Gay rights is not something most of us think about - because most of us happen to have been born straight.

I don't base my books on my life (thank goodness) and I don't pick the topic first. In fact, the topic picks me - via a question I can't answer as a mom, a wife, a woman, an American. I find myself wondering "What if..." and it blossoms into a whole novel.

I think that when you live in a world with limits... when you've met everyone and seem everything you're going to see - you lose the hope that something extraordinary will happen in your life

Besides the obvious difference, there was not much distinction between losing a best friend and losing a lover: it was all about intimacy. One moment, you had someone to share your biggest triumphs and fatal flaws with; the next minute, you had to keep them bottled inside. One moment, you'd start to call her to tell her a snippet of news or to vent about your awful day before realizing you did not have that right anymore; the next, you could not remember the digits of her phone number.

It feels like a punch. Tears fill my eyes, and I wonder how I could be upset over losing something I never had.

Crazy girls did this, girls who walked like zombies through YA novels. But. Trixie felt the sting of the skin as it split, the sweet welling rise of blood. It hurt, though not as much as everything else idd.

Life can change in an instant; don't be so worried about the future that you forget to celebrate what you have right now.