I don’t know if I would have become a novelist without Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series; it’s really as simple as that. I discovered the books during the time right after college, when I was living — or hiding — in Manhattan, curling into and under myself in the shock of becoming a grown-up and really being on my own in the world. It was there, right there — but without my classmates and friends around me to make me brave, I forgot how to be brave myself. I was too scared to join in.
Enter Bella and Jacob, Edward too, though his absence in Book Two was really what set me free (sorry, Ed). These characters may have been fictional, but unlike "real people," I still let them inside my hideout. Stunningly, however, it was the point where she didn’t use words — in New Moon, when time is simply passing for Bella, when she feels so unmoored the blank pages just turn — that spoke to me most powerfully. Bella had lost her voice, just like I had; and yet, through even blank pages, we connected.
Words. Stories. Characters. Reaching across time and space and the limits of reality. I began to write again. In a strange way, I felt like Bella waking up as a vampire for the first time: new skin, new eyes, strength without question, a shine from within. I knew, and once I knew . . . nothing could hold me back.
Thank you, Stephanie. These words really can’t express how much you changed my life, so please listen to the no-words my heart beats out to yours.
