IWSG: What's in a Name?

It's Insecure Writer's Support Group Day! If you'd like to join, go HERE. 

Thanks to our host, Alex Cavanaugh, and our awesome co-hosts for this posting of the IWSG, Pat Garcia, J.Q. Rose, and Natalie Aguirre!

Optional question:  Writers have secrets! What are one or two of yours, something readers would never know from your work?

My readers may not know how I came up with my protagonist's name, Indigo Eady. She was based on several concepts: 

• My grandmother spent a lot of time raising my sister and I when we were growing up, so I wanted to honor her in my writing. That's why I gave my character my grandmother's maiden name, "Eady", along with her black hair and blue eyes.  
• In my research for character names, I came across the concept of Indigo Children (also Crystal Children and Starseed Children) where it is thought that children born in recent years (since the 1970s) are arriving at a higher vibrational level. These individuals are highly intuitive and have exceptional qualities to include a strong desire to make a more fair and just world to live in. They stand up for what they believe and want to live a life of meaning. They exist to bring the world into a new state of consciousness. Because of their ideals, they won't back down, and so may find themselves toe to toe with the law.

This is how my Indigo Eady character was created. She speaks to ghosts and has strong psychic tendencies. She investigates murder on behalf of the ghosts she meets who need her help. Her methods may find her breaking and entering, but all in the name of justice. 

What secrets would your readers be surprised 
to find out about your writing?  

IWSG: Research and the Indigo Connection

Today is Insecure Writer's Support Group Day, as is the first Wednesday of every month. If you'd like to join this really cool group, click on the link.

Thank you to Alex Cavanaugh and his co-hosts (this month we have Nancy Gideon, Tamara Narayan, Liesbet @ Roaming About, Michelle Wallace, and Feather Stone!) whose dedication keeps this monthly event going.

May 3 Question: What is the weirdest/coolest thing you ever had to research for your story?

When I first had the idea for a ghost-whispering teenage amateur sleuth, I researched psychic children and came up with the terms Indigo children and Crystal children. The idea is a new age concept in which it's thought that children born in recent years are a new breed of children, different in how they view the world. They are warriors sent to change the world, to make it a better place. Honest and truthful to a fault. Many have special abilities such as ESP. Controversy surrounds the concept, only partly because psychic abilities can't be proven and has always drawn skeptics. You can read about the rest of the controversy at the link above if you're interested.

But for my purposes and that of my sleuth (whom I named Indigo because I think it's a really cool and different kind of name), the ability to speak with ghosts and receive visionary information through touch makes an interesting cozy paranormal mystery.

What's the coolest thing you ever researched?