So it's no lie that there are some similarities between my life and what I wrote. Minus the fact that vampires aren't real nor have they ever been (despite what the Sci Fi channel really really wants to believe). I've decided to release some of the obvious ones and some of the...lesser known ones.
McLaughlin (Roses's last name) was the last name of a kid who used to live down the street from me.
Connell's job as line cook at Top of the Hub (a real restaurant in Boston) was a job I used to have.
There are, to my knowledge, no hot dog stands with lines that long in Boston. Rose and Connell's fake date is from my experience at Pink's, a hotdog stand in LA that ultimately...just sells hotdogs.
Rose and Connell's car are a combination of the two cars I've driven. One of which is a maroon Buick with a baseball sized dent in the front that I didn't put there. The other is a Toyota with the gas tank cover ripped off (though that didn't make it into the book).
The apartment on Snow Street is real, in Brighton, and where I used to live for two years. It does have a garden and a porch but the sizes have been skewed for fiction (because who would give renters that much land?) The landlord was a guy though and he did not live downstairs.
The vast majority (if not all) of the dialogue is how I would actually talk. I do in fact physically say, "yeah, no" and "wolf-ified". I have no apologies to make for that.
Celia's entire character is kind of awfully based on my brief but horrific attempt at being a goth/punk. Yes I have dyed my hair every color under the sun. But no I did not wear black lipstick.
Bamboo is an actual restaurant in Boston but it is neither fancy nor sushi. It was the local Thai food place I went to with roommates when I lived on Snow Street.
There was in fact an angry old Italian man who lived across the street from us who did in fact swear at us in Italian. To my knowledge though he did not speak English. And I think he was married. But I figured it'd be nicer if he had a little redeeming scene in the book. The real angry old Italian man across the street yelled at a pregnant woman parking her car. Less nice.
Rose tells Connell to fuck off, which after doing he replies that he likes her and that she tells him to do that a lot. Not exactly true to life but...pretty close to how I met my boyfriend. I did in fact tell him to fuck off and instead of doing so, he asked me what was wrong. Several weeks (and several more fuck offs later) we were going out. Funny how that happens.
Spoilers for the second book (gasp!)
Sedona, Arizona is in fact going to be a straight up location. No I did not grow up there and no I definitely do not have a psychic mom who lives there (though she's...pretty close) but I did visit there and it left a big enough impression on me that I want to include it.
Connell's home town is in, yeah that's right, Maine. The south of the north if you will. Where you can go far enough off the grid where your closest neighbor is half an hour or more away. And of course, the locations that I remember from visiting Maine and New Hampshire as a child (and as a slightly older adult but let's be honest both versions of me have a terrible memory).
Los Angeles is...undetermined as to whether it will be a location. I did live there for about a year, though a month of that was in a hospital. And they do call it Hollyweird for a reason. But I think I am forsaking it for a different California location that is...
San Francisco. Ok so I only spent like two days in San Francisco and one of those was spent at the Skywalker Ranch (yes of Star Wars fame) but it was neat. And plus how can you make a cross country journey book without actually crossing the country?
Yup that's it for spoilers. For now at least. I'll hit 50 pages in oh, say, thirty years or so and then I'll put up more.
Just kidding. I am trying to write more regularly. I swear. It was even my New Years resolution.
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