January 2011

Sunset over Mauna Kea, Hawaii

February 2011

The Raygun Gothic Rocketship (The Embarcadero, San Francisco)

March 2011

007: Look at how cute I am!

April 2011

The HUNTRESS book launch at Books Inc Palo Alto

May 2011

The very first Diversity in YA event at the San Francisco Public Library

June 2011

The Dyke March at Dolores Park, San Francisco (click to enlarge)

July 2011

The beach near San Diego

August 2011

Wild blackberries hand-picked in Sonoma County

September 2011

The (sad but necessary) removal of our giant live oak from our property due to sudden oak death syndrome

October 2011

Dinner after the last Diversity in YA event in San Diego

November 2011

Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's house

December 2011

Christmas hedgehog, de-stuffed

This means that I’ve worked more nights and weekends this year than since the height of my time working at AfterEllen … which honestly isn’t a workload I ever wanted to return to. However, one thing kept me going all year: my wonderful partner, Amy, who hasn’t yet kicked me out of the house for, um, never leaving my (home) office except to go to book events.

So this year, more than ever, I am very, very thankful for Amy, who has endured a lot of my crazy talking about imaginary people, freaking out over countless things over which I have no control, and has allowed me to watch as much HGTV as I want. I love you, Amy!

As I mentioned, this year my second novel, Huntress, was published. I knew from the beginning that this would be a challenging book for many readers, because let’s face it: Asian-inspired high fantasy about queer girls isn’t exactly the latest trend in YA. So I’m especially grateful for all of you who have read it, and who have emailed me to tell me that you connected with the story and the characters.

I’ve been amazed by the emails that readers send me — telling me about their own coming-out stories, about the kinds of love they hope they’ll find in their lives, and yes, demanding that I write a sequel (sometimes with very specific outcomes!).

Knowing that Huntress has touched many of you makes me so proud to have written this book. Thank you.

There’s still one month and a bit left in 2011, but I feel like this year is ending for me a little early. I just sent in the final draft of my next book, and though I still have copyedits ahead of me, it feels like that project is complete. I’m looking forward to starting work on the sequel after Thanksgiving. And I’m looking forward to having a less-busy 2012 (I hope). It’s easy to get caught up in the frenetic pace of life both online and off, but I need more time to sit still.

But first: Here’s to a warm and wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! May you have as much turkey and pie and stuffing as your heart desires. I know I will.

These days I spend pretty much all day in a fantasy world I made up in my head. This is a pretty bizarre state to be in, honestly. If I’m not writing, I’m thinking about what’s happening at the point in my manuscript where I left off. Currently I’m approaching the climax of the novel, which means I’m starting to get all freaked out about whether or not I can stick the landing. I’ve got a lot of balls in the air at this point in the story and somehow I’ve got to catch the right ones. (Mixed metaphors! Yay!)

So, before I go and continue juggling, here are a couple of photos from Comic-Con, which I went to last weekend. Er, the weekend before last weekend. (Time? What’s that?)

The folks from the panel I moderated! L to R: Dave Roman, me, Gene Luen Yang, Vera Brosgol, Cindy Pon, Elizabeth C. Bunce, Kiersten White

Here I am after dinner with Cindy Pon and Marie Lu (author of the upcoming LEGEND)

And one of my favorite sights from the exhibit floor:

I know, I’m evil. Back to work …

I knew Lisa through the Debs, and I got to know her better when both of our debut novels became finalists for the William C. Morris Award. Last June, when we were both in Washington D.C. for ALA, I met up with Lisa for breakfast one morning right after she went on a 7 a.m. tour of the White House. I remember she was elated by the visit. She was so proud to have visited the White House during the Obama Administration; she was so proud to have voted for Obama.

The one thing that really struck me from all my interactions with Lisa was that she was resolved in her beliefs, and her beliefs, in my opinion, were right on. She had her heart and her mind in the right place, and she was not afraid to express her opinion. At the same time, her beliefs were rooted in compassion. That’s something that really impressed me.

In the last week, I’ve been affected by the deaths of three people, including Lisa. One of my best friends suffered the death of his best friend. And another YA author, Perry Moore, also died recently. I did not know my friend’s best friend or Perry Moore, but with Lisa’s death coming on their heels, it made me really stop in my tracks.

