The only problem was I wasn’t sure how I’d frame such an entry. How to Write an Unlikeable Female Protagonist? Uhm, that would be awfully presumptuous of me and besides, I don’t think writing an “unlikeable” girl protagonist is all that different from writing a “likeable” one. Also, there’s the issue that Parker and Regina seem to be more liked than they’re hated, so have I even written an unlikeable protagonist? Or maybe I shouldn’t say readers actually like them, so much as they understand them? Also, if I write unlikeable too much it stops looking like a word and my God that is tragic, why would anyone make me do that to a word.

So THAT is why I haven’t written a blog entry on the topic: the actual writing of an unlikeable main character is less complicated than talking about writing one. But still, I get questions about and relating to the likeability of my female protagonists.

Readers seem to want to know why:

1. I would make Parker and Regina so unlikeable and
2. Do I really believe anyone would suffer their company willingly (like Chris, Jake and Michael) and
3. Do I think readers (or anyone) should like them

These are pretty great questions. If you don’t want to read the rest of this entry, the short answers are 1) because I wanted to 2) yes and 3) that’s up to the reader and there you go.

Before I wrote Cracked Up to Be, I wrote another YA novel. It had two POVs–a boy named Peter and a girl named Margot–and, get this, it was written in third person. The book got me so close to representation, there is a whole story there about how I pulled my hair out, but never mind that.

So it got rejected a lot. And what all the rejections seemed to come down to was that people liked Peter and hated Margot. SURE, there may have been massive other problems with the novel but to cope with the sting of (literally) hundreds of rejections, I needed to pinpoint what they all had in common and then uh, get defensive about it. So Margot was what they had in common. She was cold. They couldn’t connect with her. I took the manuscript out and reevaluted it, wondering if I could make her more ‘likeable’ (whatever that means). But when I read it, I had a problem: I liked her and I didn’t think I could change her.

(Just so you know, Margot spent the first half of the book hating her perfect boyfriend and wanting him to die. Then in the second half he DID and then she was like, “Oh man.” WAT is unloveable about that, I ask you.)

So I did a lot of navel-gazing soul-searching and I just kept getting annoyed because my thoughts decided to circle in this way: WHY DO GIRLS HAVE TO BE NICE ALL THE TIME THEY CAN BE MEAN AND ANGRY AND GENDER STEREOTYPING MUCH ARGH. Just. Like. That. I was bothered that the behaviours that are supported, loved, celebrated or romanticized in male characters would be, I thought, rejected in female characters because we have the perception that girls are sugar and spice and everything nice (er, not that I think wanting your significant other to DIE is an inherently male characteristic).

We are HARD on girls.

And please don’t mistake me: I’m not saying we’re not hard on guys at all, or that male characters aren’t held to their own set of ridiculous standards but I am writing an entry about writing unlikeable female characters, so. Anyway, just imagine a character like Sutter Keely (whom I LOVE) and Holden Caulfield (who I dream of repeatedly punching in the face) as girls. How do you think they would be received?

Or how about: imagine a girl who is outwardly hostile to her love interest, has violent tendencies, invades his personal space, and is just generally inappropriate. Like, you know–stalkery. I see a lot of that lately with male characters, and the implication is I’m supposed to think that’s hot. A lot of people DO think that’s hot in fiction, apparently, but I don’t know that we’d be encouraged to think the same thing if the aggressor in question was female.

I think that entire paragraph could turn into a conversation in itself and I’m sure someone can come along and passionately refute what I am saying etc. but I’m just telling you what got me to the point of wanting to write about and then actually writing a character like Parker. I was contemplating double standards, it was making me angry and I decided I wanted to write the meanest, most unlikeable female protagonist I could think of, because nuts to it all. Part of this also falls under the larger umbrella of why I like to write–I am interested in provoking strong responses, whether they’re positive or negative. The last thing I want is for someone to walk away from my books feeling indifferent (I think lots of writers feel this way).

