I just have to be super strong when it comes to my work time. Shut the browser, ignore the email alerts, and just WRITE.

It was always late at night, when everything and everyone else was quiet, that those voices would rise like ghosts, soft and haunting, filling your mind until sleep finally came.

So it just wasn't in my house. Anywhere, I looked like I knew about the toilet.

But in the real world, you couldnt really just split a family down the middle, mom on one side, dad the other, with the child equally divided between. It was like when you ripped a piece of paper into two: no matter how you tried, the seams never fit exactly right again. It was what you couldn't see, those tiniest of pieces, that were lost in the severing, and their absence kept everything from being complete.

but accepting help doesn‟t have to mean giving up control.

My agent is so totally honest, which is just what every writer needs. She won't let me sell a crappy book, even if I want to.

And so we stood there in the kitchen, my mother and I, facing off over everything that had built up since June, when I was willing to hand myself over free and clear. Now I needed her to return it all to me, with the faith that I could make my own way.