Stop.

Life is short. So many things in the world can seem unfair and wrong. But each of us has an opportunity to make things right, and to live in this world with compassion. I am grateful for the reminder.

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave bereft
I am not there. I have not left.

— Mary Elizabeth Frye

Punalu'u Black Sand Beach

In January I went to the Big Island for a week. It was a gorgeous and surreal experience, because I saw not only real moving lava, but blue-white ice. Sure, there were beaches (see above) but my favorite parts were the drama of earth creation and the spectacle of star gazing. Today I’m posting my photos that relate to fire. Tomorrow (or, uh, soon), I’ll post the icy ones.

On our first full day there, we hiked across the Kilauea Iki Crater in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. It’s a four-mile loop that takes you from the jungle along the rim down the edge of the crater and straight across. The landscape on the crater floor is amazing — it’s like an alien planet, really. Steam still vents out from underground, though this volcano is dormant.

The Kilauea Iki Crater

Steamy!

Life is stubborn

The Kilauea Caldera steaming away in the distance

After dark, we went back to Volcanoes National Park to see the Kilauea Caldera (above) glowing like a giant cauldron. It was an incredible sight — like the biggest bonfire you could imagine. Unfortunately, my camera couldn’t capture it.

We also drove down through Puna, a relatively remote part of the Big Island, in search of live, moving lava. The road itself felt like an adventure: There were hardly any other cars, and the jungle all around was honestly a little creepy!

The empty road through Puna toward the lava flow

When we got there, the sun was still up, so I took some photos of the very fresh lava field that recently ate up several homes. Talk about post-apocalyptic!

People used to live here!

One thing I really wanted to do was attend a luau, which I found totally fascinating. We went to the big shindig at the Kona Villages Resort, which is considered one of the better luaus available on the Big Island. It’s totally a tourist trap, I’ll give you that, but the way that they present the “authentic Hawaiian culture” to tourists is pretty interesting.

The most fascinating part, for me, was the preparation of the kalua pig in the imu (underground oven), which is traditionally done by men. My photos didn’t turn out too well but I got this one, which shows the men stripping off part of the covering of leaves and hot stones (by hand! with no oven mitts!) that keep the pig cooking underground.

Preparing the kalua pig

No trip to Hawaii is complete without a few gorgeous sunsets, so I’ll leave you with this one today. Next time: icy ice!

Sunset off the Kona coast

January: Cavorting with statues of wolves on Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado

February: Standing on a chair to photograph my first abstract acrylic painting

March: A big smile from 007

April: Strawberry-rhubarb pie, which I baked for my friend Sarah's birthday

May: I contemplate Oscar Wilde in Dublin

June: Malinda goes to Washington

July: Scrumptious grilled calamari at Gather Restaurant in Berkeley

August: The campfire roaring

September: The paperback Ash arrives on my front porch

October: A flaming pig at my neighborhood's annual Halloween celebrations

November: Thanksgiving dinner!

December: Hand-carved and painted Nutcracker ornaments, made by my aunt Catherine, hanging on our tree

Career-wise, I did quite a bit in 2010.

• Ash was published in Italy, the U.K./Australia/New Zealand, and Germany. It was also published in paperback in the U.S. and Canada.
• I finished Huntress, which was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. (Yay! Seriously, yay!)
• Ash was nominated for the Andre Norton Award, the Northern California Book Award, the Lambda Literary Away, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award. I was extremely happy.
• I began working on my next novel, code-named Blue Book. It is one of my favorite things ever, so far!
• I wrote my first short story in 15 years. It was a blast!
• I did 18 book-related events in 2010, which took me to 11 different cities, including Washington, D.C.; Albuquerque, NM; Orlando, FL; New York, NY; and Vail, CO.

Personally, the highlight of my year had to be the trip I took to Ireland back in May. It was so much fun! (Also, I can’t believe how much traveling I did in 2010. Honestly, I think it was a bit insane.)

A fairy mound (aka tomb) at Knowth

In 2011, here’s what I’m looking forward to:

• Huntress will be published in April in the U.S. and Canada, and in May in the U.K./Australia/New Zealand.
• That short story I mentioned should be published this spring, too, and I can’t wait to tell you about it!
• I’m planning to write two more short stories.
• I’m also planning to finish Blue Book.
• And I’m really hoping I get to tell you what Blue Book’s about!

