I had definitely missed the literary development game with Paper Lantern Lit, and writing exclusively wasn't giving me complete fulfillment.

Writing is my therapy.

I'm definitely of the 'Harry Potter'-transfigured-me-into-a-reader-and-writer generation. And that's really all I read throughout my teen years, because I really devoted all my time to writing and reading friends' fan-fiction.

For me, I remember being 19 and coming out as bi to all of my friends. I'd had girlfriends, and all of these experiences and such, and then, as I got older, I started identifying as gay.

I'm always writing from some difficult place and seeing how the character survives... or doesn't.

I don't think I'm capable of giving a character every possible victory, no matter how much I love them, without feeling as if their ending isn't genuine to their actual trials.