One Week!

Writing that heading feels abnormal… I can’t believe that we are just a week away from the release date of All of Your Scars, which will be available in Paperback form on Amazon as well as digital form on Kindle Unlimited. I feel like it was just yesterday that I was taking this silly little idea and making it a reality and now in a week it will be yours to read, and hopefully fall in love with, the way I did when writing it.

For those of you who are new to the journey, welcome, I am glad you decided to hope on the Rockford University train! A little bit about this upcoming release:

The book is called All of Your Scars (as previously mentioned) and follows Ember and Declan, which you are also already aware of if you’ve read the synopsis. That being said, you meet so many more characters in this book, who you will get to hopefully follow on their own journeys in the very near future. If you haven’t picked up what I’m putting down, this book, is the first book in the Rockford University series. Although, you won’t meet every protagonist in this book, who will then be a part of their own story later on, you do meet a large chunk of them, but this is only an introduction to the characters I hope you will grow to love, or continue to love, when they get their own story.

I’m not sure if it’ll happen this week, as I have a lot to do in preparation for the release on Sunday, October 1st, but my goal is to introduce you to the main characters you will be meeting in All of Your Scars throughout the week. If you’ve seen the cover, you know that I love to draw, and I was able to bring my image for Declan and Ember to life, and I’ve been working on bringing the other main characters introduced to life as well. If I’m able to complete them before the release of the book, you will get a little (non-spoiler) introduction to these characters through drawings I’ve been working on.

One of the main reasons I wanted to do this is because I don’t give vivid descriptions of characters in this book, nor do I plan to in future books. Some character’s hair color might be talked about, or if they’re curvier, or maybe taller/heights of some characters, but I don’t touch too much on it. That’s for a few reasons which I will mention in a minute, but I know they may be unorthodox reasons, especially for a writer.

The main reason I don’t really mention it, is for these characters, and this book, it doesn’t really make much sense. This isn’t much of a spoiler because it’s mentioned pretty early on, but most of these characters have known each other, or of each other, for a while. So, for me, having one of the protagonist give descriptions of the characters didn’t make sense. Which, might not make sense to some of you as to why I didn’t do it because author’s describe characters all the time even when the main character has already known them. Again, it was just a personal preference going into this book, especially because I had the plan from the beginning of drawing all the characters so you can really put a face to the name.

I, personally, also don’t think when I meet someone in person I’m like “they’re short and blonde with green eyes.” If that makes sense, which I don’t know if it does. I think when I meet someone for the first time there are definitely things I notice about them, but those are just things that in the real world, for me at least, those are trivial things that don’t run through my mind. I’d probably notice gestures or personality details more, and that would be how I’d describe someone to a friend. That being said, I’m not saying I’ve never used someone’s physical features to describe them, but it’s more so to help someone realize who I’m talking about, or if we know more than one person with the same name.

I don’t know if that makes sense, but again, this was a personal decision I decided to make, and obviously something that I won’t be able to/don’t plan on changing, but that’s another reason why I wanted to do these pictures/introductions. If any of you have read Heartstopper (if you haven’t you should, watch the show too, lol) it’ll be kind of similar to what Alice does at the end of the book with the little profiles. That being said, there are some characters who will have more description because it might be important to their story, and in that case you will know for a fact certain character qualities, but all in all, you will get to see them how I imagine these characters anyway. And I will add in future main characters when their book comes around, as well as some minor characters (when I have the time) who make reoccurring appearances in the series.

Now, moving on from that, this is not what this whole update is about. It’s about the fact that we are SEVEN DAYS AWAY! And if you check the countdown, we are actually less than that away because the book will be available right at midnight on October 1st… not saying you should start it right when it’s released, but I won’t stop you.

So, with that being said, get ready, because in a week you will enter the rollercoaster that is the world of Rockford University, and I hope you stay with me for the ride.

XOXO

Emily Tayfel