And last but definitely not least:

• I’m super excited about going on tour in May with Cindy Pon and many other talented YA authors for Diversity in YA! We’ll be announcing our author lineup in January, but right now you can get a sneak peek at our website and sign up for our mailing list to get all the details as soon as we launch.

Oops, OK one more thing before I go! The Book Smugglers invited me to participate in their fabulous Smugglivus celebration, where I blogged about my favorite reads of 2010. I’m also giving away a signed ARC of Huntress and a signed U.K. edition of Ash, so if you’d like a chance to win, head over there right now! The contest ends on Jan. 1, 2011!

Oatmeal cookies with dark chocolate and dried cherries

But I grew up in a first-generation immigrant Chinese American household, and in order to make those kinds of cookies, we’d need, among other things: molasses, cookie cutters, chocolate chips, and loads of butter. Things we didn’t have in our Chinese pantry. One year I somehow convinced my parents to buy a bottle of molasses, but without cookie cutters, I ended up cutting out shapes using cardboard stencils. The cookies turned out to taste like rocks, I remember. It’s not really a surprise. I’d never eaten freshly made gingerbread cookies; nor had my mother, so it’s not like we knew what to aim for.

For Christmas dinner, my mother made Chinese-style roast duck that she salted and hung out overnight in the garage (it was cold out there). We also had shrimp and peas, red-cooked pork, meatballs rolled in glutinous rice, stir-fried vegetables, and maybe winter melon soup. The food was delicious, but I would check out cookbooks from the library and pore over recipes for roast beef and yorkshire pudding, fantasizing about what other people might eat for Christmas dinner.

Years later, I’ve had roast beef and yorkshire pudding. My mom’s roast duck was way better. But for a long time, during the holidays especially, the differences between my family and what seemed like the entire rest of America rose up crystal clear. We didn’t do what everybody else — on TV, in books, and in my school (I grew up in Colorado) — seemed to do.

It didn’t make much of a difference when I was a little kid, but as I grew older and went through adolescence — a period when just about the most important thing ever is fitting in with everyone else — these differences frustrated me. Beneath the frustration, of course, was a yearning to be like everyone else. Maybe if I ate the right food, I’d fit in.

Cutting out sugar cookies

During the holidays, everybody struggles with expectations and demands. Emotions that have been banished for the rest of the year can rise up unexpectedly when you’re forced to spend time with family members whom you don’t normally see.

For queer people, it’s not unusual to be forced to sit through long meals with relatives who openly reject you because of your sexual orientation. For immigrants who are not Christian, Christmas is a time that can make you feel like the most foreign foreigner ever to exist. I’ve been in both situations, and every year at the holidays, I can’t help but remember them.

Maybe that’s why I have a love/hate relationship with the holidays. I think that lately I’ve been veering toward the love side, but that’s because I’ve finally started to figure out how to celebrate this time of year on my own terms. But let me tell you, it’s a battle I still fight, at least internally, every year. Those feelings of difference-as-a-bad-thing haven’t entirely been erased. The media and entertainment industry still make giant fusses about trees and turkeys and gifts — oh, the gifts! — and the pure utter joy of family time (sarcasm intended).

But. One of the best things about being an adult in this country is that you get to choose how to celebrate (or not celebrate) the holidays.

Amy and I have a giant (fake) tree. In many ways, her enthusiasm for Christmas has erased so much of the anxiety about the holiday that I’ve struggled with. And over the years I’ve acquired plenty of cookie cutters, as well as taught myself what good gingerbread tastes like.

This week, I made both red-cooked pork and sugar cookies. Both are delicious. Both are perfect for Christmas.

A note on recipes: The oatmeal cookies are basically regular oatmeal cookies, but with crumbled dark chocolate and dried cherries. The sugar cookie recipe is the basic vanilla cookie dough recipe from Martha Stewart Living’s December 2010 issue. The icing is the quick lemon cookie icing from the Joy of Cooking.

