Last night I had the pleasure of attending the Sarah J. Maas’ event at Blue Willow Bookshop. The lovely Kate from Ex Libris moderated and had us all laughing. We began by playing a game seeing if anyone could pronounce the names and locations from the Throne of Glass series correctly.
Sarah then talked about the origins of her character’s names. I loved her explanation for Celaena. It goes back to The Last Unicorn a classic fantasy novel by Peter S. Beagle and a 1982 film by the same title. There was a harpy named Celaeno trapped by a traveling witch in her midnight circus. The harpy was her most prized capture and the most dangerous of all the mythological creatures the witch had in her circus. Celaeno in Greek means the ‘Dark One’ so Sarah always thought it would be an excellent assassin’s name. Being a child of the 80’s that movie had a major impact on me too.
Sarah spoke about her journey to being published and her writing process now. She said she doesn’t use outlines (they crush her creative soul) but she does use music, movie scores in particular, as a backdrop and inspiration. She said without knowing it she had been outlining to some degree with her song choices. She associates certain scenes with songs and so moves them up or down her playlist according to where it falls in the story.
Kate did an amazing job moderating and Sarah J. Maas was funny, incredibly likeable and personable. It was a blast. If you follow My Friends Are Fiction you’ve seen the Lego cover we did for Crown of Midnight. I had a few printed up and had them signed. Sarah loved it and totally recognized it when I went up to get her to sign my books. Was a really awesome moment. Of course I gave her one and am keeping one for myself…but I have one for a lucky giveaway winner.
This is an international giveaway: