Great love endures time, heartache, and distance. And even when all seems lost, true love lives on.

You know, things fall apart. You grieve. And then you sit around and wait for things to somehow get perfect again. But they don’t. They never can. There is no perfect. There’s just different. But different can be wonderful.

I'm no longer willing to let myself down.

The definition of a true friend is not someone who swoops in when you're going through a rough patch. True friendship is when someone can appreciate your happiness - celebrate your happiness, even when she's not necessarily happy herself.

We're each given one life, and it's our job to make it useful, beautiful, and fulfilling. There is no value in suffering through it, doing something we hate. There's no prize at the end for that kind of endurance. Just a spent life.

Great love endures time, heartache, and distance. And even when all seems lost, true love lives on.

Everyone tells you to write what you know. It’s the tried-and-true advice every writer hears at some point in her career. But to take my writing to a deeper level, I’ve found that a better practice is to simply write what frightens you, haunts you, even. I now keep a sign on the bulletin board in my office that reads: 'Write What Scares You.' I’ve learned that tapping into the hard stuff — whether it’s the fear of loss or a boogeyman lurking in childhood memories — is what ultimately gives a story the power to leap off the page and grab you by the collar.