A few times over the past couple years, I’ve let it slip around these circles that I wrote a book. It started on an unsuspecting day in July 2010. Suddenly, there were words in my head that begged to be set free, and so I started typing. For the next few months I sat at the keyboard and allowed the text to pour from my fingertips. When I was finished, I’d written the story of a divorce from the perspective of a twelve-year-old girl named Gina (I posted an excerpt from her diary earlier this week).

At first, I thought I was writing for young adults in Gina’s situation. It was several pages— possibly several days— before I realized that, more than anything, I wanted adults to read Gina’s story.