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.