Dark Inside Blog Tour

So, you may have noticed that I'm a little late with this blog post due to personal reasons but better late than never, right? I'm so pleased to welcome Jeyn Roberts to the blog to talk about how her book DARK INSIDE came about, specifically about the research she did and what inspired her. Take it away Jeyn...


Hi everyone! I’m Jeyn Roberts and I’m the author of Dark Inside. Inspiration is a funny thing. It often comes when you least expect it and in a variety of different forms. It’s always the writer’s number one question. Where do you get your ideas? For me it can be a number of things. I’m often inspired by things that happened to me in real life. Sometimes I take long walks when I’m stuck and often manage to work things out that way. But with Dark Inside, I was inspired by my dreams.

When I was a teenager, I used to dream about a reoccurring world. I call them my ‘River Dreams’ because they often took place beside a major river. The place I dreamed about wasn’t very friendly. Often I was barricaded in a house or a dilapidated apartment building. I was often with a group of people and we were always hiding from something. Whatever it was, it was evil. Sometimes I went back and forth in time, visiting the world during different events. I was in a hotel when the evil struck and started killing people. I was there years later, hiding in a house while a person walked down the street pushing a shopping cart. Whoever that person was, we were terrified of them. That’s pretty much where the Baggers came into being.

When it came down to writing Dark Inside, things got a little tricky. I was in South Korea, often spending my evenings in the Angel In Us coffee shop. An-nyong ha se yo! Caramel Macchiato, chu se yo. During that time, Google maps became my best friend. The journey Mason takes was easy enough for me; it’s the drive I often take between Saskatoon and Vancouver. But Michael and Clementine were a little trickier. I spent a lot of time looking at maps.

I felt very isolated in South Korea, being that I was so far away from my friends and family. Don’t get me wrong, I loved being there but I did feel alone. So I took that feeling and I went with it. I think in a way it really helped me, considering the world of Dark Inside is very isolated. That’s pretty much how Dark Inside was created. So pay attention to your dreams. You never know where they might end up taking you.

Thank you Jeyn! Are you following the Dark Inside Blog Tour? See below for where to go next and to catch up if you've missed anything!