Welcome back to another Open Book Blog Hop!

Today’s topic is: Do you include any inside jokes or Easter eggs in your work?

And remember to visit my fellow writers to see what they have come up with. You can find their works here!

I only have one book right now, so having Easter eggs or inside jokes would be a little premature. Or they would simply fall on deaf ears. As I make significant headway with book two, I can’t say I’m aware of any in-jokes thus far. But who knows, maybe there are one or two I’ve not noticed yet. They certainly aren’t something I’m actively going for in my writing – if they work and fit the narrative, excellent. But if they don’t further things in a meaningful fashion, then they’ll stay inside my head, or find themselves on the cutting room floor.

That said, an Easter egg isn’t necessarily a joke or something obvious. It may not even be something that people outside of the creators will understand. The Disney Pixar universe is rife with them – Pizza Planet, the star ball, Luxo the lamp, A113 to name a few. And then of course the great Stephen King is a master at insider references. Little things appear across books that first appeared elsewhere. In the cracking book, Insomnia, personal effects are taken from characters across the King universe. Then of course there’s the Crimson King that crops up in Insomnia and within the Dark Tower series. And we cannot forget the iconic character The Man in Black/Randal Flagg/The Walkin’ Man/The Midnight Rambler/Martin Broadcloak or any of the myriad other names this evil entity takes on.