whole backside of the school!], lots with fan shirts & cameras & stacks of books! We sat around for awhile, people occasionally walking by with their video camera, showing how long the line was. We got stopped by 2 Lexicon Lurkers with a video camera when they asked us ‘Edward or Jacob?’ Sarah screamed ‘Jacob!’ & I go ‘Edward!’. They saw our awesome shirts & sent a shout out to the Lex. I turned around & they read off the usernames on the back.

A little later, we saw a man drive by the front of the school in a volvo. I don’t think he thought he would attract much attention, judging by the confused look on his face, but soon enough fans ran to the car asking for pictures. He said ok as a line formed.

At about 5:30pm, some Barnes & Noble employees ran down the line, putting our names on post-it notes & placing them inside the cover so the books would be ready for Stephenie to sign & personalize them.

At 6:00pm, we were allowed to enter the school, the air conditioning was very refreshing as Sarah & I ran to the seating in front of the stage. We sat on the isle, center, 5th or 6th row back. We knew we had amazing seats.

As the high school cafeteria filled up, a couple of girls walked up to us asking for our picture because of our Lexicon shirts. We felt famous. Here is a Picture of the Front of the T-shirt & here is the back.

A few minutes before 7:00pm, a man came on stage & introduced Stephenie. She walked out & everyone started screaming & taking pictures like crazy.

Once the crowd settled down, she had a short introduction & then began answering pre-submitted questions. (These are paraphrased, but very close to what she has actually said. On some questions, there are videos to go with it. Please remember that I was in an audience & they are not always quiet or make comments while filming.)

In her introduction, Stephenie said that she was happy to be in Houston, the turnout was amazing. She said that she was invited to a party with George Clooney & several other celebrities on May 9th also, but felt that she couldn’t let her fans down which brought an immediate *aww* from the crowd.
(Video Link)

Next she talked about how she likes doing the Q&A because it’s stuff that she knows the fans want to hear about. She talked about when she goes on tours she likes to do public events rather than school events because those are kids that have to be there, not necessairily want to be there.
(Video Link)

She then began her Q&A portion.

Which Host characters are you most like & did you give them any of your quirks?
-She said of the two main characters, Wanderer & Melanie, she gave them each a negative aspect of herself & a postive aspect she wishes she had. With Melanie, it is that she is pretty ruthless & hardcore, but she is immensely strong emotionally & physically. With Wanderer, it is that she is perfectly compassionate & always has the right instinct, but she can be kind of a coward too.
(Video Link)

If they made the Host into a movie, Which actors would you like to play the main roles?
-She said that she likes to cast the characters in her head as she writes. She imagined an actress portraying Wanderer. She said ‘It would look like Golumn!’. She thinks that Matt Damon would be a really good Jared.
(Video Link)

Do you have a playlist for the Host?
-She said she was embarassed that her playlist wasn’t posted yet, but she does have one & she intends to email it to her brother to post it on her site after the book tour.
(Video Link)

Have you ever been involved in a love triangle?
-She said, surprisingly, yes. While in college, but she was the only one who knew about it & her three boyfriends were clueless.
(Video Link)

Do you write for a target audience?
-She said no. She writes her stories the way she pictures them & her agent says ‘I think this is an adult novel.’ & Stephenie just goes with it.
(Video Link)

What if you have a story people will be upset with?
-She said ‘I think this was a New Moon reference.’ She said she writes the way she thinks it will happen because if she tried to make everyone happy, it would be impossible. She keeps seeing the ‘If Stephenie does this, I will burn the book.’ or ‘If Stephenie doesn’t do this, I will burn the book.’
(Video Link)

Was that your eye on the cover of the Host?
-She said no. People get paid to be beautiful for the covers. And it’s not her hands on the cover of Twilight either. She says she has little or no input on the covers. The only real control she has over her books is what’s inside. The Twilght cover was to represent choice. ‘Should I eat the apple or not?’ Because it could be poisionous, everything has risks. The cover of New Moon has no symbolism, her agent just thought it would be pretty. She was actually in on the cover of Eclipse. The ribbon represents Bella trying to cut herself off from her human life in order to become a vampire. The few strands still connected to the other half represents that it is not as easy as she thought & there were still somethings she wanted to hold onto. She also says she was very involved in choosing the cover for Breaking Dawn.

Is Breaking Dawn the last book of Twilight?
-Stephenie said that this is one of her most difficult questions to answer because there is no ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to it. Breaking Dawn will be the last book from Bella’s point-of-view, but not necessairily the last of Bella & Edward or the Cullens.

Will there be a sequel(s) to the Host?
-She said she has thought about it, but she is not sure yet. She wants to take a year off after Breaking Dawn & write about anything that pleases her if it may be mermaids or whatever. She doesn’t know if everything she writes will be published, but she knows she will have more published works.

