Then one day I was reading an awesome novel in the Young Adult genre when I suddenly realized that it wasn’t that my writing was bad - well, not that bad! - but that I was simply writing for the wrong audience. I didn’t write like a 15-year-old; I was writing for 15-year-olds.
And just like that, I found my voice.
In The Day That We Are Born, my voice is that of Elle's.
Elle is 16, she’s in high school, she’s got a best friend, she’s got awesome parents, and all she wants to be... well, she simply doesn’t want to be.
Some days are good.
Some days are bad.
And some days are really bad.
I thought I could do it; be the teenager, experiment with make-up, with boys, with alcohol, with life. I tried to fake it, but it took up too much energy, and I needed all I had to simply get by. I couldn’t connect with anybody any more. Nobody got me.
It’s been a fascinating journey creating the character of Elle. She’s really likable and funny, and the kind of girl you want to be friends with. You’ll find yourself rooting for her throughout the book as every day you get to know her a little better, through her own thoughts and words as well as from her interactions with her friends and family.
What Elle is like:
I would rage against small injustices: the mother who didn’t buckle her child into the car seat, the boy who dropped his empty candy packet in the street, the people who put out their cigarettes on the sidewalk.
Her friendship with Libby:
It’s a double period, and I feel drowned by the time the bell rings so it takes all my energy to pack up my bag. But I keep moving, moving, moving until I reach the library for a free period. Libby’s already there, thank god, and I swing into the chair next to her.
“So, Elle,” says Libby, “what’s your poison?”
Leave me alone. But don’t.
“Libby,” I say, swallowing hard, “not today.”
She glances at me then turns back to the book lying open in front of her.
“Bad one, huh?”
I nod.
“But not really bad.”
I pause, then shake my head.
“Oh,” she says, “well, in that case… what’s your poison today, dude?”
I almost smile. God, it feels good to have Libby as a friend. Although I guess my feelings for Libby are tidal. Some days I can’t believe I put up with her; other days I can’t do without her.
Her relationship with her parents:
He’s slightly hunched over and the tail of his shirt is hanging out of his pants, but he’s whistling quietly and tapping the fingers of one hand on the counter. I watch him for a moment. My father is such a solid man - his shoulders are wide, his back is broad, his arms are thick. A rock. My rock. When my river runs high, he’s my headland; no matter how deep I am, I can always see him rising out from the water and guiding me home. I don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t do for me.
***
“It’s just that,” I stumble. “It’s like I can’t imagine a world where my mother isn’t one of the first faces I see in the morning and the last one I see at night.”
Her thing with Sam:
Elle doesn’t have any room in her life for a boy.
It’s difficult enough to get through some days; having a boyfriend attached to those days makes it virtually impossible.
But it’s Sam. Does she even have a choice? Because something weird keeps happening every time they’re in the same room together...
Sam is still looking at me and I'm looking at him and I can’t look away and I don't think he can either and I can hear him breathing, rapidly, but it's my breath too, so we're both just standing there, panting, and I need him to come over here, I need him to be right here, and then he's moving towards me and I'm leaning towards him from the bottom step and he reaches up…
Why Elle doesn't want to be:
Sometimes it stalked me and taunted me. I knew it was there and I’d breathe in shallow, little sips of air in the hopes that it couldn’t see me, couldn’t hear me. But as it came closer, I’d start to cry silent tears that melted down my cheeks and pooled in my collarbones.
