debut-author

Red glowing eyes... No one could see her. No one could hear her. No one was coming to save her. Because Death had come sooner than expected.

I wrote a book. It sucked. I wrote nine more books. They sucked, too. Meanwhile, I read every single thing I could find on publishing and writing, went to conferences, joined professional organizations, hooked up with fellow writers in critique groups, and didn__ give up. Then I wrote one more book.

Somehow, the pain and rage and confusion of the past eighteen years dissolves until all that is left is this one perfect moment; unscripted, unedited, it's ours and ours alone.

You can't screw up your own suicide and then expect the universe to give you presents wrapped in the skin of a wonderful boy. That's just not the way it works.

He looks like the kind of boy who would jump trains, strum guitars, and pass a joint.

You know those primitive tribal people who believed a camera could steal your soul? Turns out they were right.

Even Mom doesn't understand how being in front of a camera all the time twists and warps you. How one second it makes you feel unbelievably alive and the next publicly strips you down until all that's left is one big question mark.

This, I think, is a little glimpse of what life could be like without my family. Home could be a place of laughter and love, a refuge. I'm filled with a terrifying weightlessness, like I've jumped off a cliff, but I know that if I don't look down, I'll be just fine.

I'm not Bonnie_ or Chloe. I'm the essence of her, the nontrademarked person the camera can never capture and my parents have no right to sign over. There is a sovereign nation encased in this skin that MetaReel can never trademark.

Hate is a lot like love. It's warm and fills you up until every part of you is tingling to release it.

If my sister were a character in a Victorian drama, she would be the snobbish rich girl with a penchant for talking shit about everyone behind their fan.

The past is past. You tried to kill yourself. So what? I humped a couch in season twelve. We all have our skeletons.

This night felt like a last hurrah, like we could blaze our brightest, at the apex of our insane adolescence. This was our Mardi Gras before the dark days of Lent.

I don't like seeing myself on camera." But that's not it--that sounds shallow, like I'm worried I'll look fat or something. "It's like somebody is walking on my grave. TV immortalizes you. The episodes are what my family would watch if I died.