Secrets Behind The Book - NEW VIDEO!

New video! Learn the surprising (and funny) secrets behind the YA Fantasy book - A Darling Secret.

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Have you checked out my other videos? You might enjoy these too:

• Secrets of The Nightmare Birds
• Secrets of Strange Luck

Evil Fish and Bulbous Trees - 10 Things You Didn't Know About A Darling Secret

Were the sinister Shadow Gods in my new book inspired by an evil fish?

How is an ancient Bolivian legend tied to my story?

Click HERE to learn the surprising, and funny, secrets behind A Darling Secret. 
 

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I hope you enjoy learning more about A Darling Secret. Don't forget to check these out too:

• 10 Things You Didn't Know About Strange Luck
• 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Nightmare Birds

TBT Writer - What Is Red?

I know it's been a LONG time since I've posted a #TBTWriter, so I'll be sure to include extra photos for this post. :)

Today I'd like to share a simple story/poem that I wrote when I was 11ish about the color red.

I never realized how much I liked the color red until I re-read this. Then when I started looking at all of my old photos to share, I discovered that so many of them were of me wearing red.

Even in my stories I write now, red is very prevalent. For example, the protagonist in Strange Luck has red hair and she is frequently wearing red or a red accent.

Coincidence, or have I always just had a fondness for the color? You decide.

Here's a pic of the original poem.

Red

What is red?
Red is the color of flaming fire.
Red is the color of beautiful birds.
You can find small red creatures hiding in rocks by the ocean.
Red is the color of victory.
Red is a bright color that brings out the picture.
Red is the color of wonderful books that tune on the mind's imagination.
Red is the color of a ruby red cherry.
Red is the color of life!

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Apparently I felt very strongly about red being the color of life so much so that I included a punctuation mark. Lol.

And now for some TBT pics....

This is one of my favorite pics of me (far right). Not only am I Super Girl, I'm also posing with a giant Twinkie.  Ha ha!

Here's me at age 11 wearing my favorite red shirt.

For my entire undergraduate degree I dyed my hair red. If you're wondering what I'm holding it's a chinchilla.

Ano Nuevo in California. This area and its neighboring towns heavily influenced my stories.

Here's a pic of me from when I lived in Florida.

Here's a recent video I did where I'm wearing....you guessed it. Red!

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Do you have a writing throwback? Post it with #TBTWriter so we can all read your story. And don't forget to check out my other #TBTWriter stories and pics:

• Confessions of a Sugarholic
• A Nine-Year-Old's First Horror Story
• Good Ideas, Sometimes

I Was An Aerial Acrobat...Well, Sort Of

As I mentioned in my secrets of Strange Luck post, I love learning secrets behind a book, like where an author got a particular idea or wrote their story. It really adds something to the whole experience. I thought long and hard about some interesting tidbits I could share about The Nightmare Birds and this is what I've come up with. I hope you enjoy them. :D

1.   I took the title ‘The Nightmare Birds’ from a poem I had written 10 years ago. It was about nightingales in my neighborhood that were chirping all night and driving me crazy. Here's a pic of my journal with the poem:

2.   While writing this book I took aerial acrobatic lessons to get a better sense of what it was like to be a circus/theater performer. It was a lot of fun, but I wasn't very good at it. Here's a goofy pic of me striking a pose:

3.   One of the working titles for this book was ‘An Evening at the Theater of Secrets.’ I didn’t want to lose that name completely, so I used it as the title of the mysterious book in the story.
 
4.   Christine is actually based on a German foreign exchange student who lived with me when I was in high school. Just like the character in the book, her real name was Christine and she was kinda odd. She would always suddenly leave the room while you were talking to her, and she was obsessed with anything orange.

5.   My real-life interest in existentialism trickled into the story, especially Daisy’s fascination with Simone de Beauvoir and Friedrich Nietzsche. They are some of my favorite philosophers.

6.   Originally the “nightmare bird” was a nightingale (like in my poem), but I've always liked owls more, so I changed it.

7.   I wrote The Nightmare Birds as a standalone title years ago and worked closely with an agent to develop it. Per the agent's guidance, the story ultimately went a direction I didn't like, so the relationship dissolved and I decided to go my own way. I wrote Strange Luck next, then decided to adapt The Nightmare Birds as the sequel.
 

8.   In the original story, the protagonist's name was 'Rune.'

9.   The reference about people who voluntarily lived in caves without light and lost all track of time is based on a real (and super scary) experiment. Look it up.

10. Arianrhod (Daisy's mom) is based on a Goddess from Welsh mythology. The Goddess shape-shifts into a wise owl which enables her to see into the dark depths of the human soul.

I hope you enjoyed learning more about The Nightmare Birds. Don't forget to check these out too:

• 10 Things You Didn't Know About Strange Luck
• Meet the Characters of The Nightmare Birds
• Visit the Real Theater of Secrets
• Read An Excerpt