Melissa Grant Writes

Ugh.

Finding books similar to mine is hard.

Yet another thing I had NO idea I had to do. I was blissfully unaware of all the work that goes into a book.

I pictured myself as Jo March in Little Women, writing a book.

Turns out writing a book is closer to Annie Wilkes torturing Paul Sheldon in Misery.

I kid; it’s not REALLY torture.

But it is hard.

I was reading Amari and the Night Brothers late one night after finishing Kaya of the Ocean and trying to figure out why those two speak to me.

Here’s where my midnight musings landed me:

I think as a kid there was a giant tonal hole after Beverly Cleary and Little House on the Prairie. I mean, I couldn’t express what I wanted clearly at the time, but I feel like I leaped into adult darkness because no one was stocking the middle.

I had big feels as a kid, and I wanted intensity. I wanted it to be dark enough to be honest, but perhaps my reading material shouldn’t have been so screwed up that it belonged on the adult horror shelf.

And I was there.

I am honestly kind of horrified for my 11-year-old self now.

I went to John Saul for children in peril, buried trauma and adults failing. V.C. Andrews was all about taboos, abuse, secrecy and damaged families. Stephen King gave me childhood fear, grief, addiction, and just enough wonder to keep the darkness from swallowing everything.

Those were the places I went for intensity; I wanted my book (aka Cloudia) to occupy the space before that horror cliff edge.

Kaya of the Ocean has a weird girl/natural-world energy I like, but Cloudia cares less about being seen as weird. She already knows she’s different and mostly doesn’t care; the people she loves most are the ones, like her dad and two friends, who accept her without asking her to explain or soften herself.  

Amari and the Night Brothers, so far, has darker stakes and social weight, which feels closer to what I was missing all those years ago. The magic in Amari is fun, but it HITS you in the face right away.

Then again, like Kaya, Cloudia’s magic is rooted in the natural world rather than spectacle. Weather, sunlight, wind, ancient trees and old forces are already mysterious and powerful; fantasy is an extension of nature rather than a separate magical layer.

Haha! I guess that is why I’m looking for comparisons, not copies.

How can I be this OLD and still be learning?

So Cloudia is landing in the middle where nature feels more meaningful than overt mysticism, weirdness doesn’t need correcting, acceptance matters more than approval, and there’s no great interest in sanding herself down to make other people comfortable.

That’s where I am too.

Finally.

_{[Photo by Jenny Kalahar on Unsplash]}