Thoughtful Thursday: Cassie and Holly At Keplers' Copper Gauntlet Tour Stop

Best. Photo. Were you there? @cassieclare @hollyblack @sophieriggsby pic.twitter.com/cW4t2b0m1g

— keplersteens (@keplersteens) September 19, 2015

I've labeled this "Thoughtful Thursday" because I'm reflecting on our journey here at Mundie Moms, and in particular, my friendship between the ever patient and always sweet MMs Founder, Katie B. Katie and I met through our mutual love of books on the old Twilight Moms forum. We were kindred spirits and immediately fell in love with the world of Shadowhunters. We don't get to see each other often, in fact, we've only met once in person. Katie was trying to come out to the Keplers signing, and we were going to fill the day with our usual Mundie Moms shenanigans, but real life got in the way. By real life, I mean her son's birthday party. Here on Mundie Moms family is always greater than everything else. I got the incredible honor of introducing Cassie and Holly, BUT I missed my partner in crime horribly. You see we are MUCH  funnier when we banter back and forth discussing the characters we love.

Nancy (Tales of a Ravenous Reader) captured my solo moment. Many thanks to Angela (at Keplers) for indulging me and inviting me to do this.

Cassie and Holly. 

While on the subject of friendships, let me just say that Cassie and Holly were wonderful. They talked about the Magisterium series and their inspiration for it. And they were hysterical, as usual, in describing their original inspiration for the story. Cassie was reading Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books when she looked at Holly and said, "Hey, maybe we should write a middle grade story." They wanted to do something different. Something with a twist. Here's a video of Cassie (IT'S SPOILERY for IRON TRIAL) explaining the twist in The Iron Trial.

Cassie and Holly on stage at Keplers. Photo credit: Keplers staff

They also answered questions about their fanvorite characters in each others' stories. Cassie loves Cassel from Holly's Curseworkers series. And she said she would love to write a short story with him. Holly loves Cassie's Will because "he's crazy".  Cassie also mentioned that she would love to write about The Circle one day. She also said that writing Will's death was a little like saying goodbye to a loved one. "It's part of life, but it's sad." When asked which books of theirs they prefer, Cassie answered that she likes the series' ending books like Clockwork Princess and City of Heavenly Fire and Holly said she likes middle books in a series. 

Patricia, me and Lisa.

They talked a lot about their writing process. Holly admitted that drafting a story with Cassie is easier than doing it on her own. They said when they have a conflict, they compromise rather than argue. 

If you can attend one of Cassie's and Holly's signings, you will learn so much and not just about their books. You will learn about their writing process, what they do to get unstuck when they have Writer's Block and how they find inspiration. It's almost like a mini-class by two experienced professors. But most of all, you will see two good friends at work doing what they love.

They have one more stop left on the tour, and it's on October 22nd in New York City. If you can, go and see them and you'll be all a-buzz with fangirly happiness for days afterwards. This brings me back to the Thoughtful Thursday portion of this post. It's not just the authors that we meet at these signings, but it's the lifelong friends (who share our common interests) that we make that are important. 

The wonderful Angela from Keplers with my daughters.

You can contact Keplers and they will be more than happy to ship any of their signed copies of the Magisterium series, the Shadowhunter series (with those luscious new covers) and any of Holly's books. You can click here to head over to their webpage. 

A photo of Cassie and Holly when I said "This is for Mundie Moms!"