The choice to return to an unlikeable protagonist with Some Girls Are was also informed by everything I’ve detailed above, perhaps even more so because girl-bullying is such a taboo topic. No one wants to believe the extremes girls will go to to make each other miserable. Like Rachel Simmons, I believe that the expectation that girls must be ‘nice’ abets their aggressive behaviour. I think girls can be physically violent (you wouldn’t–or maybe you would–believe how many times I was told by interested parties that if I was writing a book about girl bullies, they could not be physically violent with each other because girls are only aggressive psychologically).

Part of writing Some Girls Are was gathering up all these ideas of how girls are ‘supposed’ to bully each other and wanting to write against them. I’ve talked about why I needed to write Some Girls Are on a personal level, but so much of Some Girls Are grew out from–SPOILERS–the scene with the girls on the side of the road because I was told girls would never, ever behave that way because… girls. Just. Don’t. (Psh.)

Making Regina a former mean girl who grapples with and indulges in and, at points, enjoys her mean girl tendencies (whether it’s right or wrong) was a no-brainer for me. I wanted to make a difficult story more difficult; not only in the interest of challenging readers (hopefully) but to challenge myself. I think having Regina be a nice girl/accidental target would have been an easy, safe choice to make. I identify with Regina a lot but her instinct is different than mine. Exploring that was not always easy, but that is what made it rewarding. That’s what’s in it for me when I make these kinds of choices. That’s a lot, in my opinion.

Do I really believe that anyone would willingly suffer the company of my main characters? Would they really have a Chris, Jake and Michael inserting themselves into their lives? The answers to both of these questions, for me, is yes. I can think of about eighteen million jerks (yes MILLION) I know IN REAL LIFE who are surrounded by incredible support systems, who have love in their lives. I don’t hesitate in my answer. People are complex and it is never as simple as “bad people should have no friends, good people should.” (I don’t think Parker and Regina are bad people, though.) I think it’s realistic, I think it’s possible. Of course!

I sometimes think the reason people approach me with the question is because they (and I do this too) struggle with the idea of who deserves and doesn’t deserve that kind of support… when really, how much someone is given–regardless of how nice they are or aren’t–in terms of love and support isn’t up to us, unless we’re the ones doing the giving.

That is why reader response fascinates me; being told by people exactly what they think Parker and Regina do and don’t deserve is probably one of the most gratifying things I’ve experienced in having these books published. I don’t think anyone is wrong in what they feel about either of those girls, whether they hate them or they don’t. But I love when they feel strongly about it and I love when they feel strongly enough about it to tell me.

Finally, do I think readers should like Parker and Regina? As I said, that’s up to the reader and that’s all there is to it. As I said, I have hopes that people will respond to my work whether they like it or hate it (indifference is what terrifies me!), but the last thing I will do is tell someone how they should respond. There are no “right” or “wrong” ways to feel about Parker and Regina.

So. That is what I have to say about writing unlikeable female protagonists.

OH WAIT! I just read an interview with hilarious comedian Louis CK and he talked about likeability and I wish I’d just smacked this quote up instead of this entry BUT OH WELL, this is what he said:

“Well, I think “likability” is an overused word. I don’t watch people ’cause I like them; I watch them because they’re compelling. Sympathetic is a little different. It’s like I understand this person, and I never know quite what they’re going to do and I’m really interested in what they might do next and they feel real to me. That’s, I think, way more valuable than likable. Likable just thins you out…”

I love that man. UGH he is in Toronto in July and I won’t get to see him! Sob, sob. Wait what were we talking about again?

PS Eddie in Fall For Anything will be my first non-mean girl character. MAYBE SHE WILL BE THE MOST UNLIKEABLE OF THEM ALL! Who knows!

I can’t wait to find out.

Fall For Anything appears to have a release date and that day is December 21st, 2010. In unrelated news: I hear a lot of gift-giving occurs around this time of year. It’s also available for pre-order on a few Canadian bookselling sites (how I discovered the date!), but I’ll put a multitude of pre-order links up on the book’s page after it has spread everywhere like the zombie plague I am totally prepared for. I like to update things in one go because I’m a busy person with lots of Mario Kart to play, okay (speaking of which: I unlocked! Rosalina!).

