This story came to me so quickly. It all started with the idea of a poor girl living in a trailer park raising her siblings. All her life she felt like she wasn't worth anything, and her one ambition was to just get out of there. Very rarely am I ever inspired solely on a song, but "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman was what first sparked this idea. The first idea and lines of the story were started in July 2006, and it was a split decision to write this story for NaNo. I think in the end it was a good decision because the story turned out to be what I really wanted it to be about, which was struggle.

I'm not sure what people expected for an ending. I knew it wasn't going to be a fairytale ending where Mika rode off into the sunset with Taylor. My hope was that Mika would progress throughout the story and her attitude would change. I think I accomplished that. She went from a girl who was too proud to ask for help to finding herself leaning on a guy she initially didn't like and let herself grow to trust him, so I think that says a lot about her.

Even as I was writing this story, there were times when I let myself forget that the timeline for this story is only a few weeks. It felt like it was much longer with all that happened, but, even so, what I really wanted to accomplish was seeing Mika get on her feet and get her family out of the rut they had been stuck in for so long.

I hate writing endings. I, honestly, do. They are probably the hardest part for me, but Trash turned out the way I wanted it to. I know many of you will probably be disappointed that there's not more about Taylor and Mika, but I didn't want to rush things too much. I think Mika's willingness to give a relationship with Taylor eludes to a happy ending.

I have no plans for a sequel, so I suppose what happened next could be left to your imagination, but I like to think that Mika's hopes for settling down with Taylor and raising her siblings and maybe having a child of their own came true.