Lisa Ramée asked Lizzy Mason:

Struggling to come up with a good question, when what I want to ask is, can you send me this book asap? I love the poem The Art of Losing btw. I'm wondering how difficult it was to write this book since you were so close to the subject matter and whether it was hard to keep from the book going into a "preachy" direction. The subject matter is so important.

Lizzy Mason Oh, thank you so much!!! I love the poem too and was so relieved it'd work for a title. Because I'm terrible at coming up with titles.

This book was so tough to write. It brings up so many painful memories for me. But it was also cathartic and eye-opening and it went through many, many revisions on its way to becoming what it is now. I tried to lighten it up in early drafts and it just wasn't working, so eventually, I embraced the difficult themes. But even though this book sounds like it's going to be super sad, it's got a lot of lightness to it as well.

I hope it isn't preachy, but I also hope it helps someone recognize themselves in this story, maybe at just the right time .

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