I was in Orlando for the ALAN workshop, which was a great experience and I’d tell you all about it, except when I go to these kinds of conferences, I seem to hardly ever take photos anymore because I’m too busy talking to other people or giving speeches or signing books. I resolve in 2011 to be better at this, but for now, all I will say is: My publisher rocks! I love meeting English teachers! (I’m a lifetime teacher’s pet, honestly.) And I got Peeped by Lisa Yee! (That sounds racier than it actually is.)

Anyway … knowing that I’d get to be in Orlando this fall, I carefully planned time to spend a day at WWoHP because I love the Harry Potter books! Amy even came with me, and we decided to make an entire day of it at the Islands of Adventure. We read up on tips for visiting the park from blog posts and tour guides, because theme parks can be a bit crazy and I wanted to avoid the crazy as much as possible. Well, most of these guides recommended getting there an hour before the entire theme park opens, which would mean we’d have to leave our hotel by 7:15 a.m. Since we were jetlagged from the West Coast, that didn’t happen. I count ourselves lucky that we got there by 9 a.m., the official opening time.

When you get to Islands of Adventure, WWoHP is on the far side of the park, and when you combine the trek from the parking structure, you’ve got to walk for at least a mile (maybe two) before you get to the edge of the Harry Potter section. (Islands of Adventure has several different themed areas, e.g., comic book land, Dr. Seuss land, and Harry Potter land.) We booked it — I think we were practically speedwalking at times — but by the time we got there, there was already a gigantic wait (more than an hour) for the main ride, the Forbidden Journey.

The line before the line to get into the Forbidden Journey

If you enter WWoHP the way we did, from the Jurassic Park area, you get spit out into kind of a bottleneck area right in front of the Forbidden Journey, which happens inside the fake (but beautiful) Hogwarts castle. This is not a particularly well-organized area to arrive in. The problem is the line for the ride doesn’t begin until you get to the sign in the picture above, but there are hundreds of people just milling about in front of the sign and cutting in line to move closer to the sign. Once you get to the sign, it’s a 60-minute wait to ride the 4-minute ride.

Everybody said the ride was fantastic, though, so we got in the line. And once you’re inside the castle grounds, the wait isn’t so bad. You do have to put your bags into a locker before getting into the real line, which can be a little confusing, but then — finally! — you get to see some cool stuff. Such as:

The line snakes through the Hogwarts greenhouse ...

... where you can see mandrake roots! (I think that's what they are)

Inside the castle/ride itself, it’s pretty dark and it’s very hard to take photos. There’s a PA system in which they keep announcing that if you want to take photos, please move out of the way and let people get ahead of you. We didn’t really take this to heart, which meant we missed a few cool things (Dumbledore’s office is this entire little mini-show which we didn’t realize we could stop to watch), so if you go, definitely dawdle as much as you want once you get into the castle.

A sign inside the castle

The sorting hat does move and do a little sorting hat song-and-dance

The ride itself involves being strapped into a roller coaster-like seat, with very secure bars locked over you, so you can’t get out. If you’re claustrophobic it can be a little scary just getting in the seat. But once the ride starts, you’ll be grateful that you’re strapped in, because the ride jerks and spins and practically flips you over several times. I’m not a fan of rollercoasters because I don’t like the sensation of falling, but I’ll deal with it on one of these kinds of rides, which involve video projections and animatronics to make the whole thing a lot more immersive.

You get to fly over a quidditch field (but this was way too fast! I wanted more!), you’re taken into the Forbidden Forest and are attacked by giant spiders (who spit on you! gross!), and encounter dementors who ooze a kind of fog at you (I didn’t think they were very scary though). It actually felt a lot longer, to me, than 4 minutes, and by the time it was over I was a little shaky from being shaken up so much. It was fun! But yeah, I don’t think I’m doing that one again.

After the ride, we tried to wander through Hogsmeade village, but it was so crowded by then (just after 10 a.m.) that wandering was more like carefully maneuvering yourself through a throng of gawking tourists in Times Square. We chose to not stand in line to enter Ollivander’s wand shop, because that line was about an hour long under the sun (there’s fake snow on the rooftops, but it was hot — it’s Florida!)

