Ignorance facts

In this journal entry, I will be letting my few and precious readers some little known facts about my beloved story, Ignorance. I will also be including background and side stories that I know for a fact will never make it into the story. Unless I change that in the future. If I do, you will already know.

1) Ignorance is my first story ever.
Actually, I won't say ever. I began writing "stories" around the age of three. Those stories were plain nonsense. But I began writing Ignorance around the age of twelve and just kept on writing. I wrote for months these paragraphs that I thought were the best things ever and it slowly became the longest and best thing I had ever written. Ignorance is my baby, it will always remain precious to my heart. And even though I update Just a Lovesick Boy way more often than any of my other stories, Ignorance is my true favorite. It is my first "serious" story.

2) Ignorance originally started out as a fan fiction.
Yes, that is beyond true. And to any of you who know me, you will know that I cannot stand writing fan fiction. Oh, I absolutely love reading it, but I cannot bring myself to write love scenes or thriller scenes involving my musical idols. If I write about them in that way, I start seeing them as my own characters and I no longer see them as real people. Hence the reason I don't write fan fiction. However, Ignorance really did start out as a fan fiction about My Chemical Romance. When I started revising, I was actually going to make it another fan fiction but between Avenged Sevenfold. But my subconcious reminded me of my hatred of writing fan fiction so I decided against the idea. Here is a list of my original characters and my fan fiction characters:
Benjamin Johanson - Gerard Way
Richard Barlett - Mikey Way
Joseph Shaw - Frank Iero
Arik Barlett - Ray Toro
Ethan King - Bob Bryar

3) My Chemical Romance wasn't the only band originally involved.
Of course, I had to incorporate my all time favorite band in it. And at the time, I always thought that Evanescence and My Chemical Romance should somehow meet and tour together. Here for you is yet another list:
Divine McRae - Amy Lee
Kai Coulter - John LeCompt
October Drake - Terry Balsamo
Heroin Biley - Will Boyd
Howahkan Lee - Rocky Gray
I also included The Used, which were not my most liked bands, so they only had brief appearances.

4) Besides her name, Noel has never changed.
Noelani Lennon's name is the only thing that has changed from the very beginning. In my mind, Noel's last name would always remain Lennon. Lennon just fit perfectly for her to me. But in the very beginning, Noel's name was actually Marishka. Her shortened name was Mishka. Ricky's original character - Mikey - always called her Mish because it rhymed with fish and Mikey Way likes sushi. And from Mish, she was called Mishy by Gerard. He and only he could call her that. Even her appearance has remained the same. She would always be pale with dark hair and haunting green eyes. Originally, I wanted her to have silver streaks in her hair but I decided against it. Also, I always wanted her to be the makeup and hair artist for Evanescence.

5) Noel's parents haven't changed at all.
Seriously. They were always David and Caroline Lennon. Noel's dad was always in the military and Caroline was always that beautiful and perfect wife and mother that everyone loved. She wasn't a trophy wife or anything, she was just perfect. And David Lennon was always that scary military dad that loved his daughter more than anything.

6) It took me FOREVER to rename everyone from their original names.
With the exception of Noel. The second I realized I wanted to rewrite Ignorance, I knew I wanted her to have an exotic name. And Caroline Lennon was obsessed with Hawaii, considering that's where she was born, got married, and had her honeymoon. Therefore, I wanted Noel to have a Hawaiian name. From Noelani, I knew I wanted everyone in Tithe to have strange names. That would be the reason they were so connected. From the beginning I wanted Kai to be extremely close to Noel so I decided to give him a Hawaiian name as well, because in my revised version, Kai was Noel's first friend in Hawaii. Going from names I had never personally heard before, I moved on to Howakhan, which is Native American. When I was younger, I had a small story in my head. It was tragedy about two siblings named Heroin and Ecstasy. Their story was how their mother was so drugged up during their pregnancy and birth that all she could say were the drugs and that's what they put down for their names. The story, sadly, never made it down on paper but the idea stuck. So when I had the thought of people having odd names, I kept Heroin, because Ecstasy was always a girl to me. Maybe one day I'll end up writing that story. Divine is actually based on a very true girl in my life. I do know her real name but she rarely told people it and she insisted on going by Divine. She was obsessed with the Victorian era and extreme fashion. I adored her and I miss her and Divine McRae is how I keep her spirit with me. And October reminds me a lot of my dad, who was born in October. That seriously is my main reason for him, haha. With Girl on Fire, I knew I wanted them all to have plain name. They would all have simple names but they were far from simple boys. They were all basically raised in perfect suburbia but they didn't act like it. They're basically an extreme opposite from Tithe. Tithe all have odd names but they act simply but its reversed with Girl on Fire. I didn't really think hard on their names and I didn't base them on anybody. Except for Arik, who was named after an ex-boyfriend of mine. My ex was a total asshole but he did everything with sincere intentions, he just didn't know how to express himself well, which is basically who Arik Barlett is.