Because Fall For Anything is availble for pre-orders in a few spots, that means it’s on GoodReads! If you want to read it, I’d lurve if you added it to your To-Read list. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend.

And that is all the Fall For Anything news that is fit to print! I am anxiously awaiting permission to show you guys the cover and nervously anticipating copyedits, which is like the math of this whole publishing process to me, which means it is scary and I can’t do it in front of people.

Yeah, I know.

NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT DELICIOUS FOOD.

One thing that I love to do is cook, so I am going to talk about cooking now. CAN YOU HANDLE MY TRUTH. Anyway, I’ve noticed lots of publishing folks place a lot of stock in baked goods and sweets but no one talks about SAVORY EASY MEALS. I have decided to be the person that does.

In case you don’t know, food is awesome. I am always on the quest for ‘The Perfect X.’ Did you know that my 2010 will be defined by the fact that I found the perfect red sauce for pasta which made me reconsider everything I ever thought about food (this is a true story, please get out your Kleenex). I had been searching for the perfect red pasta sauce for YEARS (THAT IS NOT AN EXAGGERATION) and then Smitten Kitchen introduced me to Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce with butter and onions. It has THREE ingredients. THREE. This is the sauce they serve to the angels in heaven, I assume. Or this sauce is made of angels, I don’t know. I heard a choir of them SING when I tasted it, anyway. And like that, after years–YEARS!–I had found my perfect red sauce.

BUT IT WAS A REVELATION TO ME. It was in that beautiful moment I realized I was overthinking food. I felt the best recipes had to be complicated and crazy and involve many ingredients, but now I am trying to do more with less.

Yesterday I made the most awesome vegetarian sub. But it might not qualifiy as a ‘do more with less’ recipe. In any case, it was so good I am going to write it into a novel. What you do is, you chop up some green peppers, onion, portobello mushrooms, mince some garlic. Sprinkle them with dried oregano and salt and pepper. Sautee them in some olive oil until they are nice and soft. Take yer sub bun! Thinly spread herb cream cheese on one or both slices of the bread depending on how much or little regard you have for the fact that cream cheese is not all that good for you in extreme quantities. If you are like me, you prefer enough herb cream cheese to kill several men. Take your nice and soft vegetables and spoon them onto your sub. Put some sub sauce on the veggies. Put some provolone cheese on top of that! Chop some tomatoes and put them on the cheese and then you know, put the top bun on and EAT IT.

And then love yourself and the world.

photo by Liz West

…

Ok.

So basically this year I have been trying to be as uncomplicated as possible in my endeavors in the kitchen. But I want every uncomplicated meal I make to taste like angels. I picked up The Flavor Bible and am totally hoping this will help me do that, but we shall see. Now that I have found the perfect red sauce, I am on a quest for the perfect vinaigrette and salad dressing and vegetable sandwich. Though the sub comes very close, IT IS NOT SIMPLE ENOUGH. And also I want to make an entire raw food meal one of these days BUT WHO KNOWS. I have many great aspirations in the kitchen when I am not writing novels and now you know.

Anyway, I think the whole point of this entry is that if I can impart any knowledge to you today, dear blog readers, it is not future book release dates, it is that LIME AND TOMATOES WERE MEANT TO BE TOGETHER.

That is all.

The last week of May always reminds me of trips to and from the hospital, navigating the back streets of the city in the car with my mom and my grandmother. One trip stands out. I am not sure how close he was, if we were right in the middle of it or nearing the end, but it was a beautiful day and I made a mental note to remember that. I can still see the houses, the trees and the shadows they cast in the sun. I don’t know why I told myself not to forget that exact moment but it’s stuck in my head and it is so vivid.

Waiting rooms. Soft cushy chairs and couches, the carpets. Standing outside the hospital at night, watching people go in and out. How the air felt out there. I remember the breeze exactly.

This is probably so morbid, but if there is one subject I think I could write about over and over again, it’s loss and grief. The way it transforms us. I will never stop being fascinated by the inescapable reality of losing people and the the things we carry after someone we love has gone. How we cope. The questions that kind of loss inspires.

