Although Walls published The Glass Castle in 2005, she actually began writing and had the idea to record her last twenty years before destroying the drafts immediately afterwards. “I've been thinking about writing it for almost 20 years” (JeannetteWalls). Walls admitted his indecision and motivation in an interview with Rachel KramerBussel. Walls says she discovered she wanted to record her past after spotting her mother rummaging through a dumpster for a party. In the same interview, Walls revealed that her second husband's call to one of his agents in 2000 compelled and even pushed her to publish the novel. However, the memoir was not published until 2005 because Walls was unhappy with his work. In the interview, Walls states that the original "was too far away" and lacked emotion. To me, the author's motivation to finally write the novel means meaning. Jeannette's embarrassment, conflicts about her past, and ambivalent feelings toward her parents may have come to a head when she saw her mother rummaging through the dumpster. Additionally, the growing guilt of lying to those around him in order to preserve his image and the fear of someone finding out about his past likely created an incredible amount of stress. Despite efforts to conceal her secret past, it was almost publicly revealed when a Village Voice writer informed her that "he had interviewed a homeless man who claimed to be his father" (Encyclopedia of World Biography). Walls' revision, overcoming his feared debacle, and publication of his article in 2005 could plausibly have been an action to prevent a scandal. In fact, according to the Encyclopedia of WorldBiography, Walls revealed her past to a colleague, who then wrote a novel featuring a female protagonist sharing many obvious similarities with Walls. As a result, The Glass Castle allowed the author to depict his secret in a way that would otherwise be devastating to his image. In the novel, Jeannette explains her reasons for lying, deflecting, and avoiding her past. A perspective that would be overlooked or explored by another writer. Furthermore, any further exposition of his past would have been written with the intention of causing noise in an attempt to create an interesting and dramatic article. Finally, Jeannette was finally able to find the courage to write her story because her life