2 Quotes that Inspired Not Nothing

These two quotes inspired the writing of Not Nothing, my new young adult contemporary novel. This was in the pre-2016 election days, when all around me I saw apathy and people not voting, not speaking out because they felt like the world was fucked and there was nothing they could do to change it.

Every line of this book seethes with the fiery energy of knowing that doing SOMETHING is better than nothing, every time. Brooklyn, like many of us, had no idea at first how far the ripple effects of her actions would go.

The second quote was from Martin Niemoeller and it gives me chills every time I read it because when I started to write the book, it was a theory pulled from history alone. And then Trump was elected and we got the Muslim travel ban and children in cages and George Floyd’s murder, preceded and followed by so many others, and the insurrection raid on the Capitol.

In this story, Brooklyn is fighting against innocent people being silenced and thrown out of their homes. Many times in the writing of this book, I was advised to change the plot so the main character was fighting out against injustice perpetrated against her, not against other people. I clearly understand the reasons why people told me to do this, both in terms of writing craft and social justice. And I did not change it because the point of this book is we should all be fighting for each other. No one should ever wait to speak up until it’s their problem. We should all be fighting for each other and the stories we tell need to reflect that.

I posted 2 new chapters today, so you can have a peek at the book these quotes sparked in me: https://w.tt/3a99O5S

I’ll be sharing the whole book for free, posting new chapters week by week, though I’ll only be announcing a few here through my blog. I will be sharing a few different stories about what inspired this book through my social media, so feel free to follow along there!