Acknowledgements:

First and foremost, thank you to all of the readers who stuck with me on this story. Especially thank you to everyone who reviewed.

Thank you to BaronessKika, Doc, and Court81981for their beta work. Court, I didn't even know you when this story started. How crazy is that? FamousFremus, Chele20035, Oywiththepeetaalready, Nursekelly, Honeylime08 and Survivewithoutanyone all pre-read chapters and provided amazing, honest feedback. You all deserve my humblest thanks. GNO would not have been the story it is without your candor.

A tremendous amount of research and support went into this. Locations, food, brewing, music theory, cheerleading, movies, pop music, what it takes to be a mechanical engineer, yachts (including Grand Banks), Highland Games, how to wear a kilt and kilt pin, post-partum depression, eating disorders, grief, BDSM, various therapies…almost every chapter had something that we researched. I say "we" because Doc fact-checked most of what ended up in the story, which was only about one fifth of what I read. He deserves all the brownies on the planet for doing that work. I received advice, pointers to web sites, and other information from a variety of sources. It truly took a village to raise this story.

All mistakes are mine and mine alone.

Special thanks to:

Jon K. and Mike B. for their help with music theory.

Jon, and Ted & Denise F. for home brewing advice.

Damase O. from Foolproof Brewing Company for invaluable brewing information and advice regarding brewing as a business.

Carol M. for pointing me at various curricula for engineering programs.

W. O. for information regarding post-partum depression. Several Tumblr friends who may wish to remain anonymous also shared their personal experiences.

Dr. Boyle of the USC Classics department for teaching and then verifying Catullus's writings as those of the erotic variety.

Chele20035 and The-Tesseract-Wrinkling-Time for information on Highland games, particularly those in Asheville, NC.

I apologize if I've forgotten anyone.

Premise:

I wrote the first chapter of GNO for MissHoneywell's (Everlark) Prompts in Panem. The prompt was "frat house". I knew there would be a bunch of really awesome entries and I struggled with how to submit something different. After a couple of glasses of wine, I stumbled upon the idea of "Everlark through the eyes of another." But who could the "other" be? It took about two seconds to settle on Johanna as the most obvious choice, and another half a second for me to decide on first person. Another half bottle of wine and two hours later what is now chapter one was done. It was only ever meant to be a one shot.

Honeylime08 said something the next day about it being really funny and wanting to hear more about Jo's backstory. I didn't think this version of Jo could carry a longer tale, so I asked a few of my trusted readers/writer friends. Everyone agreed that they thought it could be done and that people would read it. I needed damage for Jo to get her to her iconic quotes: "There's no one left that I love", and "love is weird". I came up with a sister she couldn't save to justify her damaged heart, gulped hard, and wrote an outline for the longest one shot in the history of mankind. The outline alone is 29 pages. The characters, bless their little hearts, deviated from it pretty substantially in some parts. Like the middle. And the end. And almost every plot arc.

Locale:

I'm lazy. I'm an 'SC alum (although the campus now looks nothing like it did when I went there). My dorm was, indeed, Trojan Hall. I was a high school cheerleader. Most of the first chapter was based on stuff I knew fairly well or pulled out of thin air because of red wine. That posed some interesting challenges when it became a longer story. (Who was Jo going to pair up with? How much do I base on a fictitious frat house when I know very little about Greek life?) At least I set their hometown as the place where I grew up…so that was somewhat easy to write when I sent them home for Christmas. I have also lived in Orange County and downtown L.A., so those were fairly easy too.

Inspiration and Trivia:

Working with a secondary character as my hero instead of either of Katniss or Peeta, I got to make Peeta a total food snob and a perfectionist in his own right. I justified it as "hijacked Peeta". I'm not completely happy with him in this story, but he sure was fun to write.

Gale and Madge…yeah. I wasn't a Gadge fan when I started this story. Heck, I couldn't stand Gale. But something happens once you're in a character's head…he's more "real" to me now. Out of all the couples, they were my favorite to write for this story.

Jo's "voice" is a combination of the friend (TJ) from The Wedding Date, Jenna Malone, Haley Graham from Stick It and Hedy Lamarr. From a voice perspective, I really tried to force the reader closer to Jo. She rarely uses speaking verbs. There's very few "I feel" sorts of phrases. As a result, we're right next to her when every bit of action happens and (I think) it's a much tighter narrative.

Euphemisms for sex and other…related…words: Let's just say that Jo uses words that I don't. As a way to get around that, I tried to come up with quippy euphemisms. Chapter one was mostly for fun, alliteration, and as a way to really get her voice to come through, plus I threw in all the wood euphemisms I could think of. Subsequent chapters were more as a way to keep her voice going and to keep from repeating "dick" or the four-letter "c" word. It was very, very difficult –probably my biggest challenge—to keep finding new euphemisms.

