FAQs

My daughter will never again allow me to see her list of future baby names. So you can thank her for the name Keatyn.

The answer to this is in the book Power.

I wish.

The short answer is no. But I think that you pull personality traits from yourself and others then they get all mixed up in the characters you write.

When I first started working on the series, I had a pretty firm grasp on K’s personality. I knew I wanted her to be taken out of her normal world and plunked down at an East coast boarding school. Sort of a high school version of Legally Blonde. Even though she was smart and beautiful, it didn’t mean fitting in would be easy. I originally thought I would have her go to school to sort of escape the pressures of being Abby’s daughter. But I knew that a girl like her would face a tough time with someone like Whitney and be like, Screw it. I’m going to France. There had to be a reason to make her stay. The stalker was that reason. It also served to be the pressure that forced her growth. The Keatyn you met in Stalk Me was a lot different than the Keatyn in Get Me. 

Keatyn and I share a love of fashion. We both tried to script our lives. As for real life experience, I do pull emotions from times in my own life when I got my heart broken, when I was friend-zoned by my best guy friend, when a girl was mean to me, when I was the mean person, when my friends all were mad at me, when you kissed a boy I shouldn’t have. I think that’s why Keatyn is relatable. She faces many of the same situations we all do/did in our teen years.

The characters. I really am attached to them. Almost to the point that I talk about them like they are real. When I’m shopping, I’m like, Oh, this is a Keatyn outfit.

I had been writing each future book as I was writing the current book. Before I ever released Stalk Me, I had major scenes written for each book as well as solid character profiles, plots, and story and character arcs. When I “started” the next book, it usually had most of the major scenes written and lots of word count. But in the case of that, I worked 18 hour days almost every day and many sleepless nights to get it finished on schedule.

I’d say I was influenced by a lot of things. My love of reality TV, gossip magazines, celebrity red carpets, 80’s movies, poetry, and, of course, fairytales.

I don’t know what everyone else did, but as a teen I always planned to be spontaneous. I would stand in front of the mirror and act out what I would say if a boy said this to me, or that. Or what I would say or do so he might notice me. Basically, I tried to script my life. So, I guess in that way, Keatyn and I were alike. Scripting your life also includes hoping, wishing, and praying to anything that might work. Keatyn was upset, the moon was there, so she talked to it. Wished on it. Hoped for something better.

Although it was a shock to all of you, I always knew as I was writing his story what his fate was. I felt like it fit his character. And after losing a close family friend in a motorcycle accident as I was writing the book, I was more determined than ever to follow my original plan and not succumb to what I thought readers might prefer. It happens in real life. Sadly.