Tiffany

When I was a kid, I wanted to be just about everything when I grew up. Marine biologist, veterinarian, geologist, botanist, concert pianist, ballerina, Cyndi Lauper, a goat farmer. I especially longed to be a member of the crew of the Starship Enterprise.

I had a chemistry set I played with, a microscope, a rock-tumbler, a collection of interesting plants, two snakes, and a pet rat. I lived for the joy that came with discovering something new, something I’d never seen before, and I was young enough that I believed I really could be whatever I wanted. Which explains the weekend I decided I would be a rainbow-colored unicorn-pegasus who solved mysteries with Mr. T.

I got older, and school just about cured me of my flights of fancy. My learning style didn’t fit in: I was nervous; I couldn’t sit still— I wanted to touch everything and talk to everyone— and so much of the day-to-day routine bored me to tears. I was undisciplined to boot, so it felt like the teachers had taken all the joy I’d found in learning, smooshed it into a sad little ball, and locked it away in the dark. Over the years I discovered that I did not get along with math, that the sciences I had loved to dabble in when I was little depended a lot on numerical formulas that didn’t interest me because I couldn’t figure out how they related to the world around me. I started to feel like I was too dumb to be anything at all when I grew up.

But at the same time, I still really wanted to be a member of the crew of the Starship Enterprise. Of course I understood that it was a fictional world, but could there be a real-life way to seek out new life and new civilizations?  To boldly go where no one had gone before?

Obviously, becoming an astronaut was out. They never showed the boring bits on Star Trek where Spock and Scotty were hashing out the complex mathematical equations that would undoubtedly be required to run a spaceship. But I knew in real life, people who worked for NASA had to be good with numbers. Not only was my numerically stunted brain unfit for such a job, but I was also pretty sure they didn’t want any astronauts having panic attacks in space, flailing around and breaking their expensive stuff. And besides being bad at math, I was even worse at not being anxious.

So I spent most of my early adult years boldly not knowing where I was going in life, or what the hell I was doing. I went to college, learned to write exquisitely organized and boring essays, and how to convince people that I could paint. I thought maybe I’d be able to make a living in the arts, and I studied those things in college, but after years of doubting myself, I never had enough confidence to see it through. I painted pictures for friends, but I could never see myself being good enough to get anything into a gallery. Over and over, I would start writing a novel only to give up halfway through, when I’d look back over what I’d written in despair, embarrassed and discouraged. Apparently, I didn’t comprehend the idea of editing. I thought if it wasn’t great right away, that I was just bad at it.

But then there was the night with Rachel and the Taco Bell and the wine. The idea of writing a ridiculously cheesy YA romance had never occurred to me, but there were three reasons why it appealed to me: 1) If it was going to be cheesy and make fun of itself, I felt like maybe I could do that. I didn’t have to write anything meaningful and super-serious and out myself as the fraud I felt I was. I could just let my writing be as cheesy as it usually was, and it would all work out!  2) I got to write it with my best friend, Rachel, who is actually a GOOD writer. So maybe I’d learn something from her, or at least be able to disguise my own terribleness with her goodness. And if she was editing, surely she’d fix all my crap!  3) Wine.

Several peculiar things happened to us on our way to YA Cheesetown: We simultaneously realized that we wanted this book to actually be good. We wanted to address themes that are important to us, we wanted people to feel something other than annoyance when they read it. We wanted to be proud of it. And I realized that I am absolutely not the worst writer in the world. I use too many words a lot of the time (DAMN YOU DELICIOUSLY SEDUCTIVE ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS), but the editing process brought home the fact that I don’t have to get it right the first time. Working with Rach has done more to elevate my self-confidence than anything I ever did in college, including the time I danced naked on a coffee table. When we edit each other’s work, whatever criticism there is comes from a shared desire to make our writing better. It’s never personal.

I like to think that in some ways, being a writer is better than working on the Starship Enterprise. I don’t have to worry about having all my molecules torn apart and rebuilt whenever I want to go anywhere. And if the number of dogs I’ve acquired over the years is any indicator, I’d be better off never seeing a tribble. But best of all, as a writer, I get to live any fiction I want. There’s a story to be written for every one of my wild imaginings.

And if it doesn’t work out, who knows?  I might still be able to get into the goat farming biz.