I try to carve out answers in books, one published, one to be published, lots not, knowing full well I’m not going to come away anymore satisfied than I was when I started. I just end up with more questions, which almost inevitably become more books. But there’s something in asking those questions out loud, I think.

Sometimes it’s not just asking those questions, but trying to articulate a certain feeling–physical and emotional–so it can be more understood, so there is less loneliness in having it. Like, I’ve always wanted to know if everyone’s throat gets so constricted it aches right at the top and it’s like there’s something there you can’t even swallow around? And it hurts so much you can’t even speak. But in that exact spot. At the top of the back of your throat? It’s sort of like how I get brain freeze except not, which is totally weird, I know, but the best way I can describe it. Or how grief can make your skin feel like an electric bruise.

Fall For Anything is a book about grief and loss. It was a hard book to write. Sometimes it would veer left when I thought it should be going right and other times it was just the opposite, but in the end I think it did what it was supposed to and I think everything is exactly where it’s supposed to be on the last page. Mostly, I wanted it to be honest. Peeling off a band-aid. At one point in the book, Eddie thinks, I think to find some kind of understanding, you have to be as close to the truth as you can get to it. I believe in that, whenever I write and whatever I write. Otherwise, what is the point?

I drafted Some Girls Are at my grandparents’ house, that summer. It is not a book about death, which is sort of funny because I was surrounded by my grandfather’s absence when I wrote it. I wrote in the kitchen all through the night and I always had a bottle of water, a cup of coffee and a can of coke next to my laptop. Sometimes, when I was stuck, I would wander into the dining room, where there are photographs of him. I would look at them. I would go back into the kitchen. I would sit in his chair. I would get back to work.

It will be two years this Thursday.

We put a solar light on his gravestone. I like to go past it when we’re in the car at night and see it.

It was pretty exciting.

But it was not the most exciting thing that happened to me in the last month (I don’t like those things so much anymore, though). I have missed you, Internet! Thank you for being patient with me while I scrabbled to meet an incredibly intense deadline, fell drastically behind in emailing and blogs and thank you in advance for your continued patience as I scrabble to catch up.

I have to say, the best thing about my absence was some stuff happened so I’ve got blog entry material. I HAVE THINGS TO TELL YOU! That doesn’t happen often as we all know.

So the first exciting thing is that Fall For Anything is DONE. Done, done, done! Okay, copy-edits and first pass pages are all on the horizon but it’s pretty much done. When I can share more–plot summary, cover, release date and whatnot, I will. But the main thing is that it’s finished and that is a very nice thing to type. I got chills.

The second exciting thing is I’m thrilled to report Some Girls Are has been nominated for YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults and it is a nominee for their Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers. So cool! And it’s in very good company. And speaking of Some Girls Are, it’s now available for a few e-readers, so if you’ve been waiting for it to come out on the Kindle or the Nook, it’s here…

When I wasn’t working on Fall for Anything (or ‘Eddie’ as I call it 99% of the time, for it’s main character), I was preparing for the OLA’s (Ontario Library Association) Forest of Reading/Festival of Trees. Last October (LAST OCTOBER! Where is time going?) I announced that Cracked Up to Be was nominated for the White Pine Award. On May 12th, the nominees gathered for the Festival of Trees at the Toronto Harbourfront Centre. It’s a HUGE event that takes place over two days and thousands of readers visit and interact with authors.

It was an incredible day. I was up at four AM and on the road shortly thereafter so I could arrive in Toronto by 9:30. When I arrived, I got a badge with my name on it and a green ribbon and I had to note that because I <3 green. I met Pam Bustin first, (the author of Mostly Happy, which went on to win the White Pine–congratulations, Pam!) who is lovely and energetic and then directly after breakfast in the green room, I went to my signing tent which I shared with Susan Juby and Tim Wynne Jones, who were both very friendly and engaging and very cool and looked like they knew what they were doing at all times (which I envied!).

