Hello, everybody!
I wanted to share with you my experience of this Saturday, a meeting I was waiting for with as much desire as apprehension. After convincing myself that I would never get a chance to see her (in Lyon, an hour's drive from home), I finally threw myself into the water.
Forgive me for the disgusting quality of the pictures... they were taken with my phone, in the heat of the moment.
What I had planned:
- making a badass fanart
- thinking in English for three days to be sure of myself
- arriving at 14h, one hour in advance
- to offer her my most beautiful smile, my fanart and a sentence in perfect English to share with her all my esteem and my infinite gratitude, even to take the time to tell her what inspires me in her books
- get in exchange an autograph, a compliment and more if affinities (yes, we all have the right to dream, huh...)
What happened...
- my watch was delayed by a quarter of an hour
- my car ran out of gas
- those fucking Parisians were still on vacation (the hightway, only way to reach Lyon in less than 2 hours, was crowded).
- all the lights in Lyon were red
- Bellecourt parking lot was closed
- after queuing at another parking lot, I left my fanart in my car, so I turned around halfway back to get it
(It took me 2h30 to do Chambéry - Fnac Bellecourt)
- Without my friend Mathias, whom I had to meet on the spot, I would have arrived after the 300 or 400 people who were waiting in line. Thank you. But like THAAAAAAANK you Mathias xD !
- I jumped over the fence and joined the first 50 fans
- Mathias and I compared the quality of our cameras by making synchronized selfies
- we concluded that mine was better
- In fact, there was a conference of one hour scheduled, and the first 100 (already inside) would then be entitled to a privileged moment of exchange and dedication. The rest (us) wasn't sure if there were any books left.
- we laughed with the fans in line, imagining me throwing my fanart into the crowd so that it would reach Robin Hobb, and she died taking it in her face. Yeah, it was a nervous laugh. Sorry... We laughed a lot about a lot of things too. Thank you so much!!
- "normal" people regularly asked, passing by "but... why are you waiting in line?" and we felt so superior to be parked like sheep "well we're going to see Robin Hobb, just THE greatest fantasy writer in the world"
- when we got inside the Fnac, we stood in line again.
- I got the last Dragon Keeper Complete 2 of the stock
- we stood in line again, but this time there were seats
- we were given small papers to write our name in capital letters for the dedication, I almost wrote "Dumont" (my family... name...)
- the stage was getting closer...
- Mathias managed to throw a joke at Robin Hobb :D! Class!
- and...
...
and my brain went out the window!
- I said words
- those weren't the right words.
- I think Robin Hobb didn't understand, at least I didn't understand what I was saying either.
- so I showed her my fanart
- I think she didn't understand.
- I've been able to say "it's for you, I made it for you".
- her agent rushed to put away the fanart and speed up the rhythm of the dedications, because it was soon the end
- there are other unintelligible words that came out of my mouth
- I took my dedication and I left
- it was 5:30 pm, we made a selfie with our autographs
and that's it.
It was strange.
I am glad that this meeting was an exchange (autograph / fanart) but everything happened so quickly...
Well... I have a unique dedication ^^ it has stains !
And here we go :)
A great moment of emotion (too much emotion I think).
See you soon!
Oreille Pointue