Dear Diary, September has been a very busy month for me as a writer. I finished revising Chapter 24 this morning, which is huge because I’ve been stuck on Chapters 23 and 24 for nearly two weeks. Dialogue is one of my biggest struggles, and those chapters were dialogue-heavy. My next event is the Aspen Literary Festival this weekend. I am super excited to meet Veronica Roth, who will be there signing her new book. I’m planning to bring Allegiant and ask her to sign the page where Tris dies....

Dear diary, I’m sorry that it’s been so long since I’ve been here, but I’ve been very busy chasing these dreams of mine. Over the past year, I’ve been attending just about every writers conference possible. I’ve been to so many, met so many wonderful and interesting people, and learned a lot along the way. My first novel, Mimi’s Arrow, has now been completely revised twice with the help of a developmental editor, which was absolutely one of the best things I’ve ever spent money on. I learned...

Dear Diary, Today I did a writing prompt with my sister. We had seven minutes to write using these words and phrases: Dear Diary, freedom, exposed, I write because. This is what I wrote: Dear Diary, I can say I write because it gives me freedom to say what I need to say but really just that’s a redundant cliché There are so many things that I never can say Deep thoughts, that little voice within Speaking to me about ways to interrupt the word, sin No one wants to be exposed, so we hide...