When you open the door, be careful what you let in: The process of losing your mind as a writer.

All three books in the Skin Collection trilogy came all at once - like a tidal wave. Like a thunder storm where every concept struck me like lightening until I looked something akin to a friendly/ deranged homeless psychopath. As soon as i allowed ideas to come back to me (I'd walked away from the story when I turned 14 and moved schools) - it was like 10 years of thoughts crashing into me. 10 years of memories that never existed. i was alone, It was beautiful and I was a disaster.

I didn't know how to control my mind. I let the story consume me. It hit me like a truck after years of whispering. I locked myself in my room for 3 years.

Here's the thing, stories - really great ones - never get boring - no matter how many times you tell them - as a story-teller you just get better at telling them. and the truth was, I’ve only ever told it to myself - it was vague and fragmented. i thought after writing the first draft (little did I know, thank God, that I'd spend several years obsessively rewriting it), that i knew all about writing (hahaha).

What people who try to help you become a better writer never tell you is this: when the story comes it is going to consume you and you will never be the same again, and it will be violent and transforming and from that moment you will worship it above all things until your very last breath.

The next secret is that if you're ever lucky enough to meet someone who is not a writer and understands this, you must create some space to worship them too.