Bound was not an easy story to write. It started about a decade ago, while I was still in high school. Initially, it was supposed to be a love story. Kabran was supposed to be less sick, more seductive. Perhaps a little like Julian (from LJS's "The Forbidden Game" trilogy). I finished the first draft my sophmore year of college. It was only forty pages and it was quite bad, but I was tired of writing it. So it sat on my computer for five years.
Two years ago I became anorexic. It was, without question, the lowest point of my life. I half-assed my way through treatment for a year until I was finally admitted to an intensive outpatient program at Sheppard Pratt. After a month there, I started to really fight my eating disorder. It was hell. It involved subjecting myself to my worst fear--gaining weight--with nothing but the assurances of my treatment team that there was something better once I got through this. But in the end, they were right. I do feel better. The eating disorder is still with me. It's always in the back of my mind, biding its time, but I've learned to beat it back when it starts to rise.
I started to re-write Bound a few months after I got out of treatment. I put a lot of my struggle into this story and so there is a lot of myself in Lara, Marc, and Kabran. My favorite reviews for this story were the ones saying that my characters were very real. So even if this story isn't great, I still feel like I accomplished something in writing it. I left Lara in a good place and I hope that we both stay there.