{"id":1898,"date":"2012-03-30T09:19:54","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T13:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/?p=1898"},"modified":"2012-03-29T22:44:14","modified_gmt":"2012-03-30T02:44:14","slug":"the-ways-we-struggle-stephanie-burgis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/30\/the-ways-we-struggle-stephanie-burgis\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ways We Struggle – Stephanie Burgis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here for an explanation of the The Ways We Struggle guest post series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This week I’d like to welcome Stephanie Burgis<\/a>, author of the magical MG Kat Stephenson trilogy, the second book of which, Renegade Magic<\/i><\/a>, is out next Tuesday. The first book in the trilogy, Kat, Incorrigible<\/i><\/a> won the Waverton Good Read Children’s Award in the UK and was chosen by VOYA for their list of Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers. Stephanie grew up in East Lansing, Michigan, but now she lives in Wales with her husband, son and dog, surrounded by castles and caf\u00e9s. Today she talks about learning to lose control.<\/p>\n

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The Way I Struggle by Stephanie Burgis<\/font><\/center><\/p>\n

I like to be in control of my life. No, wait, maybe I need to rephrase that. I physically need<\/em> to feel in control. I guess I always knew that about myself, but when I was 21, I had it confirmed in a way I\u2019d never expected. I went in to get my wisdom teeth removed, a totally normal procedure. The nurse told me that when the laughing gas took effect, I would start to feel giddy and giggly and deeply relaxed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSounds good!\u201d I thought. I settled back in the dentist\u2019s chair, breathing deeply and waiting for the laughing gas to take effect. I knew, because I\u2019d heard (aka, insisted on) a full explanation of what would happen, that after the procedure, I\u2019d walk right back out the front door, through the waiting room. I\u2019d seen various other patients come out before me, having gone through just that process.<\/p>\n

Well. It didn\u2019t exactly work that way. Instead, as the laughing gas infiltrated my system, I went into a physical panic attack, the first and most severe of my life. I ended up passing out completely, something that was NOT supposed to happen. My mom and a nurse had to carry me out the back of the surgery to get me home.<\/p>\n

It turns out that laughing gas works really well for the vast majority of people…but, as my parents\u2019 dentist explained, there\u2019s a small percentage of the population that reacts very, very badly to it – and it seems to be linked into the bone-deep need for self-control. For the same reason that I hate feeling tipsy, my body reacted with total panic<\/em> to the feeling of the laughing gas trying to take over.<\/p>\n

So. Imagine, then, how a person with these issues feels when swimming in the big, deep publishing ocean, full of underwater currents, sudden whirlpools, and waves that can suddenly lift you up and carry you where you never expected to go?<\/p>\n

Hahahahahhaa. Well. It isn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n

The funny thing is, though, for all my struggles and attempts to feel<\/em> in control of my writing and my career, it\u2019s been proven to me so many times that only when I let go of control do the best things happen for me and for my writing<\/strong>. After all, if I\u2019d kept hold of my firm self-control, I would never have written Kat, Incorrigible<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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See, back in 2006, I thought I knew exactly what I \u201cshould\u201d write, if I wanted a real career: dark, angsty adult fiction. I\u2019d gotten so much positive feedback when I wrote in that genre, I\u2019d come so close<\/em> to selling the first book I wrote in that mode, I just knew that if I kept plugging away, I would get there.<\/p>\n

Then one day, while I was chopping onions in my kitchen, I heard Kat Stephenson whisper her first lines into my head:<\/p>\n

\u201cI was twelve years of age when I chopped off my hair, dressed in boys\u2019 clothes, and set off to save my family from impending ruin. I made it almost to the end of my front garden…\u201d<\/p>\n

I ran for a notebook, I started writing faster and more joyfully than I ever had before… and then I pulled myself up short with a jerk.<\/p>\n

Wait a minute.<\/em> What was I doing?!<\/p>\n

Kat, Incorrigible<\/em> was nothing like the kind of book I was supposed to be writing! It wasn\u2019t dark, it wasn\u2019t adult, and it certainly couldn\u2019t be described as angsty. It was Regency England with magic and highwaymen and romance and pratfalls. It was lighthearted and joyous and funny. What had I been thinking?!<\/p>\n

I put that notebook away, I told myself firmly to forget about Kat and her sisters, and for months I forced myself to keep slogging away on my latest adult manuscript and angst-ridden heroine, even though Kat sounded like so much more fun, and she kept on whispering temptingly in my ears…<\/p>\n

And then I came down with M.E.\/CFS, a chronic illness that is incurable and completely life-changing. For months, I could barely get off my couch. I lost my safe, sensible dayjob. I had no control over my life or my own body. I was in despair.<\/p>\n

So I gave up. I couldn\u2019t control anything… so I\u2019d turn to the one thing that might make me happy. I wrote Kat, Incorrigible<\/em>, purely to give myself an escape. Yes, I myself was lying on the couch, wrecked and unable to stand up, but Kat was jumping on highwaymen\u2019s horses, teasing her older sisters, and performing scandalous acts of magic. I laughed out loud as I wrote. I felt tension drain out of my body as I watched Kat cause total chaos on my computer screen.<\/p>\n

And to cut a long story short… I was wrong, wrong, wrong, about everything I thought I knew. It turned out that when I forced myself to write something that was supposedly smart and sensible for the market, it didn\u2019t work – but when I let myself give up control and write something joyful and – from my perspective – terrifyingly vulnerable… that was when the magic happened.<\/p>\n

Now, Kat, Incorrigible<\/em> is about to come out in its paperback edition in North America on April 3rd, while Renegade Magic<\/em> (the second book in Kat\u2019s trilogy) comes out in hardcover the same day. I am thrilled… and yes, being me, I am also terrified.<\/p>\n

Because I am a control freak, I am splashing around in the seas of publication-related anxiety. Will both books sell? Will readers like them? I have no illusion of control in this situation because of the ME\/CFS, which means I physically can\u2019t<\/em> fly across the ocean from my home in Wales to be in the US when they come out. I hate that! I want to be there! I want to feel in control!<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m trying to remember the lessons that writing about Kat first taught me. Instead of kicking against the current, I want to learn how to lie back and ride the waves… because I\u2019m pretty sure the only way I can ever get anywhere with my writing, or my life, is to let go of the reins. At least a little bit.<\/p>\n

View all the The Ways We Struggle posts so far<\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here for an explanation of the The Ways We Struggle guest post series. This week I’d like to welcome Stephanie Burgis, author of the magical MG Kat Stephenson trilogy, the second book of which, Renegade Magic, is out next … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1898"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1902,"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898\/revisions\/1902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}