Brooke Shaffer
Author, Gamer, and Cat-Collector Extraordinaire
10 Facts About Free Time
In honor of Free Time being released as an audiobook, here are ten facts about the story, and the story behind the story.
Laura was a character that magically appeared out of thin air. I hadn't planned on her being there, and then suddenly she was. I didn't backtrack because I was just as curious to see where it would go, and it helped to mold Walter's otherwise depressing personality into something more tolerable.
Eagle Eye camp is based on my own personal experiences with a couple different camps that I went to as a kid/teenager. The main building is from one camp, the cabins from another, the store from another, even the forts come from one of those camps. And they all got rearranged into a single camp. Problem is, I can remember what all those places looked like, but I couldn't tell you which camps they were from.
"Hlohi" comes from the Cherokee word "Elohi" meaning "earth."
The origin of Yawi's name is better explained in Wolf Pack, but it comes from "Aktiya Waya" meaning, "The wolf watches over it."
Yawi is the only white animal to be specifically named.
"Krydik" was originally meant to be a placeholder name, the intent being a cheeky rendition of "everyone's a critic (Krydik)." Eventually it grew on me, and I decided to call it a conglomeration of multiple Native languages, all wanting to say that "they" were the ones who named the new peoples.
The few words that Blake says on the phone are a sort of evolved creole language between Cherokee and Lenape.
Blake was what my cousin was originally going to name her first child. She ended up naming him Tyler. *sigh*
Gold eyes are a recessive trait among the Krydik.
If you look closely and think about it a little bit, you can discern my middle name.
I had to slow down production of the audiobook, because I ended up getting laryngitis.
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