7) Shockingly, Ignorance is not the original title.
The original title was actually There's Just Too Much That Time Cannot Erase. As I started revising the story, I knew the title was much too long. And I find stories that are named after titles of songs by bands involved tacky. Not to be offensive to those who do it - because there are some beautifully written stories out there with those kind of titles - but I don't personally like it. In some few cases, they're just as bad as stories with titles like "OH MY GOD! I'm the Only Girl at an All Boys Boarding School?!" or "My Parents Sold Me to a Vampire?!" or "I'm In an Arranged Marriage with My Worst Enemy!" Just...no. Anyway, so I changed the title to Ignorance. Which I'm not so happy with either. It might change, it might stay. Depends on how I feel when it's all over.

8) When Noelani went into a coma, she originally had memories from when she was twelve.
However, after I started revising, I realized how stupid that was and how many flaws there were in that plan. Originally, Noel was twelve when she met the guys, who were all in high school, except for Ricky. And looking over my original chapters, I kept saying that they were in fourth grade. I guess that meant Noel and Ricky were extremely stupid or something. I obviously did not pay any attention to any detail whatsoever when I started this story. So I rewrote everything and now Noelani and the twins are about fifteen/sixteen and in their junior year while everyone else is in their senior year.
Also, in the original story, Noel meant the guys of Girl on Fire in a completely different fashion. She met them in the local park where there was a rusted and abandoned playground. She began playing when she was confronted by the guys, who told her that the playground was haunted. She played along with their little trick, but acted tough and told them to get on the jungle gym, which was the source of the haunting and where children had supposedly died. After luring Benji - or Gerard - there, she inconspicuously pushed him off, harming him in the process, convincing all of them that there really were ghosts on the playground. However, Ricky/Mikey caught here and that's how they became friends.

9) Noelani Lennon is me and completely me.
Noel is everything that I am and what I wish I was. Noel originally started out as an artist and a musician. She assisted Evanescence in their music and artwork and she even did mural designs as a side work living when not on tour. But the more I revised, the more I didn't like her. I put a little of myself in each of my main characters, but with Noel, I made her completely me. And that's the first time I've done that, with the exception of Fortuitous, which barely even counts considering that's an autobiographical story. So Noel was that barely passing, friendless, artsy person. But I'm not like that at all. With the exception of my government class, I'm a straight A student. I'm not a social butterfly but I have my friends and I cannot paint or draw to save my life. My type of art lies in writing, cosmetics, and photography. And that's who Noel is. There are even some events in Noel's life that are based on mine, which will come up later in the story.

10) Ignorance is actually completely finished.
Beyond finished actually. I already have a few chapters of a sequel written - not edited, of course. I have so many ideas for sequels actually. I have a sequel thought up but I seriously have no idea where I would go with it so I never really wrote anything down for that idea. But the sequel I do have chapters written down, I have the whole story in my head already. In my mind, that sequel is already finished and has a sequel to that. Basically, if Ignorance was a released series, I have book one finished, book two half way done, and book three in the works. If you're wondering why it's taking me so long to publish chapters then, here is your answer: editing is actually a lot of work. And when you look at how I wrote when I was twelve/thirteen, you'll understand why it takes so long. I'm almost seventeen now. I've matured a lot, both in writing and emotionally. So all of the childish things in the original story just don't cut it. I want to make Ignorance as amazing as possible for you.

And those are your ten fun - and long - facts to Ignorance.
I hope you enjoyed this and got a feel of what this story is about.