Galaxy Craze is a former actress and THE LAST PRINCESS is her debut YA book. She is also the author of two adult novels, TIGER, TIGER and BY THE SHORE, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and won the Betty Trask Award in her native England. She currently lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and their two children, and is currently working on a sequel to THE LAST PRINCESS. Find out more at www.savethelastprincess.com.
Many aspiring writers ask me how I got started. What happened was when I was eighteen I took an unpaid internship at Interview Magazine in NYC. It was awful. I sat there bored and broke (I babysat for money) for one hot smelly summer in the city not really sure what exactly my job was. One great thing happened that summer though --- I found out I was accepted to Barnard Collage. I didn’t get in when I applied my first year out of high school (probably due to my horrible SAT scores) but I felt it was my destiny to go there so I tried again.
At Barnard I enrolled in Mary Gordon’s writing class. She’s an amazing, generous writer and teacher who encouraged my writing and short stories. That was all it took for me, a little bit of encouragement (maybe it’s because I had never had encouragement in any other subject in school) and I felt inspired. Inspired to close my dorm room door, not go out to parties, to stay up late in front of the word processor (that fortunately back in those days did not have email or goggle that can waste hours of time…). I stayed up late powered by coffee and cookies, all types of candies.
Anyway, my point is encouragement! Sometimes we are lucky in life and have family, friends or teachers who encourage us and sometimes we aren’t so fortunate. Sometimes, we are born into families or surrounded by people who don’t encourage us or worse, they discourage us. They’ll say “Oh it’s impossible to get published,” or “You wont make any money being a writer.” Or “Every story has already been told.”
Who doesn’t wander through the library and think, “There are so many books in the world, why write another?” or read something amazing and think to themselves, “I’ll never be able to write like that.” Self-doubt seriously gets in our way as writers and most of the time we are our own worst enemy.
I believe if you have a story, an idea, even an inkling of an idea of a story you want to tell, you should put pen to paper and give it your best effort. Be your own encourager! Remind yourself that you believe in the story you are going to write! You have a vision that no one else knows. Most importantly, block out or try to (it’s really, really hard) all the negative voices of doubt and fear coming from your own head. It may be true that every story has been told, but it hasn’t been told in your voice or from your distinct perspective. Just like we all have unique DNA we all have an individual take on the world and we all have an original voice. And there is always room for your voice!
Best of luck with your writing!
