I am going to tell you the story of how I destroyed my first novel. It’s a story that I wrote when I was young, a story that was about a girl like me, a disabled girl, confronting horrors and adapting to a world she didn’t quite fit into. I found my way to telling a different story—one I revel in now.
I am going to tell you the story of how I destroyed my first novel, but it will take a minute because these moments don’t happen in an instant. They happen over periods of time. They are a reaction to a lifetime’s worth of lessons.