Tuesday night, I met Jim Butcher, author of the Dresden Files and the Codex Alera, and have two books signed by him and actually interacted with the man, and that made me a happy girl. (Until my class presentation partner emailed me a totally changed presentation at 11:30 pm, but that's another story.)

Jim's a really funny guy. And he seems like he cares about his readers. He spent about an hour on Q&A, various insightful questions by readers who obviously care about his stories I was seated right next to him, since I sort of sidled up along the side of a bookshelf so I could set my bookbag down (I was carrying my laptop and a bunch of papers for the presentation. I did *some* work, honest). The speaker for his mic was next to me, so it was a little loud, but not terrible.

I was so proud I had the courage to ask a question. I'm not usually that bold. But he's very approachable. I asked how he comes up with the twists at the end of his books. He answered that what normally happened is that he piles up every bad thing he can on his main character, then figures that he'll get out of it somehow. He sends off chapters to his beta readers (man, what I wouldn't give to be a part of *that* group) and every so often he'll mention, 'see, I *knew* he'd get out of it somehow,' and someone will write back saying, 'you mean you didn't know beforehand?' So I feel better about my stuff if a famous best-selling author doesn't know how his stuff will end either.

There were probably fifty to eighty people there (I'm terrible at estimating, though), so the signing line wasn't too long. I brought White Night and Cursor's Fury and stood behind a lady who works for an internet service provider as a tech. Which I should look into, because more money would be nice. (Though, on the upside, I got a very positive annual review from my boss today, so perhaps a raise is on the horizon?) The lady knew about NaNo, which always amazes me. I have met so many people who don't know what it is that I have a little spiel that I spin out to inform them

When I got up to the table where he was signing, Jim was very nice and said how are you, etc, and I told him thanks for writing the books and that he's an influence on m writing and I've got 65k of a novel I hope to finish this year. And he didn't sound at all exasperated when he told me to make sure that when I finish this one to write the beginning of the next. Which I've already done, actually I hope that when I'm a fancy published writer I can be as generous to my fans as he is to his.