What is the hardest part of your job from the writing to going on tour?
-Stephenie says the hardest part is the editing which can take months & goes through the process several times. She said she first thought that an editor’s job was to go through & check her grammar & punctuation, but she was wrong. During editing, they give suggestions on the characters, plots & everything. When she was first editing Twilight, some of the editors thought that Edward should be invisible. They also thought that Renee should have been killed off.

What did you mean when you said that parents would understand Twilight better?
-Stephenie said that she meant that parents would be able to see Twilight like she did when writing it. Like ‘Why is Bella running around with this vampire?’ not ‘Edward is so hot!’

Within the mythical creatures, How does your religion influence your writing?
-Stephenie says that she doesn’t use her books as a form of discussion for religion, she writes from her personal experiences. Her life has always dealt with religion though.
(Video Link)

How does the movie compare to the book?
-She said she gets tons of questions about the movie & she felt like she should include this one because she knew we would all be fairly interested. She said that she would love it if the movie could be like Pride & Prejudiced as a movie, 6 hours long, word for word, but it can’t. It’s an hour & a half hour long movie so scenes will be combined & so will some characters like Ben & Eric unfortunately. Though some changes had to be made, she thinks the movie will turn out great.

How did you come up with the idea for the Host?
-Unlike Twilight she did not have a dream inspire this story. She was driving through the desert with no one to talk to & it just came to her. This is why the majority of the story is set in the desert.

After the Q&A, Stephenie left for the theater where her signing table was set up, expecting hundreds of Twilighters with their copies of her books.

The first couple of rows went filed slowly into the theater, the rest of us sat in the cafeteria untill it was our row’s turn to get in line (which seemed to take forever when you sit there.

We sat & talked to the people around us, reading random parts of Eclipse, to pass the time.

Once we were called up, it didn’t seem to take so long to get into the theater. Inside was a cart filled up with gifts for Stephenie.

Sarah went first, Stephenie noticed her ‘colorful arms’ from marker wars at school. Stephenie commented back "Looks like you lost!".

I brought my books up next as one of the helper’s noticed my shirt that said ‘Twilight Lexicon’. ‘Look, Lexiconers!’ she pointed out to Stephenie. ‘That’s really cool!’ Stephenie said back looking at me & Sarah’s shirts.

JT went up next, Stephenie first commented on how she thought it was brave coming to a public signing for Twilight/The Host. She said it was ‘awesome’ to see Twilight Guys!

After leaving the stage, Sarah & I joked about how we were going to cry & we actually ended up crying because we were overwhelmed that the most exciting thing had just happened to us.

We left along with many other Twilight fans, very excited with what we got.

Check it out folks the official movie site is up and running with more than just rain! If you can’t see it clear the cache on your browser. That is probably what the issue is.

Some things just shouldn’t be spoiled with an explanation. Go and look and be amazed.

NOTE: For some reason it is only loading in EXPLORER and not Firefox!   Issue now fixed.

TY to Twilight Obsessed (who is seriously earning her name) for the heads up.

Note: Do not panic where it says "This movie is not yet rated. " You have to submit your finished product to be rated and they are months away from that yet. By no means does this mean Twilight is in danger of an R rating.

I arrived at about 4:15 P.M. at the Unity Temple on The Plaza in Kansas City, MO. There were probably 150 people in line ahead of me.

The line from the corner of the building to the front of the building

The line wrapping around from the front of the building down the side of the building (I was about halfway down this line)

The doors opened promptly at 5:00 P.M. Those who had already picked up their book and ticket could take their seats right away. Since I was an out-of-towner, I had to get in another line to get my ticket and book. My signing ticket was #39! Woot for ordering the Deluxe signing package!

I took my seat and finally had a chance to look around a bit.

The view from my seat

A view from the front of the auditorium (The balconies also filled up with some people)

There were fans of all ages! I spotted quite a few guys, and there were three infants there with their mommies. Gotta get them involved in the fandom early, hahaha! One girl was there with her brother; he had bought her the tickets for her birthday. Awwww! Someone else was having a birthday, so the crowd sang "Happy Birthday" to her. They had a large foamboard replica of the cover of The Host up at the front, so many people were posing with it for pictures.

There were people from all walks of life there; it was so cool to see how Stephenie has impacted so many people. I saw lots of cute t-shirts, mostly Twilight themed. Some were homemade, others were not.

Stephenie came out promptly at 7:00 P.M. to a standing ovation. The woman is a rock star! I had heard about how pretty she is from other people who have been to signings, and it is true; Stephenie is gorgeous! She seemed a little nervous, but happy to be there with us. This is only her second Host event, so she said she was hyperventilating backstage a little bit!

Stephenie speaks to us! (I’m sorry, my pictures of her are a little dark. Argh!)

Stephenie said the reason why she wrote this novel was because she is a writer. She is a storyteller. But, that doesn’t mean she is an editing person! Eclipse was the third book in a row that she had been editing, so she needed something to remind her of what she was doing. She said she needed to be writing again, to just be telling a story. Writing The Host took her away to this brand new world. The Host was not inspired by a dream (She said you probably only get one of those kinds of inspiring dreams once in your life). It came to her when she was driving to Salt Lake City for her brother’s graduation. It was a way to entertain herself in the car. That was where she first got the idea of "What if there were two people in love with the same guy and they were in the same body?"

