On
November 25th, 2009, I was in a parking lot, waiting for my older son’s
preschool class to be over for the day. Before I had to drag my sleeping
toddler out into the cold, I spent a moment typing on my blackberry the first
line of a story I had floating around in my head. “Much farther north than most
humans would dare settle, December unleashed its relentless fury.” Until that
day, writing as a career was just a far-fetched fantasy. But having one
sentence down was a step I had never been brave enough to take before.
I
didn’t always know that I wanted to be a writer. My experience was quite the
opposite, actually. I never kept a diary as a child. I wasn’t even an avid
reader. I preferred playing outdoors and I survived the long New York winters
with Mario Brothers and Disney princesses. Reading and writing were both chores
that went along with schoolwork.
By
high school, though, I came to realize that my high grades were not due to brilliance,
much to my dismay, but because I could write those thesis papers, expository
essays, DBQs, creative projects, and get “A’s” on top of them. But I never had
a passion for journalism, I despised all study of grammar, and I liked but
didn’t love the “great” literature I was exposed to. And I was raised to be
practical. I wanted to graduate from college and find a job. I was a true child
of the Renaissance, good at everything, phenomenal at nothing, but I had to choose.
So I picked biology as a major.
College
for me was like a day job. I never lived on campus. I would go to class, do the
work, and when I went home, “life” began for the day. Again, writing was just
part of work–lab reports, papers for my electives–and it helped boost my
grades, but the bulk of my achievement was measured with exams.
I
did pretty well in college with biology, so I assumed I had made the right
choice. I never asked myself if I enjoyed the content. I did…enough, I thought.
I would never love science as much as music, art, English, history, or psychology,
but I didn’t see that as a problem. I believed I’d be able to pursue other
interests in my “down time.”
Then
came graduate school. I was doing so much science around the clock that I could
barely stay awake in class. There was no down time. And here’s what happened. While
trying to cram facts, theories based on facts, and theories based on theories
into my head, the information just wasn’t taking root, and the creative side of
my brain kept getting louder and more resentful. If any of my former co-workers
ever looked over at me and thought I was in my own little world, I probably
was.
Thanks Eileen and Mike for your creative
genius/computer wizardry
The
first “book” I imagined was a sci-fi thriller. I don’t remember the details.
After I left school, I had to put the writing idea away for a while. Life
intervened. I had a baby by this point and I was working in a genetics lab full
time. By 9:30 at night, when my near sleepless firstborn FINALLY called it
quits, I was too exhausted to watch television, so writing was out of the
question. But, during those long experiments, my mind kept wandering to the
idea that fairies seemed underrepresented in the fantasy world. And I knew why.
Tinker Bell, circa 2007, was the fairy world representative, and what appeal
did she have to an adult audience? Not much. And so, Christopher and Joseph
MacRae were born. I had the basic storyline in my head for two years–two
modern-day American brothers who believe they’re human, their missing fairy father,
his evil fairy-queen ex-wife, and Cassiopeia, the fairy princess who thickens
the plot in every way.
After
I wrote the first line of Fairy Tale,
the project idled until after the New Year. But then, thanks to improved
cellphone technology, I could write anywhere, anytime. The true birth of
“Pyxis” began in the microscopy “caves” of Skidmore College. By the third
chapter, there was no turning back. I woke up before sunrise, went to bed late,
and was chased in my nightmares by the very villains I had created…and they’re
pretty nasty. In other words, the story wouldn’t rest, and essentially, it wrote
itself. By August 2010, my rough draft was complete, and I was stoked. It was
one of those “best day ever” feelings, something I had never experienced in all
my years as a scientist.
After
that, I tweaked, revised, trimmed and fattened the manuscript, and then had
some family members help me out. I considered their feedback and revised it
again. When I decided it was “finished,” I attempted to find an agent, and the
process was heartbreaking, especially after one of my first letters received a
promising response. But nothing ever came of it. And the rejections letters
kept piling up at a time when my husband and I really needed a lucky break. I
was also looking for a job again, in science. I had two major interviews, but
they led to more rejection. By my thirtieth birthday (April, 2011), I was at an
all-time personal and career low.
Fortunately,
my husband received a life-changing promotion at his new job. So we moved out
of New York and left some of our problems behind. My career issues didn’t exactly
go away, but the pressure to find employment was off. So I continued writing–I
never really stopped–and I finished The
Rising Star, the second book of the Fairy
Tale series.
By
2012, I was pregnant (again), and spent my “free” time editing and entering
book one, Winter’s Bite, into a few
contests. Rejection then took on a new name. It was called “feedback.” It’s one
of those things new writers can’t get enough of, until they do, and then they
wish they could give it back in the form of some very choice words. Was it all
bad? No. There was a fair amount of positive or constructive feedback. However,
there were a few judges out for blood, and I overwhelmed myself with their
reviews at a time when I was emotionally and hormonally unstable. The
experience culminated in a disastrous meltdown at a Friendly’s in Bennington, VT.
Luckily, my sister came to me with the idea of this blog at the perfect time.
For my health and wellbeing, I needed a lightweight distraction from the
series. So I spent the summer before Emily’s birth blogging about my
pregnancy.
Emily Rose: A Pregnancy Story
Once
life plus one stabilized to some extent, I revisited the contest feedback. I
took what I could from it and ignored what I disagreed with. Then I embarked on
the most ambitious revision project to date. The work was tedious and more
challenging than I expected, and early on, I had doubts the corrections were
necessary, or even possible in some cases. The point of view of my book
(omniscient) wasn’t wrong, per se, but it didn’t meet “industry standards”
(third person, limited). But I kept at it, sentence by sentence, chapter by
chapter, and ultimately fixed what I once worried wasn’t fixable. By the fall of
2013, I called the project “finished,” once again, and despite my initial
qualms, it was better than ever.
So
why did I continue with a path so full of rejection, self-doubt, and heartache?
Why didn’t I just get a paying job, go back to school, or succumb to
the mommy-brain-drain powers of Dr. Oz
and Days of Our Lives? The answer is
simple. Because in every Fairy Tale
character there’s a piece of me–the brooding loner, the analytical smartass,
the optimist who refuses to let darkness prevail. And so their story deserves
to be told…
And
while Fairy Tale: Winter’s Bite is in
the hands of an editor, I’ve been wearing in my sexy sweatpants, firing up my
Keurig with the dedication of an addict, and cranking up the heat both real and
imaginary, all so I could take a trip back in time to Gloucester, Massachusetts,
1979. There, I met up with Scott MacRae, the patriarch of my fairy dynasty, and
the one who started it all–an epic fantasy war and a forbidden love affair with
a human–and I let him tell his own story in Disgrace.
It’s free on Wattpad, http://www.wattpad.com/story/11656358-disgrace.
You don’t need to join the site to read it, but feel free if you’re ready to
catch the new wave in indie publishing. Plus, I’m always on the market for new
groupies J.
For
more information about the Fairy Tale
series, check out my new author page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alicia-Britton-Author/351622061645290). In the “about”
section, I’ve posted a summary of Winter’s
Bite and a brief excerpt. Please stop by. Let me know what you think. And
go ahead. Be a fan. I dare you!
Lastly,
I want to thank my dedicated readers–Carissa, Eileen, Greg, Katie, Steve,
Brooke, Janet, my editor, as well as Leo and Mike for taking a look at my
synopsis. Without you, Fairy Tale
wouldn’t be as grammatically correct (Carissa), romantically succinct (Eileen),
action packed (Greg), or logical (Steve). And thanks to all my future readers,
like you. Anyone who has read this blog post in its entirety must have some
interest and you are certainly worthy of mention!
Best,