Fun Facts about
Out of the Shadows

These are some interesting facts about the writing of Out of the Shadows:

Names:

• Out of the Shadows was the easiest title I have ever come up with. I just took the name directly from the prophecy.
• Captain Michael is a little tribute to the Campbell boys: Mitchell, Michael, and Matthew. (You know who you are.) Michael is the middle child, and he rode all the way to Louisiana with me on a mission trip. I gave him shotgun the whole time because, well if you're ever lost, you want one of the Campbell boys navigating for you. So Michael it became. And yes, they all have red hair.
• Lorne: Poor Lorne had no name for about two years. He was La1 (for LAF, and I always add a number to make it easy to find/replace the names once I figure them out) for the longest time. I wanted his name to sound less rough than an RSO's name, and I had been looking at La1 for so long that I wanted it to start with an L. So I went to babynames.com and went through the list of boy L names until I found (and fell in love with) the name Lorne. It was perfect.
• Jacobi: No, I did not name Jacobi after the outfielder for the Boston Red Sox, although that would make sense, as I am a HUGE Yankees fan. I took the name, Jacob, which has the root for deceiver in it, hence...Jacobi.
• Marco Batelli: Marco was originally Mario until literally the day before we finalized the manuscript. I figured I didn't want people to think I had copied off the Food Network's Mario Batali. I actually named Marco after Nick Batelli, who was a student in my classroom at NCA. I always ended up calling Nick "Eric."
• Matt Johnson: My cousin Matthew. He is, and always will be, "Plucky Comic Relief."

Places:

• Celestial Beans really exists, only it isn't called Celestial Beans. It's a coffee shop in Annapolis called 49 West Coffeehouse, Winebar & Gallery. It's address is 49 West Street, Annapolis, MD, 21401. They even have a back room, that I transformed into a secret room. Crabby Jack's is actually a restaurant right next to it called Tsunami. I needed a coffee shop in Annapolis with a back room that I could turn into a secret room, and a way everyone could run out the back into a dark, scary alley. I took a wrong turn off Main Street during my Annapolis Adventures, and I REALLY wanted some coffee. (Come on, you know my coffee fetish!) I lucked onto the 49th Street Coffeehouse, and when I discovered they had a back room that led into...you guessed it, a dark scary alley, I got really excited, and I patronned the place during my stay.
• The angel on the front cover of Out of the Shadows is located in the same Savannah cemetery as the statue on the cover of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I had been fighting for a gargoyle, but the publisher wanted an angel. I have found, in my research, that most men liked the angel and the women liked the gargoyle. I don't know why that is, but I think the angel shows more emotion in her face. That being noted, I agreed with my publisher...
• Tom's room in the Naval Academy is a real room. I was actually in that room, and I took a picture out of his window. Of course, at that time, Tom was going to escape out of the window and onto the roof... That scene never happened.
• You'll want to check out my Inspirations for Writing Photo Album on my blog for pictures of Annapolis during my trip there! (Click here.)

Miscellaneous:

• Picante: Picante was supposed to die in A Prophecy Forgotten. Well, actually, if the first draft of APF, it was Picante in the munitions cellar instead of Eric, as in the original version, Davian killed Eric (who wasn't even an officer in that version) when a huge building blew up on top of Gabriella. (Pre 9-11, by the way.) As you can see, things changed. I promoted Eric to captain, and made Picante a lesser character, making Davian kill Picante in the scene where he storms into the den. AFTER I sent the manuscript to the publisher, I began writing Out of the Shadows, and I had two evil characters: Michael and Forbis (both named after some teens at Naples Christian Academy, where I taught English for half a semester). As I wrote the first version of OOTS, I realized that Michael and Forbis were actually the same character, whom I dubbed "Formica" as a temporary name. As APF was not yet published, I realized that I needed to put dear old Formica into the book to make the reader already hate him by the time OOTS rolled around. The only appropriate scene for such an addition was...you guessed it: the scene where Davian storms into the den. At that moment, I realized that Formica was actually Picante, and I had to resurrect him.
• I never intended to use the Admiral Farragut Memorial Window until I visited Annapolis and toured the Cathedral of the Navy. I needed something that would make Tom realize that the holes he saw in the back of Davian's shirt (in A Prophecy Forgotten) were holes for wings that didn't exist in our dimension. (Did you follow that?) Originally, I was going to have Tom look at one of Aunt Sophie's figurines during Thanksgiving, but during my Naval Academy tour, I saw this window with the bronze breastplate and brown kilt, and I literally got goose bumps. I mean, who on EARTH would ever think that the RSO armor I had created had already been depicted in a stain glass window in the Cathedral of the Navy, where Tom just happened to go to school Coincidence? I think not!

More Fun Facts: If you've already read Out of the Shadows, and want to find out more, click here. Make sure you've already read the book, however. Otherwise, the end will be ruined for you.

Return to Out of the Shadows page.

Copyright © 2006 M. B. Weston. All rights reserved.
Revised: 09/30/09