My new book, The Embarrassing Confessions of Gracie Sparks, is written in diary form, and so many readers have asked if I kept a diary when I was 12. The answer is yes. Obsessively so.

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Throughout my tween and teen years, I filled diaries and notebooks with the kind of earnest, unfiltered entries only a young girl can produce, and my Year 7 diary became the seed of my book.

When it was commissioned, I took my teen diaries on a family holiday and began rereading them by the pool. Within minutes, my teenage daughters had taken over, reading young Fiona's entries aloud with a mixture of horror and delight, while my siblings, nieces and nephew howled with laughter.

That was when I realised this might be something worth revisiting. It wasn't just nostalgia - it was recognition.

The girl I was back then was right in front of me, still vivid and desperately trying to make sense of the world, much like my own daughters.

That tension between who you are privately and who you're allowed to be publicly is something that today's tweens still navigate, even if their diaries now live on locked Notes apps instead of under their pillows.

The high school I attended was geared more towards sport than anything arty.

There was no real outlet for a kid like me who grew up writing, directing, and starring in elaborate stage productions in her lounge room, endlessly hassling her brothers, cousins and neighbours to play crappy bit parts despite them having zero interest.

This kind of behaviour was considered more than a bit odd in my family, and social quicksand at high school, as I was soon to discover.

Starting Year 7, I........

© Canberra Times