Hogsmeade Village

More Hogsmeade

Instead, we accidentally found a back entrance to the Hog’s Head pub, which is connected to the Three Broomsticks. The Hog’s Head only serves drinks (including butterbeer), and the Three Broomsticks serves food. There was such a gigantic line for the food (which all reviews say is just a kind of Americanized British pub food) that we decided to skip it and just get drinks. We got one butterbeer and one Hogs Head Brew, which is a Scottish ale (alcoholic) they brew especially for WWoHP.

The bar at the Hog's Head

Then we found a table in the Three Broomsticks and sat down to drink our beverages and gape at the scenery.

Inside the Three Broomsticks

Butterbeer is tasty! It’s basically a cream soda topped with a creamy topping that’s a cross between butterscotch pudding and whipped cream. The topping is very sweet, and it starts to foam over the mug if you don’t drink it fast enough. (Yes, we got the souvenir mugs!) But, I don’t have a sweet tooth, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. It was yummy! It might have helped that we got the Hogs Head Brew as well, which was delicious and not too bitter, but definitely helped cut the sweetness.

Butterbeer (left) and Hog's Head Brew

After refreshing ourselves, we thought we’d take a peek into the various shops in Hogsmeade Village. The theme park has kind of mashed together Hogsmeade with Diagon Alley, so you’ve got Honeyduke’s along with Dervish & Banges, Ollivander’s, and Zonko’s Joke Shop (connected to Honeyduke’s). Unfortunately there was a line to just get into the shops!

By then it was at least 11 a.m., and the entire place was turning into a madhouse. People told us that it was about a 20-minute wait to enter the shops, which was probably true, but once you got into the shops you had to stand in a 30-minute line to buy anything. However, I thought I’d regret it if I didn’t get into at least one shop, so I stood in line for Honeyduke’s and bought chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans.

At this point it was just after noon, and WWoHP was so crowded it was difficult to walk down the street. We decided that we’d had enough and left that area of the theme park. Unfortunately the rest of Islands of Adventure was also super crowded. I thought because we were there on a Monday it wouldn’t be as crowded, but maybe everybody was taking the entire week off before Thanksgiving?

Anyway, overall the experience was fun, but if you don’t like crowds, you really should get there an hour before the park opens. I’ve heard rumors that Universal may be expanding the WWoHP to take over one of the adjacent park areas, which I think would be a great idea. The streets within WWoHP just aren’t wide enough to accommodate the foot traffic. By the time we left there was a 45-minute wait to just enter the WWoHP area.

However, I’m glad that I went! And I love my cheesey Butterbeer and Hogs Head souvenir mugs! Even though the experience is really nothing like being immersed in the books (because the books do not have thousands of American tourists trying to buy butterbeer out of a giant barrel-shaped contraption in Florida), I think it’s still something worth seeing (if you can spare $83 for the admission ticket!).

The butterbeer stand in Hogsmeade

And then, once I returned home after a Thanksgiving trip up to Boston, I finally saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, which I loved.

The End!

Hogwarts!

Today is Spirit Day, a grassroots effort to honor the teenagers who have taken their own lives recently in reaction to anti-gay bullying. As GLAAD says, “it’s also a way to show the hundreds of thousands of LGBT youth who face the same pressures and bullying, that there is a vast community of people who support them.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about anti-gay bullying lately, as have many people in the wake of the tragic suicides that have taken place this fall. I made an It Gets Better video with Amy to share our coming-out stories (and it does get better!), but because I was never bullied in school, I’ve felt a little lost as to what more I could do.

I’ve also read some of the critical commentary about Dan Savage’s It Gets Better project, claiming that the videos are unhelpful because they don’t address diversity or actually make anything better right away. When I first watched some of the early It Gets Better videos, I admit I did think, “Wow, that’s a lot of white gay men. That doesn’t speak to me at all as a woman or an Asian American.”

You know what? That’s partly why I made my video. Because I wanted to put the faces of two women into that video stream, and because I’m a person of color. I could help in that way.

As for actually making things better, I agree with Dan Savage, who responded to his critics by saying that the videos can “give despairing kids in impossible situations a little thing called hope.”

And that’s what I want to blog about today. Hope.