She said she got to explore a lot of different things with this book that were important to her. This was her first chance to write about a mother/child bond. To have a chance to explore that and the way we change our lives because of who we love sometimes, when we change our lives because our community expects something different of us than what we want, it seemed like an important story to tell.

She thinks it is the best thing she has written. She said The Host was a joy to write, and she is glad she can share it with us.

She read sections from Chapter 11, "Dehydration," from pages 104-108. I had already read it, but I didn’t think it was really spoilery for anyone. She apologized for her reading voice, but I thought she had a great reading voice!

Stephenie reads to us!

At one point as she was reading, she stopped to talk about the cholla cactus, which she said will practically jump out and stick you. Ouch! She stopped reading at the part where Melanie/Wanderer find Twinkies, and Stephenie said, "Twinkies are cool." Everyone got a laugh at that. Of course Twinkies are cool; Stephenie says so! Hahaha!

Okay, on to the Q&A! Remember, I have summarized her answers. Any direct quotes are in quotation marks!

Stephenie answers our questions!

Posted from Stephenie’s Blog with Permission:

Friday, May 09, 2008
Thanks, KC
Current mood: sleepy

I’m off to Texas (with no intentions of messing with it, let me assure you) in a few minutes. Before I leave Kansas City, I wanted to say thanks to all the amazing fans who showed up last night. Thanks for being so cool and so patient, and for laughing at my jokes. I wish I could spend some more time in KC–it’s gorgeous here! Tulips grow right up out of the ground and everything.

Also: it took about four hours to get through the signing line last night. Just something to keep in mind if you’re number 1000 at an event.

 There’s also some fabulous coverage from the Kansas City Star’s website.

Kylara, one of the Lexicon’s oldest members, was at the Mall of America The Host signing last night. This is her report:

I arrived at the Mall of America at about 1:30PM. They had started selling books at 8AM, and I was told that a handful of people had arrived even earlier than that–as early as 5AM. This is what the line looked like when I first got there:

I bought my copies of The Host. At the start of the line there was a box for submitting questions for Stephenie, which a man walked through the line later on with in case anyone came up with questions as they read The Host.

I sat down to read while I waited for 6PM to come. A note for anyone else who goes so early to wait in line: if possible, bring chairs like the smart people in the photograph! Standing for 4.5 hours or sitting on the floor for that long is not fun!

A glimpse of the room that was slowly but surely filling up with people.

By 3:30PM, that empty half of the room was full of people, and we were asked to get up and squish together to make room for more people. We did so and then all sat back down to wait. Once or twice the Community Relations Manager at the Barnes & Noble at the Mall of America came out to talk to us:

About 15 minutes before Stephenie was due to arrive, he came back out to introduce her. She arrived, and much screaming followed. She told us that she had a presentation planned out, and was going to do a reading, but after finding out that we all would be standing for the entire evening decided against that. Instead, she answered probably 10 or so of the questions from the box.

I caught a few of the questions (and Stephenie’s answers!) on camera:
– What inspired The Host?
(video)
– What music was fitting for The Host?
– Why are there blank pages in The Host?
– Will there be sequels for The Host?
(video of the previous 3 questions)
– Do you ever take your kids on tour with you?
(video)
– What characters in The Host did you really enjoy writing?
(video)

Two of the questions were cut off, so here are paraphrased answers:

What inspired The Host?
This answer can be found in a number of articles and I wanted to save space for other questions! One place to find it is at the official The Host website, on the Q&A page.

Will there be sequels for The Host?
Stephenie said that she has outlines for one sequel, and plans for two to make it a trilogy, but doesn’t know if she’ll write them anytime soon. She mentioned that one reason in particular is that she’s grown fond of the characters, and in order for the sequels to be written, characters would need to die and she doesn’t want them to.

Another fun thing I’ll point out since it’s sort of hard to hear in the videos is the 3 songs that Stephenie mentioned are on her The Host playlist:
– Futurism by Muse
– Original of the Species by U2
– My Name is Love by Rob Dickinson

The rest of the playlist will be available on her website once she finishes this leg of the tour and e-mails it to her brother/webmaster.

After the Q&A came the actual book signing, which went very smooth.

I had my books signed by 7:30-8PM or so, and this is what the line looked like after I was finished:

This wasn’t even the entire line–it still stretched out down one of the hallways!

I came back for one last peek about quarter to 9 to see how many people were left, and that large central area was still about half full! It was a long night for the workers, fans, and Stephenie!

ETA: Here are few more videos of the Q&A from the book signing, thanks to Ali:
– Did you know you wanted to be an author when you were a child?
– How involved with the Twilight movie were you?
–Write for Yourself

Thank you to Kylara for an awesome write-up!