Suck It Up. This Is The Life

Prancing Around With Marshmallowss On Your Nipples Does *not* Constitute Living Your Life Fully!

We All Mess Up. It's What We Learn From Our Mistakes That Matters.

And They Just Slam The Door. And They Don't Peek Into That Land Any More. And They Forget That Teens And Tweens Are People, Absolutely Just As Much As Adults Are. And Their Problems May Play Out On A Smaller Scale, But The Things They Go Through Are Equally As Valid As A Ceo Trying To Figure Out How To Deal With A Crisis At Work. I Just Write For Teens Because I Love 'em.

I've Written A Lot Of Novels For Teens And Tweens ... But I'd Never Really Tackled The North Carolina Side Of Me. And It's So Strong And So Important, And Yet I Hadn't Acknowledged It. And So One Of The Things I Wanted To Do In "shine" Is Take That On.

I'm A Southern Girl, And I Grew Up With This Slightly Schizophrenic Upbringing Where I Bounced Back And Forth Between Atlanta, Georgia, And A Tiny Mountain Town Called Brevard, North Carolina. My Parents Were Divorced, And My Two Lives Were Very Different Because Of Socioeconomic Reasons.