Penelope in Retrograde

by Brooke Abrams

“Because that’s what books are made for. They’re made to connect you to people, real or fictional, even when you feel like you’re completely alone.”

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.

“It’s not the beginning that’s painful in my opinion. It’s the ending that came before it. New moons represent that too. The end of one phase and the beginning of a new.”

Real tears

“We don’t always get to choose when one phase ends and another begins, but we can choose how we face it.”

“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.”

“Write down your dreams, hopes, and desires on a slip of paper, and burn them. My mother used to call it writing love letters to the universe. Set your intentions and trust yourself to follow through.”