How It All Began
The very first day I thought about the idea for this book I was at my family’s cabin, having just reread A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J Maas. Her series had entirely changed how I chose to cope with my mental health and self-image. I wanted to learn what it meant to take care of myself, and recognize a true friend when I met one.
I was in the middle of my Master’s program for counseling psychology and had not been able to quench my creative thirst for far too long. I decided to buy myself an iPad and start brainstorming a fun concept for a book—just something for myself to help me escape into another world. One that I soon realized I had in my head for a long, long time.
With the terrible things that had been happening all around the world, from the Pandemic, to questioning if my entire gender had the right to our own bodies, to navigating imposter syndrome with my impending degree—it was a lot. It was too loud.
I needed something to keep me above water, to keep me from feeling like it was all out of my control. And thus, The Color of Stars was born.
Truthfully, I first named the idea “Always: In Another Life” because of my obsession with Harry Potter and the multiverse. My older sister/editor/best friend told me—in her usual blunt way that we agreed was best for our once poor communication—that the title sounded “a little bit like a 13 year old wrote a shitty romance novel.” And she was right. The Color of Stars has so much meaning for the idea I had began creating. It felt like the novel had named itself.
The scribbling of my frantic brainstorming looked like the psychotic rambling of a labotomized patient for the first several months. My ADHD went undiagnosed for way too long that I had only recently begun learning how the hell to manage it. When this book was mine, and mine only, a hidden world created by nothing but my brain, I wrote whatever I wanted. Rae Andino had become the version of myself I was too scared to be. She scowls at scary men, screams into the wind, and doesn’t give a flying fuck what anyone had to say about her. And around her, an entire world, filled with the kind of friends you only refer to as family, and the kind of world that doesn’t make you want simultaneously beat the shit out of a politician while never actually leaving your bed. It was perfect, and it was mine.
I was desperate to get the ideas out of my head, scared I might lose one if I didn’t. I was aching to finally start writing, but knew there was such a big world in my head that needed to organize itself on paper before I could type that first chapter. Believe it or not, the first chapter is the only chapter in the entire book that hasn’t been changed since I first wrote it, I always say that while writing, it felt like I was only a vessel for the novel, and not vice-versa. My best friend, confidant, and the greatest inspiration for the coolest fictional best friends an author could ask for, THE Taylor Grinnell, had joked with me one day while she did my hair that I am possessed and my demon is in charge of relaying the life of Rae Andino so the world may never forget her story of what she had overcome to realize some of life’s biggest truths. Eyes rolled back, fingers typing frantically, maybe even a little demonic groaning… the whole nine-yards. Because TRULY, I have always just felt like the messenger—Imposter Syndrome at its best.
And Taylor, whenever I felt foolish for perusing something that could easily just stay in my Pages until some poor sod finds my SIM card in the future and reads it like a cave drawing showing the stories of some half-brained Neanderthal… you were always there to remind me that my words are worth the world’s ear. No one thinks me as brilliant as you do. I truly can’t thank you enough for auspiciously popping into my life and showing me that I’m nothing like what the ghosts of my past wanted me to be. I am kind, strong, fantastical, and one in a trillion. As are you, my wood fairy goddess pixie girl.
Now that my mom is pissed she hasn’t got a shoutout yet, this one’s for you.
My mom has been my number one fan my entire life. Has our relationship always been good? No. Healthy? Nooo. Has my mother always encouraged me to do something with my artistic talent and follow my dreams? Without a doubt. And yes, I’m sorry I still have never written and performed a song for you but there’s a song playing just for the two of us between all 555 pages of my book, telling a tale of strong women fighting like hell to keep their light from being dimmed by the pain of their past. You know I love you, and you know I could never thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me. You are wild, Lanette Hesse, but no one can ever say you aren’t fearless. You’re my Brynhildr, and you taught me how to do this on my own, so, Solivagant, mama.