And then it was time to go onstage! Sabrina Jalees MCed the event and she was so hilarious we (mostly) forgot about the cold. And then the authors were paraded (literally!) onstage. Each author was accompanied by two people. One person holding a sign with the authors’ name on it (my sign holder’s name escapes me but she was a really nice girl–thank you!) and your speaker, who introduces you very kindly (thank you, Mel!) and then oh my goodness, the author has to speak. Which I did. And I didn’t fall down or nothin’ so that was awesome.

(Any day I don’t fall on my face is awesome.)

So, in short: a GREAT day. I want to thank everyone who worked hard to make it all possible and to make it run so smoothly. I can only imagine how much planning goes into an event that huge, but from where I was sitting it was flawless. I got to meet so many wonderful librarians and volunteers and readers and authors and I feel truly grateful to be in such a wonderful community.

And then the four hour drive home!

The next day, I gave three talks to teen readers about writing and publishing at a Voices of the Forest event at a local (for me!) education center, along with the wonderful Lesley Livingston, Pam Bustin and Susan Juby. I was incredibly fortunate to have my talks attended by awesome readers and writers who asked great questions and were just–I know I’m using a lot of positive adjectives in this post but they all apply! They were great, cool, awesome, nice. And now I must make use of this space to thank Pearl H., who tirelessly organized the event, but was unable to attend it. THANK YOU, PEARL! I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet.

So that was also a great day. And after the talks, we got the keys locked in the car and had to get a man with a coat hanger to fish them out so that was pretty exciting too.

SO MUCH EXCITEMENT!

Andddd that is what has happened in my neck of the woods since I cruelly abandoned this blog to uhm, do those things (I can’t emphasize enough that if you want up-to-the-minute news, you can get it if you follow me on Twitter). I am so going to spend June reading, relaxing and getting caught up on, well, everything and thinking hard about what book I will write next after Fall For Anything. Also maybe blogging more regularly? (Ha ha ha!)

Basically, I’m briefly deadline and outside-obligations free, so THE WORLD IS MY OYSTER.

And what I would really like to know is–

How are YOU?

HOLD ON, COURTNEY. BACK THE TRUCK UP, you are saying. THAT AS EXTRAORDINARY. HOW DID THIS COME TO BE?

Well, Internet, I will tell you.

First, I am a big fan of Survivor. SINCE SEASON ONE. And then some people invented Twitter. Flash forward to I don’t know how many years it has been, to January 7th, 2010. I had just woken up from a nap. It was a day like any other, except it was not quite day. It was early evening. It was an early evening like any other. I logged into Twitter and checked my @ replies, where Adele of Persnickety Snark (who is also having a blogoversary celebration which I contributed to here–happy anniversary, Adele!) tells me that JEFF PROBST now has a twitter.

I immediately made it my new goal in life to get Jeff Probst to tweet hello to me on Twitter. And questioned how that could happen. And THEN! The wonderful Catt AKA The Dreamer Reader tweeted to get the ball rolling.

And then I questioned whether or not Twitter would make a dream come true (SPOILER: IT DOES).

MEANWHILE, Scott Tracey (whose novel WITCH EYES, which I can’t wait to read, comes out in 2011 from Flux) dubbed my new goal in life Project #sayhitocourtney. And then so many wonderful folks chimed in, asking Jeff Probst to say hello to me (THANK YOU WONDERFUL FOLKS).

CAN YOU BELIEVE THE AMAZINGNESS OF TWITTER? I always have. May this story make you doubters see the light.

And then I think an hour went by.

(TOTAL ELAPSED TIME: AN HOUR)

… And then, THIS MAN, Internet:

Photographic proof:






WHAT? YOU WOULD LIKE A CLOSER VIEW, YOU SAY?

