Family is not just what you’re born into

For the past seventeen, almost eighteen years, sometimes (like this weekend) H is the only person I want to talk to. It's so easy. Sometimes we are lucky enough to find that.

I am working on revisions for PERMANENT INK. I am having a really hard time with Keeley. Keeley has always been very clear in my mind. I know exactly what she looks like and what books are on her shelf and that she only sleeps well in her own house and that she listens to Belle & Sebastian. What I am having a hard time with, is filling out the history of her friendship with Noelle—and I mean the history that happened in the lifetime before the pages of the book. I want the page to show how a friendship can be pure joy, how sometimes when we are kids, we meet someone who we were supposed to meet, who is always going to be a part of our lives, who will feel at times like relief, like delight, like anger, like obligation, like Christmas, like birthdays, like the last person you want to see or the only voice you want to hear. I want Noelle and Keeley to look like this picture.