Penelope in Retrograde

by Brooke Abrams

I hold my fingers up in a peace sign. “Spice Girls honor.” “Is that a thing?” “I’d trust Baby Spice over a Girl Scout any day of the week. Wouldn’t you?”

Your main character has no depth, she told me. You’ve made her so perfect, she’s boring. People don’t read books about perfect people. Perfection doesn’t speak to the soul. Perfection is the antithesis of soul. If you’re going to write, you must write fearlessly. You have to let yourself go. Be willing to be ugly and unfinished. Lay your soul naked and bare. Anything less is a waste of time.

“Happiness isn’t a place you go back to. Happiness is a place you build and rebuild and then tear down and remodel a thousand times over inside you.”