HERE IS A CLOSER VIEW:

Internet, between THAT and the release of this:

So Some Girls Are had an incredible release week and I have to thank everyone who tweeted, Facebooked, emailed, called, and blogged about it. To wake up to that was totally overwhelming and I don’t think I can say thank you enough. THANK YOU! Quite a few reviews of Some Girls Are came in this week and I promised I’d do a round-up in my blog entry. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read it and review it:

I really hope I am not missing anyone. If I am, accept my apologies as it has been Quite a Week and don’t hesitate to let me know and I’ll add it here ASAP! As always, I put all reviews on the Some Girls Are page and try to stay on top of sharing them on my Facebook Page.

I was also lucky enough to share release dates with Lisa Schroeder and Dia Reeves, whose novels Chasing Brooklyn and Bleeding Violet, respectively, also came out. I am looking forward to reading Bleeding Violet and I devoured and LOVED Chasing Brooklyn–it was brilliant! I posted my review on GoodReads here.

So that is how epic my week has been, Internet! Next week won’t compare. Sad but true.

My agent’s guidance, support, cheerleading, keen eye, belief in my work, patience, listening, savvy, passion and communication has made all the difference in this crazy/overwhelming/fantastic business of writing. Cracked Up to Be was going to be my last attempt at trying to get published before going on hiatus and looking into more practical pursuits. I didn’t want to stop, but I was really starting to think seeing my books on shelves wasn’t in the cards…

I remember querying my agent, I remember getting the full request in my inbox, I remember getting her email about wanting to discuss representation. My heart totally stopped. I remember that initial phone conversation, hanging up and telling my mom, “I want Amy to be my agent.” And very shortly after that, she was. Two years later, here we are!

I will always be grateful for my agent’s belief in Parker’s story, in Regina’s story, in the books I’m working on now. I wrote and dreamed of being published. Amy was obviously instrumental in making that dream a reality. She put my books into the hands of an incredible editor, who I also love working with, and now those books are being read, which is something I may never quite believe but will always be so grateful for. It’s changed my life! That alone makes it really hard to articulate just how much I love working with my agent and how much I appreciate her. What words could do someone who has made that kind of positive impact justice? None. But I will tell you that one of my absolutely favourite parts about finishing Some Girls Are was putting Amy’s name on the dedication line.

Amy, thank you for all the hard work you do on my behalf.

For a list of participating blogs, check out this entry at Lisa and Laura’s blog, and to all those hard-working, awesome agents out there, this is for you:

Beth Kephart, Neesha Meminger, Margo Rabb and many other awesome authors weighed in and the ensuing discussion in the comments is good stuff. After I took it all in, I thought, God, I wanna talk about writing Some Girls Are and why I chose mean girls for my next novel, but I don’t know where to begin.

I’m still not sure where to begin, but when has this stopped me from doing anything? Never!

I think mean girl lit is booming not because it’s easier to write about mean girls (it’s so not easier to write about mean girls, in my experience!), but because girl aggression and bullying has and, unfortunately, may always be pretty prevalent in our society (while I was writing Some Girls Are, my friends would often forward me horrifying news stories about girl-bullying). I think mean girls are so very much a part of popular culture now because we’re very eager to see our reality reflected in fiction, to find some understanding in our experiences and to feel less alone.

Some Girls Are is a story about one particular group of really, really horrible girls who abuse their status in high school and treat each other like complete and utter shit while they do it. I had no intention to proselytize about the horrors of girl-bullying nor to glamorize it. Though redemption plays a role in Regina’s story, I wouldn’t consider it a mean-girl-gone-good type novel. I feel Some Girls Are is about desperate attempts at self-preservation in an increasingly hostile environment.

At the same time, I also prefer people to draw their own conclusions about what I put out there, so maybe someone will argue everything I just said and insist that it proselytizes, glamorizes girl-bullying and is a redemption story. So maybe the most I can say about my own book is that it is definitely about mean girls.

EITHER WAY. Why mean girls? I guess they’re trending, but I don’t write to trends, I write what interests me. Mean girls have always fascinated me and I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing the girl-bullying I perpetrated and experienced in my school days. One thing that constantly amazes me is how fresh that pain and humiliation feels after all these years in a way a lot of other, crappier experiences I’ve gone through just… don’t. That I haven’t gone through that kind of emotional warfare and manipulation in my relationships with girls since I left school gives me further pause.

