I'm just an Orange County girl from a loving family making music with my friends. It's not really that big of a deal.

When you write a great song, it just blows you away. When you write a song that connects with people around the world - I mean like it actually transcends language barriers - you see how it can affect people, and it's quite a tall order to follow up on.

My songs are basically my diaries. Some of my best songwriting has come out of time when I've been going through a personal nightmare.

I was a different person before I started to write. When I realized I could be a songwriter and that people would listen - that was when I started feeling good in my life.

I don't fight with people - like, I can barely fight with my husband because I'll just start crying instead.

I was down after divorce - I was all the way down. And I just felt like, "God, I gotta turn this around. I can't go down like this. I have to know that this is happening for a reason." And I knew that I had to turn to music.

The moment you get pregnant, you're tortured by the fear of not doing it well. But I feel at peace with that right now.