You must reach inside yourselves where I live like a story, not old, not young laughing at my own sorrow, weeping pearls at weddings, wielding a torch to melt sand into something clear and bright.

We no longer believe in fairy tales. But we will learn to believe in monsters

i could see the veins through your skin like a map to inside you. how could skin be that thin? i was so afraid you might drop and break. i stopped breathing so you wouldn't.

Write with abandon and no constraints for first draft. Cut brutally and save in separate files on second draft. Add conflict; don't be afraid to make your characters suffer. Read what you love. Write what you love. Love.

L.A. kills people.' Jacaranda said. 'You're lucky you're leaving. You'll be able to write.' She looked paler, going through another depression, smoking in bed in her lilac room. The walls were the color of her veins. She was getting too thin, even for the modeling. . .Jacaranda died last winter when the flowering trees were bare. You couldn't even tell which ones once cried the purple blossoms she named herself after.

At first we raced through space, like shadows and light; her rants, my raves; her dark hair, my blonde; black dresses, white. She's a purple-black African-violet-dark butterfly and I a white moth. We were two wild ponies, Dawn and Midnight, the wind electrifying our manes and our hooves quaking the city; we were photo negatives of each other, together making the perfect image of a girl.

Everything was chocolate ice cream and kisses and wind.