Sara Shepard Signing! Pretty Little Liars Contest!

So two weeks ago I had the chance to see Sara Shepard at a Borders by her hometown (and mine) in Bryn Mawr, PA! This was my second time getting to meet her--for a recap of my first meeting with her and the FNC click here!


Considering she's been sitting pretty at number 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list for weeks, her books were made into the most popular tv series this summer AND she got to appear on the show....Sara is one of the sweetest and most down to earth writers I know. Simply, I adore her!

But I'm not here to gush about my author-crush on her, I'm here to recap everything I learned. There were some pretty interesting tidbits--like she doesn't even know who A is on the show.... So read on and check out the contest at the end.

1) Sara would love to continue the Pretty Little Liars series and might write Ali's diary (SQUEE) she even has the diary outlined for Ali in 6th grad and 7th.

2) She just finished writing a book in her new series The Lying Game--about twin sisters, one's dead, the other's alive. The Lying Game comes out Jan 2011. The Lying Game takes place in AZ and isn't about super rich kids. She also has an adult novel coming out in the UK.

3) Sara's working on another all adult novel. All of her adult novels are about teens--but they aren't as fast paced as her YA books but still accessible for teens.

4)Favorite character? All aspects of her go into all of the characters. She's OCD like Spencer, was a swimmer like Emily, into being popular in high school like Hanna. Sara said she became like Aria later, hated where she lived, left and moved back.

5) Favorite character to write is Hanna--she's her comic relief. While Hanna is hard on the outside, she has a lot of vulnerability underneath. She wishes she could write a Hanna spin-off series. She also LOVED Toby and feels like she should have given him more than 1 book. She also likes Jenna and mentioned how she thought Jenna appeared much spookier and outspoken on the show than in the book.

6)For inspiration, she always liked murder mysteries and loved watching Twin Peaks growing up--liked the idea of a perfect town and then suddenly a girl goes missing. She was also writing Pretty Little Liars when text messaging was becoming popular and she had an interest in stalkers.

Sara even got into stalking in high school leaving cryptic messages in people's lockers that said things like "Monkey" or "You" just so people would wonder what on earth the messages meant. They were meaningless.

7) Sara comes up with the premise first and then the characters. Her own trip to Iceland became an influence when writing (Aria is returning from Iceland) and she drove around the Mainline (PLL's setting) and picked out character's houses.

8) Sara wrote 8 chapters of PLL and sold 4 books on it. When she was in the middle of writing 2, they told her there'd be 8 books so she had to reassess and outline and plan more.

9) Sara always knew who A was when writing but doesn't think that the A in the books will be A on the show. And she even asked the show who A was and they wouldn't tell her. Apparently the director originally only read the first four books. Sara is always surprised when she watches the show.

10) Through swimming in HS, Sara met a lot of people at other schools including mean girls like Ali and Mona.

11) In HS she wrote for the newspaper and literary magazine, including really bad poetry. Luckily she had amazing English teachers who really encouraged her. In 11th grade she even had a teacher offer her the chance to be exempt from paper writing and just a write a novel to turn in. Sara didn't take the offer--she freaked thinking it had to be a perfect novel (a la Spencer).

12) For her writing schedule, she writes everyday 9-3 or 4, but will work longer hours when on deadline. When she's working on a brand new book she tends to procrastinate. Since PLL books came out every 6 months she forced at least a chapter and a half out a day. She can also read and edit one of her books in their entirety in a day (OMG that's insane).

13) Sara is happy with the PLL show and LOVED the pilot because it was basically book 1 and stayed super close to the story. She also loved the dance episode and the finale which looped back to a lot of events that took place at the end of book 3, nicely wrapping it all together.

14) She doesn't mind that the girls on the show look different from how they are written/imagined in her mind because they have the personalities down so well.

15) She got to visit the LA set with her husband and LOVED the experience. She's not sure she'll have that experience again or be on tv again--unless of course Mr. Fitz needs more subbing! She said everything that's happened is pretty surreal but is thrilled because she can write for a living and knows what a privilege that is.

16) There will be 12 new episode of Pretty Little Liars in January.

17) To create Ezra Fitz she imagined all the qualities she'd most like in a guy, because she is most like Aria. Their romance in the books make her cringe but on the show they seem less scandalous to her--maybe because Ezra looks so young?

18) The boys in the books are like a lot of boys she knew mashed together. Ali and Mona are based on girls she knew. She had friends with parents like Aria's. One of her BFF's had super strict parents like Spencers.

19) In 3rd grade she wrote a Maze Magazine and handed it out to everyone. She was friends with an Ezra Fitz in elementary school and always liked the name.

20)Ali is her sister's name!

21) Sara writes 20 page outlines for each book including details on flashbacks, clues etc. The outlines are almost as complicated as the books.

22) She's a pantser when she writes the adult novels

And there you have it!

So....I have a copy of Pretty Little Liars signed by Sara Shepard to give to one of you!

Yay!

To enter....

1) Comment below on any part of the recap +1
2) Follow my blog +1
3) Tell me if you're an old follower +3
4) Tweet +2
5) Sidebar +2
6) Blog this epicness +5

Cool?

Contest ends Friday September 3rd at 11:59PM.