Good Damage

Diane Nguyen: Princess Carolyn, wait. I understand you're trying to be helpful, in your own pushy, self-absorbed way.

Princess Carolyn: Oh, thank you!

Diane Nguyen: But I don't wanna write a middle-grade fiction detective series.

Princess Carolyn: I think you do, though. Because when I was reading it, I could tell you were having fun.

Diane Nguyen: Yeah, but I'm not writing a book to have fun. If I don't write my book of essays now, I never will.

Princess Carolyn: So, don't write your book of essays.

Diane Nguyen: I have to!

Princess Carolyn: Why?

Diane Nguyen: Because if I don't, that means that all the damage I got isn't good damage, it's just damage. I have gotten nothing out of it, and all those years I was miserable was for nothing. I could've been happy this whole time and written books about girl detectives and been cheerful and popular and had good parents, is that what you're saying? What was it all for?

Princess Carolyn: I-

[sighs]

Princess Carolyn: I don't know, Diane. All I know is that this book about the girl detective is fun. I liked it. I like thinking that my daughter could grow up in a world with books like that. Or if my daughter's not a reader, a lucrative film adaptation.

Diane Nguyen: When I was a little girl I thought that everything, all the abuse and neglect, it somehow made me... special. And I decided that one day I would write something that would make little girls like me feel less alone. And if I can't write that book...

Princess Carolyn: Then... Then maybe write this other book. Maybe this book does that, too.

Diane Nguyen: Yeah?