The Teen Book Scene: Guest Blog: Megan Curd

I am honored to host Megan Curd, author of Forbidden, on my blog today as part of a Teen Book Scene Blog Tour.

I got ask Megan several questions!

1) Where did you get the idea for your story?
As cheesy as it sounds, I actually had a dream one night. I don’t remember a ton of it, but I remember a young man tortured from his past and trying to make up for it. I couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to be in that predicament – to be trying to atone for what you’d done in your life, but feel helpless. It was actually ironic, because it was Sunday morning and I had to go to church. I sat through church thinking of this guy and what he’d do. The youth had an event after church that I was going to help with, and on the way to the museum we were going to, I wrote the first four chapters of FORBIDDEN as I drove – NOT SAFE…but I wasn’t taking anyone in my car with me, so it’d have just been me if something had happened! (That’s my safety announcement for the day, haha)


2) There have been a lot of angel stories lately. What makes yours different?
It’s a different look on what a fallen angel might go through. I think a lot of angel stories are pretty straightforward, but I wanted mine to have a different take on what could happen. I love writing characters that have twists you don’t see coming, and I hope I did it with FORBIDDEN. My favorite thing about FORBIDDEN is that it’s from a guy’s POV. Not as many YA novels are from the guy’s POV, so I wanted to freshen that up. I think people will enjoy it!

3) Did you have a say in your cover? If so, how did you come up with that idea?
 I love love love my cover! My good friend and fellow writer, Hope Collier, as well as another writer and friend, Beth Isaacs, both worked with Neil before me and spoke very highly of him. I also design book covers for eBooks, but I wanted to outsource my own (I would never be satisfied with something I made – I’m OCD like that :) ). I sent Neil three different designs I’d created, as well as my back blurb. He sent me two different options, and one of them was the cover. I knew the minute I saw it that it would be the cover! It is just perfect and embodies Levi’s struggle and mystery so well. ::Sighs:: I’m fangirling right now, but I loooove the cover! Lol :)

4) How do you come up with the names for your characters?
Some are names I liked and wanted to name my kids someday. Others are names of people I knew. If I run out of names I really like, then I go to baby name websites and lurk around on there until I find one I think fits. It can’t just be any name – the name has to fit the character. Sometimes I just put a letter in to mark a spot for the name when I find one that fits.

5) And just for fun, if you could travel to anywhere in the world, where would it be?
I’ve been really blessed and been able to travel to Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Italy, and Switzerland. My favorite of those were definitely Ecuador and Italy! I did missions work in the South American countries, and I went snowboarding with some friends in Europe. If I could travel anywhere else, I’d choose England, Australia, Japan and China. I want to learn to surf, see the Great Wall of China, and I’d love to see Tokyo. England is just cool in general. I’d love to see London!

Thanks, Megan! I love that you based a book off of a dream..how neat! And I'm taking a girl's trip to Hong Kong and Tokyo this summer...you're more than welcome to come along!