When I was in school, I was very codependent and afraid to be alone. The only way for me to offset that anxiety was to attach myself to people, other girls. I never quite made the connections I wanted to because I wasn’t coming from a very sincere place, but I didn’t care because anything was better than being left alone. I also happened to be one of those girls there was nothing to be gained by knowing and I knew this made me expendable. It’s strange to, at a very young age, know you’re expendable without fully understanding why. My expendability made me feel threatened and so I would strategize a lot to ensure my positioning within my clique without even considering what I was doing as strategizing. I worked hard at working my way up with the kind of mathematical precision that amazes me in hindsight because the LAST thing I am is mathematically precise.

I eventually managed to become very close to a power player. I enjoyed that position a little too much. And after it all blew up in my face (inevitable), I found myself living my nightmare: I was isolated, alone. A fate worse than death. I was teased and degraded in those subtle, underhanded ways girls often bully each other. Despite the role I played in my own downfall, I was hurt, betrayed and ANGRY. And I had little to no understanding of why this stuff was happening.

Well, I knew why but not, y’know, WHY.

And can I just say, my anger was magnificant! And yet, for as angry and betrayed and demeaned as I was, I was also convinced I COULD NOT LIVE without these very same girls. So I was in this place of HATING THEM while shuffling up to them with my head down and begging for their forgiveness at regular intervals. Not pretty.

They did eventually forgive me. Somehow, being around this group of people who knew how to use my deepest, darkest fears and secrets against me was better than spending recess alone (yeah, again–WHY?!). I spent the rest of my school days terrified of my BFFs. I worried horribly about making one misstep and was constantly bracing myself for a fall. I became a constant apologizer, just in case. I frustrated my friends by asking them repeatedly if they were mad at me, because I never wanted to be surprised like that again.

It wouldn’t be until much later that I realized my perspective on my girl-bullying experiences evolved and became distorted during and after the time they occurred. I felt so victimized that I could not remember a time I was terrible. I honestly couldn’t. The contempt I had for my old friends was fierce and the self-aggrandizing self-pity I had for myself was truly a thing to behold. This bitterness it left with me motivated me in weird ways (“I will show them all!”) and gave me a weird sense of entitlement I can’t totally describe.

Anyway, then one night, years later, I found an old tin of passed notes from my school days, between me and those girls. And, wow. There it was in my own handwriting, something that I couldn’t deny–

I was awful.

I can still remember that cringing, red-faced, stomach-sinking feeling of seeing JUST HOW AWFUL I WAS to my friends. It was a… humbling moment to say the least.

It was also a turning point.

From that point on, I was obsessed with my own experiences, my awfulness, the really bizarre dynamic I had with my friends, and desperate to shed some light on what I had gone through. I realized that as I was going through it at the time, I was desperate for someone else to do the same. I basically felt (and still feel) this all-encompassing need to acknowledge it and talk about it and find out if I wasn’t alone. I would begin exploring my experiences through storytelling. First I took photographs:

Again, to touch on one of the questions in Colleen’s post, I think we’re very eager to see our reality reflected back at us in fiction. At least, I know I was (and am) and that’s what motivates me to write today. As a girl who bullied and was bullied, I was very hungry to see the truth of what I went through in art, in entertainment. And to be honest, I never quite found what I was looking for. There are lots of books out there about overcoming, to be sure, books about making sense of that kind of trauma, but I was more interested in books that drew back the curtains and showed how truly awful it was and could be in school. For me, it was not so much about finding answers, it was about finding out if people had the same questions. I wanted books that stepped back and said, “Hey! This is kinda really fucked up, isn’t it?”

Because–as a teen–I honestly did NOT want to be assured that I could overcome, weird as that might sound. I just wanted to be assured the uglyness was there because knowing other people knew it was there made me feel better. So anyway, that was my reality. I wanted and needed to put it out there some way,aAnd that is ultimately why I wrote Some Girls Are, why I chose to write about mean girls.




… AND I GUESS I JUST THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW.