Writing a novel has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. 

I am now over 61,000 words into my young adult novel that I started back when I was nineteen, almost twenty. I was in a loveless relationship and one day these characters became the people I loved and cared about. I dreamt them up to escape the life that I was living. I felt trapped, like I was watching my life from the outside and I would scream at myself to get out (now!) but I wasn’t listening. I was too wrapped up in trying to make my life work that when it suddenly didn’t, I had to find another way of being happy.

This novel is just that. It’s my happiness. But it’s also my sadness, my frustration, my depression, my addiction. It has aspects of my own life and experiences bundled into the life of my characters. I feel so close to Estella that sometimes I blur the lines of what I experienced with what she experienced. Mitchell is so heartbreakingly beautiful that I sometimes find myself lost in his words, like I haven’t written them but they are actually being spoken to me. 

I see the finish line ahead of me. All these years have come to this moment. Mitchell & Estella’s story is finally wrapping up.

Sixty One Thousand Words.

And counting.