Forgiveness is hard. Acceptance is doable.

You're not a sucker. You're just nice. You give people the benefit of the doubt.

The way I see it," she continued, "is that some things are just meant to be the way they are.

My first signing was at my hometown independent bookstore and everyone in the world came. It was so nice. My family was there, my parents, everybody I worked with, all my friends. So I had this great first reading with a like hundred people there.

How weird that must be, to stay the same as everyone else changes.

I'm incredibly flattered when people tell me that my books helped them through high school. Because of my own experience, the thought that something I wrote might help someone who felt the way I did when I was a teen...that's huge. It awes me.

But risk is just part of relationships. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.