Technically I've improved - I might turn a metaphor in five words now, where years ago, it would have taken me a paragraph. I can't say it was intentional - but you know what they say about practice making perfect...!

It is strange to think that we might have crossed paths, and still not have known what we were missing.

It's never the differences between people that suprise us. It's the things that, against all odds, we have in common.

You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.

And that was the greatest heartbreak of all- no matter how spectacular we want our children to be, no matter how perfect we pretend they are, they are bound to disappoint. As it turns out, kids are more like us than we think: damaged, through and through.

When you finally start to write something, do not let yourself stop...even when you are convinced it's the worst garbage ever. This is the biggest caveat for beginning writers. Instead, force yourself to finish what you began, and THEN go back and edit it.

I think this is every mother's worst nightmare - something dreadful happening to her child.