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 found myself in a large group at my all-girls Catholic college. It wasn't long before most of them decided I was a massive dork who didn't match their cool vibe.

One day, I made the mistake of revealing my dream of becoming a performer and writer, and one of the girls said I wasn't pretty enough to be on TV and should probably think of something else to do.

I was kicked out of the group. The announcement came as I unpacked my schoolbag before class, delivered to me like a bad reality TV elimination.

Over the next few months, I spent lunchtimes hiding in the library until the bell went, trying to convince myself that six years of high school with no friends would be fine.

It was devastating at the time, but I'm grateful for the experience because it taught me resilience long before I knew the word for it.

Also, I now know that things that make you stand out at 12 are often the things that make you thrive as an adult.

I practised telling the truth in my diaries. Not the polished truth adults like to hear, but the raw, messy truth of being 12 and wanting desperately to fit in while also trying to be yourself; of wanting to be brave but feeling terrified; of wanting to be seen but also desperate to disappear.

Those feelings were the spark of The Embarrassing Confessions of Gracie Sparks.

My diaries were a lifeline and the only place I could fully be myself, when being myself out in the real world wasn't exactly encouraged.

Gracie also needs to write to make sense of what is happening in her life. It isn't just about navigating problems, but about finding humour in them. Her diary is an anchor and confidante, as it was for me.

But Gracie has the confidence to do what I didn't until much later, which is to unapologetically claim her creative identity.

So, she isn't simply a fictionalised version of me but her own character with her own quirks, dramas and chaos.

My book is a love letter to the girl I was in Year 7 - the girl who didn't yet understand that being different was a strength - and to every kid who's sat alone in a library at lunchtime and wondered what's wrong with them. Nothing is wrong with them. They're just becoming themselves.

Fashions and technology have changed, but the emotions, anxieties and pressures of being a tween and teen have not. The feeling of not fitting in, or knowing what version of yourself to be with your peers, still resonates with kids today, especially in an age of smartphones, group chats and curated online selves.

The diaries I kept provided my book with stories, but also the feelings, the awkwardness, the longing, the humour and the heartbreak.

Gracie's diary is fictional, but the emotional truth inside it is very real.

It's the truth of a creative kid who grew up in a world that didn't quite know what to do with her, and who eventually wrote her way into the life she always wanted.

Fiona Harris is the author of The Embarrassing Confessions of Gracie Sparks (Affirm Press, $16.99).

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