Do the people that you based the characters on know that they are in your book? They’re honored. People call me like, “is such n such, such n such?” because they mixed up. But, most of the people whose names, well nicknames anyway because I didn’t use people’s government names, but most of these people with nicknames are honored. Most of them are dead and I felt like I could immortalize some of them in the eyes of their peers or their families by shedding light back on the person who is no longer here or the ones who are incarcerated with football numbers. Most of the people in the book either dead or locked up for a long time. I felt like what better way to keep them alive than to put them in a book? It’s going to be timeless.
Seeing my vision come to life was amazing. It was unexplainable. If felt like I was grabbing a handful of rocks throwing them at a window hoping that all of them hit. But instead of one of them hitting, all of them hit. I had worked very hard in a short amount of time…but I didn’t expect that outcome. That was next level for me.