Today is my stop on the Afterlife Academy Blog Tour. Find out how Afterlife Academy was created and enter the giveaway below!
The Creation of Afterlife Academy by Jaimie Admans
Afterlife Academy began with me thinking about teachers and how strict they are. I bet you’d have to be dead to get out of maths homework, I thought. That was the lightbulb moment. What if they made you finish your education even if you were, in fact, dead? It’s funny the things that can spark off an idea, the silly, fleeting thoughts that become a book plot before you even realise it. And so Afterlife Academy was born – the idea of this school for the dead, a place where teenagers go if they’re still of school age when they die.
As soon as I thought of the plot, I thought of Riley and Anthony, the main characters. I don’t even know where they came from. They pretty much just came in right along with the school for the dead idea. I knew Riley would have to experience the opposite in death as she had in life, and the same for Anthony. Riley starts off as a popular, bullying, girl you love to hate. She had a perfect life. Anthony had a miserable life, he was an outcast in school and picked on by everyone – led by Riley. I knew I wanted to turn the tables for both of them, so Riley would become the outcast and all the students of Afterlife Academy would love Anthony and think he was cool, rather than the geek that Riley had always called him.
I wanted Riley to learn a lesson. I wanted her to see that the life she thought was perfect really wasn’t. I wanted her to change and grow over the course of the book. I wanted Wade, Riley’s still-living boyfriend, to be the most-hated character. I wanted readers to be cheering her on to see what he was really like, what the rest of us could see from very early on.
The storyline developed mostly over the course of the writing. I started off with the basic idea and a very brief outline, nothing more than a vague list of scenes that might be included. Apart from Riley, Anthony, Wade, and the demon dinner lady Narcissa, the rest of the characters presented themselves as I was writing. The relationship between Riley and Anthony was never intended to develop in the way that it did. They did that without my permission! I really enjoyed writing Anthony, he ended up being a lot nicer and more fun than I thought he’d be, and he became a bigger part of the book because of that.
It wasn’t called Afterlife Academy at first – it had a working title for a long time – and no, I’m not telling you what it was! All the way along I knew I had to come up with a better title, and Afterlife Academy hit me at the last moment. I had already started editing it for publication and set the release date before it got it’s title! How’s that for leaving things to the last minute?
Blurb:
Even being dead isn’t enough to get you out of maths class.
Dying wasn't on sixteen-year-old Riley Richardson's to-do list. And now, not only is she dead, but she's stuck in a perpetual high school nightmare. Worse still, she's stuck there with the geekiest, most annoying boy in the history of the world, ever.
In a school where the geeks are popular and just about everything is wrong, Riley has become an outcast. She begins a desperate quest to get back home, but her once-perfect life starts to unravel into something not nearly as great as she thought it was. And maybe death isn’t really that bad after all...
Welcome to Afterlife Academy, where horns are the norm, the microwave is more intelligent than the teachers, and the pumpkins have a taste for blood.
Afterlife Academy is a Young Adult paranormal romantic comedy, suitable for approximately ages 14 and up
Author Bio:
Jaimie is a 28-year-old English-sounding Welsh girl with an awkward-to-spell name. She lives in South Wales and enjoys writing, gardening, drinking tea and watching horror movies. She hates spiders and cheese & onion crisps.
She has been writing for years but has never before plucked up the courage to tell people.
Afterlife Academy is her third novel and she hopes you enjoy it. There are plenty more on the way!
Giveaway:
2 Afterlife Academy notebook, pen, magnet, and signed postcard swag set (INT)
Ends 31st May
No comments