Don't tell readers what to think. Let the action speak for itself.

This was my one brush with love. Was it love? It felt awful enough. I spent another two years crawling around in the skin of it, smoking too much and growing too thin and having stray thoughts of jumping from my balcony like a tortured heroine in a Russian novel.

Books could be an incredible adventure. I stayed under my blanket and barely moved, and no one would have guessed how my mind raced and my heart soared with stories.

I would gladly have climbed out of my skin and into his that night, because I believed that was what love meant.

Sometimes I wish we could rub out all of our mistakes and start fresh, from the beginning,' I said. 'And sometimes I think there isn't anything to us but our mistakes.

All that was left for me was a terrible kind of paralysis, this waiting game, this heartbreak game.

If I can write one sentence, simple and true every day, I'll be satisfied.