Nichole Bernier Recommends...

“When the well is dry, for me, it’s usually more about attitude than inspiration or lack of inspiration. It seems to me so much of writing is about courage, writing something so raw you don’t want to say it aloud. That’s how I felt writing unmotherly thoughts in my first novel, and feel now writing about desperation in my second.

The key to moving forward is breaking through whatever is holding me back, which is usually being a Good Girl, lined up in a multigenerational kick line with Good Daughter and Good Mother. I need to remind myself that being the mother of five in the suburbs might mean being responsible and routinized in a million small ways, but it doesn’t have to define me to the core. The antidote is being a badass in some small way, like sitting up on our pitched roof at night, or listening to “Jane Says” in the elementary-school car line. I have three leather bracelets, black and grey bands that wind around my right forearm, and when I put them on it feels like channeling superpowers. It’s important to find a small way to go off the reservation, even in the car line. Especially in the car line.”
—Nichole Bernier, author of The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. (Crown, 2012)