The UnOfficial Offical Guide to Calie's Diary

The idea: 

I originally wanted to write a story about my school years, as I went through some tough times, but I realized I’d have to make up so much detail and it wasn’t really that interesting.  (Unrequited love is only soooo interesting, go read “Why am I so obsessed with you?” if you want to read about it) So, I figured it be easy to write a fictional book about a character that was basically me.  Like a redo of high school.

Adding elements of myself into the story:

No, I never lived in Oregon (I never been to Oregon, so hopefully I did in justice), I lived in Ohio, hence where Calie is from.  I’ll add more about Calie in the Character section.

Calie’s younger brother, Alex.  I have a younger brother though he is only 1 year younger than me, so I know what it is like to have a younger brother, so that was an easy element to add into the story. (And yes, he did play video games all the time)

The whole Calie and Derek relationship in the beginning, this was based of someone I met that I found extremely annoying. (Seriously he was talking at like 6AM in the morning when I was trying to sleep) It wasn’t until I got to know him a little better, that I realized he was a good person, despite being a little odd.  But, more on Derek in the Character section.

California, I love warm weather, ever since I was a little girl I’ve wanted to move to California, I wanted to go to college in California. (Couldn’t afford it though) So, Calie wants to go there.

Math, Like me, Calie is really good at Calculus (I was top of my class, is not my fault I got 100% on every test, brag alert)

I’m sure there is more but that’s all I can think of for now.

The Progression of the story:

Originally I wrote it and I didn’t want there to be a second part, but the problem was I knew the characters so well, and more important I knew Derek, and I knew ending it there with New Year’s Eve, would not work with his character and there need to be more development with the characters together. 

Whereas Calie fell quick for Derek, Derek didn’t. 

You might get the impression Derek loved Calie all along but he didn’t.  Derek is just a friendly talkative person. (He’d talk to a wall for an hour) He is so in his own world sometimes he doesn’t take the time to observe other people. 

Ruby and Calie’s friends think Derek likes Calie because they think that when a guy spends so much attention to a girl it’s because there are romantic feelings there, but that might be the rule, Derek is the exception.   Earlier in the book you might get the feeling that Derek isn’t even that into girls, a pretty girl throws herself at him and him and he isn’t even interested. (Krystal)  He’s not your average teenage guy.  It isn’t until David says Derek has a crush on Olivia that we really see that, and we realize that this crush mostly likely came from his relationship with her and also some from her looks. 

Basically you get the feeling that Derek might be feeling something more than friendship for Calie at the very end of the 1st part, but I don’t think he fully understands it and it needs more time to develop.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I will answer, nothing is off limits (I can’t promise I will answer everything because I am working on another book with some of these characters)