The Kingdom of Ash Book Tour! Sarah J. Maas Inside Scoop!

*Re-Post from Old Blog || Original Publication Date: April 11th, 2019*

Last night I attended Sarah J. Maas's Kingdom of Ash Book Tour - one of her last tours for the Throne of Glass series. She was amazing to see in the flesh and even funnier in real life. Here's what I learnt about the living legend herself, Sarah J. Maas, during her talk.

1. Sarah J. Maas's Writing Routine!

Sarah J. Maas mentioned at the beginning of her talk/interview that she loved that being a writer gave her the opportunity to do what she loved without being tied down to a 9 am to 5 pm job. But that doesn't mean being a writer isn't hard work.

Sarah said that she wakes up at 8:30 am to 9:00 am, has breakfast with the family and takes care of her baby boy before sitting down at her desk around 9:30 am to get to work. She claims that she stays at her desk until around 8:00 pm at night - busy, busy, busy! Sarah said in her talk that about an hour before her flight to Australia for the Sydney tour, she submitted her first draft of her upcoming series Crescent City. She said that the deadline was so tight that she only ever had maybe an afternoon off every other week.

As for Sarah's daily outfit, she said that a fandom t-shirt, a scrunchie and a pair of leggings that probably have a hole somewhere is her go to uniform for those long hours at her desk.

3. Her Writing Community and Family

Sarah, when asked about how her writing circles have changed since she started writing the Throne of Glass series when she was 15 to now, Sarah had a lot to say. She said that when she was in high school, she and her friends were very geeky - before geeky was cool. A major star wars and Goonies fan, all her friends were creative in one way or another - though she was the only writer she knew at the time. She felt almost confused with her fascination with witches and monsters and all these fantasy worlds. It wasn't until she started posting her first book Queen Of Glass, later changed to Throne Of Glass, when she was 16 onto FictionPress that she found her fellow writers and realised she wasn't alone. Encouraged by her massive success of FictionPress, she continued writing the next three books in the Throne Of Glass Series.

Although, through all of this online fame, Sarah said that she never really told her family about her books. She wanted to keep her works private from her family for one reason or another. It wasn't until Bloomsbury Publishing House took on her series and Sarah removed the series from FictionPress that she really made it clear to her family that this was her career. It was what she loved to do.

One of Sarah's closest friend and fellow author that she mentioned often was Lynette Noni (the author of the well known Medoran Chronicles). She said Lynette was basically her soundboard for everything. From book ideas to character names, Sarah claims that Lynette has now become like her second editor. She proofreads everything she writes.

Sarah also mentioned that recently, her husband Josh has become a great soundboard for her ideas and is kinda her manager.

1. Sarah's Music and Scene Creation

Sarah J. Maas frequently mentioned her love for music and her random sob sessions when her favourite music plays out scenes in her head. She mentioned her travels to Cloud Forest in a minivan with all her family when a song from the FrightNight remake soundtrack came on and she heard the last line of Kingdom of Ash echo in her mind. Sarah also said that she went on to start sobbing in the backseat of her family's minivan for seemly no apparent reason because she was so emotional about the revelation.

Another scene she mentioned with the climax to her unreleased novel, Crescent City. Sarah said that she was in the middle of a flight over to a tour location when the John Carter of Mars soundtrack came on and she saw this intense, dramatic scene play out in her head and started, once again, sobbing into her hoodie in the middle of the plane. This was a strange occurrence for her, Sarah said, because these were characters she had never meet before - characters that just appeared out of nowhere, that was when she knew she had to write a book around this scene, later deemed Crescent City - Sarah said: "the characters came to me this time, and I knew that meant something important."

3. Sarah's Advice for Aspiring Writers

Sarah only touched on this briefly in her talk, but she mentioned that when she was a teenager, her parents didn't have much faith in the idea of her becoming a writer. They were worried that she would be just another broke "nobody" author and Sarah claimed that they had frequent screaming matches about her parents "not supporting her dreams". Her parent's said her dream was unrealistic, and it wasn't the first time she had heard it. Sarah said that she doesn't really keep track of all her awards and milestones she has achieved over the years, but one she will never forget was the moment Throne Of Glass hit the New York Times bestseller list and she called her mum. One of the best moment of her life, she said, was the moment when her mum said: "I'm sorry that I ever claimed your dreams were unrealistic."

Quote from Sarah J. Maas: "Some unsolicited advice for aspiring writers, people will always say, "that's not a realistic dream". Don't listen to those people. You can just say back, "well thanks for your asshole opinion, but ah -no.""

4. Future Books

Sarah, towards the end of her talk, mentioned her plans for the A Court Of Thorns And Roses series and her Crescent City series. Sarah said she is currently working on the future books of ACOTAR series and that mentioned she has already finished Nesta's and Cassian's book. *deep breath* OMG I CAN'T WAIT!

5. Her Favourite Drink! - Fun Facts!

During Sarah's opening words, Sarah said that she loved the coffee we have here in Australia - and rightly so! She said that a flat white is her favourite type of coffee.