Sign Here

As a kid, I had a purple autograph book with a picture of the Aristocats on it. I’m pretty certain I got it at Disneyland (that would make sense, wouldn’t it?) I loved that thing. I had my friends sign it, mostly, and I made up autographs for various fictional characters that I loved. Then, one evening, my mom took my sister and me to a Pat Boone concert and we went to a reception afterward and I was able to get his signature. My first real autograph! (Though I’ll admit to not really knowing who he was, but I enjoyed the music and just the idea that I had the signature of someone that people considered famous in my little purple book.)

A few years later, we went to a play starring Lance Guest. This was a huge deal for my sister and me as we were avid re-watchers of The Last Starfighter and the thought that we would see Lance Guest in person drove us nearly wild for weeks prior to the event. He came out after the show and was very friendly, chatting with everyone who wanted to. I didn’t have my little purple book, but I had something better. My very own paperback copy of the book based on the movie The Last Starfighter. He seemed really rather embarrassed to be reminded of the movie, but he gamely signed the book and chatted with us and was polite enough to ignore the stars in our adolescent eyes.

Fast-forward to a few years ago when my mom and I went through an Anne Perry binge. I got introduced to the first Thomas and Charlotte Pitt mystery and we read through them like locusts on the plains of Kansas eat wheat fields. Then we moved on to the Monk mysteries. And when we were all caught up, we found out that Anne Perry was going to be doing a book signing at a nearby Borders for the newest of her books. It was a night that we couldn’t make, but the bookstore said you could call ahead and buy a book and they’d have her sign it and set it aside for pickup. So, unbeknownst to my mom, I did this as her birthday gift for her (I think it was her birthday – maybe Christmas?) And when we went to pick it up, I couldn’t wait to see the generic inscription and her signature.

Instead what I found was a squiggle that might have been an A. But there certainly didn’t appear to be any extra letters after it. It was like someone took a pen and just scraped it across an inch of the flyleaf. No generic inscription. Not even two distinct “words.” Just one short blur of ink smudged across the paper. I was sincerely disappointed. I tried to rationalize that she just had bad handwriting. But honestly, my dad has probably the world’s worst handwriting and his signature at least has very distinct first letters for each part of his name. My handwriting isn’t much better, but it, again, at least looks like a name.

As I’ve been thinking about the release of my book in January and the hope that I might someday soon have someone wanting my very own autograph for themselves, I’ve actually taken the time to stop and look at my signature with the eyes of the autograph recipient…and I’ll admit that I’ve been trying to practice it a little so that it’s more legible and clearly my name. I don’t want to disappoint someone the way Anne Perry disappointed us. (Though really, you’ll never convince me that the workers in the store didn’t just scribble in the front of the books of the people who ordered over the phone.)

Have you ever gotten an autograph you’re particularly proud of? Or one that was disappointing? Do you think the signature needs to be something legible, even if that’s a departure from the person’s real handwriting?