I used color very deliberately in this story (once I was past the first chapter). Gadge's pallet is red/blue, Finn and Annie wear the seafoam family, and Peeta and Katniss use mostly greens, yellows, and oranges. Katniss has her funny pajamas, too, added as a lark. The silver of the parachutes is reflected in a few outfits Madge and Annie wear. Jo dons pink and purple at the beginning, fades into neutrals when she first develops her issues, and then finally comes back to pinks at Angus's funeral. Even her hair is symbolic…short in the beginning, longer, then short again as she figures out who she is.

Verbs were also tailored to the couple. Katniss and Gale had a lot of "shooting" verbs. Jo was "slashing" or "swiping" or "cutting". Madge was "burning" or fire imagery.

I knew Angus was going to die when I wrote the outline. It was still horrible to write that part, though.

I needed each couple to have their own plot arc. Obviously, Everlark was priority. That's funny to me now because they seem to have the least happen to them.

I read a lot of Lori Foster, Alice Clayton, Jill Shalvis and Julia Quinn while writing this. Some of it was to read funny romance dialogue. Some of it was research into alpha guys and what it takes to make an alpha. I've already mentioned that Jo's entire personality was driven by "There's no one left that I love", and "love is weird". A great influence to me in the defining of the arcs for this fic was Stephen King's It, particularly section 6 of the epilogue. That book is the only fiction book I've ever highlighted and this passage in particular encapsulates so much emotion that I still cry when I read it. I won't quote the whole thing, but it was exactly the emotion I wanted for this fic's ending. I'll leave it up to you to decide how I measured up.

And if you spare a last thought, maybe it's ghosts your wonder about…the ghosts of children standing in the water at sunset, standing in a circle, standing with their hands joined together, their faces young, sure, but tough…tough enough, anyway, to give birth to the people they will become, tough enough to understand, maybe, that the people they will become must necessarily birth the people they were before they can get on with trying to understand simple mortality. The circle closes, the wheel rolls, and that's all there is.

You don't have to look back to see those children; part of your mind will see them forever, live with them forever, love with them forever. They are not necessarily the best part of you, but they were once the repository of all you could become.

Children I love you. I love you so much.

So drive away quick, drive away while the last of the light slips away, drive away from Derry, from memory…but not from desire. That stays, the bright cameo of all we were and all we believed as children, all that shone in our eyes even when we were lost and the wind blew in the night.

Drive away and try to keep smiling. Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward all the life there is with all the courage you can find and all the belief you can muster. Be true, be brave, stand.

All the rest is darkness.

The hardest chapters to write (besides Angus's death) were those with Jo and her father, and anything Gadge-related. I had no idea they would be so tough. Gadge—Ch.38 I actually took to RomCon last year and worked through in a class. I refused to just be an E.L. James wannabe and sought to do them justice with an emotional scene that was also sexy.

So much food porn. I made or have made most of the items featured in this story. And yes, I love to eat.

Brue's name came from the SD Wild Animal Park and a teenager at the butterfly exhibit. Since the premise around this story was supposed to be Everlark, he doesn't get a lot of dialogue in the first few chapters…this worked in his favor. He ends up being this mysterious hot guy later on. Happy accident.

Brue's propensity for sex talk was established in the outline as something that could be fun. As someone who doesn't talk like that at all, it wasn't fun. It was awkward. Horrible. Asking for help from Doc was like getting a root canal. I ended up having to read a bunch of erotica (Selena Kitt comes to mind) in order to make it workable. I am so, so thankful for Baronesskika, Court 81981, FamousFremus, and Honeylime08 in that regard. Ladies, sexy ain't sexy unless you say so!

Process:

What started out as a normal fic became a serial novel, with a word count of almost 300,000. That's insane. This is the only fic I've ever written where I wrote things out of order. I hit many "blocked" events or chapters. When that happened, I either sat down and wrote around them, then filled in the gaps, or wrote something that happened later and backtracked. It was torturous, but it kept me writing. What I came to find worked for me in terms of process is this:

Write.

Reread for typos/mistakes and to get the voice at the beginning of the next day.

Write more.

Repeat.

At the end, reread and inject any Jo that needs to be added for color: humor, quips, movies, music, whatever.

Sometimes I would go back and reread earlier chapters just to "get" the voice. That's a tip for those of you who have a character who's really distinctive.

Next up:

Prince Among Men and The Hunter will be completed next. I won't post any more on them until I've got a few chapters banked. Also, don't expect anything like this sort of chapter length!

I'm also working on an original. Shock, right? It's not a rework of a fic, so none of my existing stories will be removed once it's finished.

I'm always open to constructive feedback. Feel free to review or PM me here or on Tumblr (I'm sohypothetically there too) with comments, questions, or whatever.

Doc, you gave me the gift of time and trusted me to do something worthwhile with it. I can never, ever repay you. I love you.

If you've read this far, may Peeta rain cupcakes down around you. Thank you, again, for reading.