I knew I wanted to write about East Texas there’s something romantic and fairytale-ish about huge forests.Īlso, when people think of Texas, they tend to imagine flat, dusty plains and tumbleweeds. I wish everyone could experience the creative freedom that comes with upsetting the status quo there are no words for it.Īs a paranormal writer, how did you go about building your world? That’s why I had so much fun writing Bleeding Violet with Hanna being an unusual type of character (certainly an underrepresented character), what built up around her was, correspondingly, an unusual story. I prefer abnormal teenagers, the ones on the fringe, the ones who don’t think or operate the way “normal” people do. I’m not interested in writing about saintly paragons of virtue, nor am I interested in writing about “normal” teenagers. When I wrote her character, I never intended that Hanna should be the guiding example of what a teenager should be. I know a lot of people are offended by Hanna’s behavior and don’t feel that she’s an appropriate role model or simply can’t relate to her because her experiences and point of view are so out of the norm. It was the illness itself that shaped most of Hanna’s personality: recklessness, impaired judgment, hypersexuality, delusions, and thoughts of suicide. When I discovered that people with bipolar can hallucinate (especially during manic episodes), that’s the illness I went with.

In writing your story, did you ever find yourself concerned with how to best approach “edgy” behavior on the part of your characters? If so, what were your thoughts, and what did you conclude? Why do you think your decision was the right one?īefore I ever sat down to write Bleeding Violet, I knew that the main character hallucinated, but I didn’t know what mental illness caused hallucinations, and so I had to do some research. As this crazy girl meets an even crazier town, only two things are certain: Anything can happen and no one is safe. Good thing for Hanna, she’s far from normal. As she tries to make a place for herself, she discovers dark secrets that would terrify any normal soul. So she runs away to Portero, Texas in search of a new home.īut Portero is a stranger town than Hanna expects. With a head plagued by hallucinations, a medicine cabinet full of pills, and a closet stuffed with frilly, violet dresses, Hanna’s tired of being the outcast, the weird girl, the freak. Dia Reeves is the first-time author of Bleeding Violet (Simon Pulse, 2010).

Bleeding violet by dia reeves