You have to write a lot. And you have to rewrite what you wrote a lot more.

I survive at the edge of friends circles.

You said you were allowed to lose it,' some part of her reminded herself. 'Not yet, not yet.

You want me to say something? Okay. Sometimes I think I am what you made me. And sometimes I don’t know who I am at all. And either way I’m not happy.

You are the only thing I have that is neither duty nor obligation, the only thing I chose for myself. The only thing I want.

She'd always been a little contemptuous of beauty, as though it was something you had to trade away some other vital thing for.

She sat in the dew-damp grass and ripped up clumps of it, tossing them in the air and feeling vaguely guilty about it. Some gnome ought to pop out of the tree and scold her for torturing the lawn.