Girl by Blake Nelson

Author's Note

Dear Reader,

The book you are about to read was the first book I ever wrote from a girl's point of view. (I'm a boy!)

I didn't even know if I could do it, but I thought it might be interesting, so I decided to try.

At first, I had to whisper the words I was typing to myself, in a female voice, to remind myself that I was now "a girl" and that I had to think like a girl, and talk like a girl, and try to do (in the novel) the things a girl would do.

It felt like a joke at first. Like I was doing a bad imitation of a suburban high school student who said "like" and "you know" every three seconds.

It didn't take long though, until I stopped whispering to myself and began to settle into the character. Suddenly, it was like she became a real person and I didn't have to pretend to be her anymore. The minute I started typing, her voice came into my head and started telling me what she was doing and thinking.

It was very strange, but very exciting. I didn't have to do anything really, except write down what she said.

Unfortunately, she talked so fast (like teen girls do) sometimes it was hard to keep up!

Somehow in this magical process one of my best books appeared. People from all around the world have read GIRL and related to it. Often they say to me: "it's like she's a real person!" and I'm like, "I know, that's what it felt like when I was writing the book!"

So whatever happened, I guess it worked.

Hope you enjoy it!

Blake Nelson