I was never physically bullied in middle school or high school. But I did have some terrible, manipulative, mean-girl friendships — though they obviously weren’t really my “friends” — with girls who chastised and belittled me into doing what they wanted. Looking back on it, I guess this is as close to bullying as you can get. The thing is, I didn’t realize that’s what was happening. I thought, well, I just have trouble making friends.

And I did. I was pretty socially awkward for a long time. I spent my most enjoyable hours alone in my room, writing fiction. Writing saved me. Not once, but many, many times.

I’ve been clinically depressed at least twice in my life. Thinking back, I realize now that I was probably clinically depressed in eighth grade, too, when I was going through the worst of those mean-girl relationships. The reason I can tell? I can’t remember giant swaths of time in eighth grade. I also can’t remember months of my sophomore year in college, when I was clinically depressed over coming out. In my memory, it’s like the year began, and then suddenly the year was over, interspersed with memories of a couple of walks through campus to see my therapist.

In eighth grade, I did not have the benefit of therapy. I had my journal, and I wrote a novel. In that novel, a girl leaves home and eventually triumphs over an army of demons. Symbolic much? (Also, a total rip-off of Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword, but hey, budding writers have to start somewhere!)

In college, I did have therapy, but honestly, I remember barely any of it. I wrote reams of bad poetry, though. Reams and reams of it. It was almost like automatic writing. I would sit alone and write and write and write. And eventually, I came out of the dark into the sun.

My next bout of depression occurred in my late 20s, when I was struggling with coming out yet again. (That’s right: I had to come out to myself twice. Once did not do the trick.) Again, I wrote a lot. It was during this time that I began working on Ash, which is about a girl who climbs out of very deep grief and comes to love herself. Funny, that.

Anyone who has been depressed both knows what it feels like and probably would like nothing more than to forget. It is like being trapped with no way out, and simultaneously, you don’t even care that there’s no way out. It just is. When you’re in that position, hope is like a unicorn: It’s a fantasy at best.

I’m sure that people told me, when I was depressed, that things would get better. But I can’t remember them doing that. If I saw an It Gets Better video at the time of my deepest depression, I actually don’t think it would have made an impression on me. But that’s me, and if those videos can make a positive difference for someone else, they are totally worth it.

What helped me was learning how to live with my depression — how to manage it. My therapist(s) helped me to do this by listening to me with kindness, and by giving me actual techniques for surviving the day. Things like: Shut off your phone after 10 p.m. so that your sleep won’t be interrupted. Things like: It’s OK to treat yourself to something nice on a bad day.

These are things that seriously would never have occurred to me, because depression erases your ability to be rational.

People who have been depressed once are also more likely to become depressed again. So, after my second bout of depression, I took a meditation class focused on mindfulness and depression to learn how I could possibly prevent further depression. That class included a number of practical tips that have made all the difference in my life, and if you’re interested in introducing mindfulness into your life as a way to manage depression, I highly recommend checking out The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness.

The point is, it is hard to get yourself out of the hole of depression. It’s a lot easier to sink into that hole and even build a little nest out of negative thoughts, wallowing in the pain and guilt so much that it begins to feel like it’s meant to be that way.

But it’s not. You’re meant to be living a life full of beauty and love, not despair and hate.

If you’re in that dark place, you need to seek out professional help. I also seriously recommend finding a therapist. There are many who will work on sliding scales if you don’t have health insurance, or if your insurance doesn’t cover mental healthcare, or if you’re simply broke. (I have been in all three situations while in therapy.) You can start here.

I’m not going to lie to you: It’s a long, hard climb out. It’s brutal. It requires a lot of work on your part, and sometimes it can seem like you’ll never, ever make it out. But I will tell you this: You can do it. I know you can, because I’ve done it, too.

Once you begin to take care of yourself, at some point along the path you are trudging — even if you feel like your feet are sinking into the mud and your body weighs a thousand tons — at some point I guarantee you will see that unicorn of hope in the distance. It might seem like a mirage at first, but it’s not. You can believe me, because I write fantasy novels. Hope, like that unicorn, is a tricky beast. It can sneak up on you. But it won’t do that unless you start looking for it.

And I swear, you don’t have to be a virgin. Or straight. In fact, I think most unicorns are gay.

Hope is a gay unicorn!

You can do it. I believe in you with all my heart.