Buccaneer Blogfest - WEEK TWO - DAY ONE - A Little Bit About My WIP

AHOY MATEYS!!!!!! 

For Day One of WEEK TWO, we are sharing the first paragraph of our WIP (work in progress).  Truthfully, I don't feel comfortable sharing any of my actual WIP's with you right now because they aren't even close to ready, and since I'm technically still in edits, EVER still counts as a WIP.

Soooooooooo, since you can already view the first 540 words of EVER, HERE, I've decided to open up the blog to answer any questions you may have about EVER.

Here's a mock-up of the cover. Note: I do not own the image. We are doing a photo shoot tomorrow so we'll be on the way to having THE cover soon!  YAY!  

So, if you've read the first 540 words, or seen my previous contest entries, character interviews, etc, and you've wondered anything about EVER, let me know! I will do my best to answer each question without giving anything away. ;-) 

Here are the questions so far. I will add them as they come in. 

From Feaky Snucker:
1. Where did you get the idea for EVER?
I honestly can't remember where I got the idea for EVER. All I know for certain is that the character was in my head for a very long time. I knew her name was Ever, short for a name she hated, and she was a teenager. I also knew her story was a ghost story, but didn't know who/what/when/where/etc. She started as the patient of a psychiatrist who I may or may not write a story about some day.  Then she starred in a story about a girl with a houseful of ghosts, which was the first version of EVER. Then I started killing off those ghosts one by one and realized I didn't need any of them. THEN I heard the Pearl Jam cover of J Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers' LAST KISS and my light-bulb moment happened. I knew then that Frankie had died in a car accident, and the story morphed into what it is now.

2. Worst part about the edits you've done?
Hmmm. The worst part of edits ... can I say editing in general? Honestly, it is two different parts of the brain - creative and technical. I am very comfortable in the creative part, writing and imagining, etc. The technical part, not so much. But i'd say that the very worst part of editing, aside from editing as a whole, would be changing the tense from first person present to first person past. What an immense undertaking that was! 

From Tonya Kuper:
3. So is Frankie a ghost now? Ooooooooh!!!
Yes, Frankie has always been a ghost - he just started out as a ghost who had been dead since the 1950's. I eventually changed that to having him grow up with Ever and *then* become a ghost.

From Carrie-Anne:
4. As a major name nerd, I have to ask where you got the ideas/inspiration for your characters' names. Did they just come to you, or did you look for ideas in name books and on name websites?
Well, Ever just came to me. I have no idea when or why, but her name has been in my head for a long time.

When trying to name Frankie, I was working with my original story - in which Frankie was a ghost who had been a teen and died in the 1950's. I was trying to come up with the perfect name for that time period and Frankie is what stuck. His full name is Franklyn Davis - the last name of a friend who passed away a few years ago. So I'm paying homage to him in my own teeny tiny way.


Toby is a different story. Tobias James is his full name, and James is an obvious one - it was my dad's first name, and a name I've always loved. I knew a guy named Tobias when I was in my late teens, early twenties, before I met my husband. I always loved that name, and even discussed using it if my husband and I had a boy one day. Its just a rad name (in my opinion). Anyway, fast forward a few years, and I was curious about whatever had become of Toby (Tobias), and in seacrhing for him on Facebook or probably back then it was Myspace, I found a memorial page. I was really saddened over it. We hadn't known each other well, but for whatever reason, I had a hard time with the news of his death. An auto accident, actually, which seems strange now that i think about it, with Frankie's death. But I guess the name stuck with me and I needed a rad name for a super hot character, so Tobias it was.


Jessie just named herself, honestly. Which is funny because my name is also short for Jessica, and Jessie's sunny personality is nothing like I mine. So I don't really know how that happened. I mean, I'm not not sunny, but I'm not super sunny all the time like Jessie is in my mind.

Ariadne - Toby's devious and gorgeous ex-girlfriend - needed an amazing, unique name. So I Googled Greek goddesses. The second I saw the name I knew it was hers.  I've been told it is a hard name to pronounce and people don't know how to say it when they see it, but I had her spell it out for Ever in the book because I just couldn't bring myself to change it. She is Ariadne, and there's no way around it. So I figured it added to her condescending attitude when she spelled it out for Ever, as well as helps the reader with the pronunciation. :-) Air-ee-add-knee. 


From Anthony: 
5. I really like the cover mockup, are you going for something similar with the photo shoot?
Thank you! Yes! The cover will probably be very similar to the mock-up, except much better and way more professional. I grabbed the picture off of Google images, and played with the cover in Paint, so when a professional photographer with professional models supplies the photo, and a professional artist designs the cover, I think its going to be AMAZING. As far as the actual people go, the only thing I want to change is to add Frankie (the ghost) to the background. We have a gorgeous model who is PERFECT for Frankie, and I picture him off in the back, watching Ever and Toby with sadness. His image will be translucent and ghostly. I think it will look really cool when its all said and done.