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Pixie dust and getting where you need to be
In 2006, I moved from my home in Cork, Ireland to Orlando, Florida, to take up a job in a Walt Disney World hotel. I was 24 at the time.
I'd always felt the pull of the American planet (a phrase, I must admit, I robbed from Christopher Hitchens) and was sure that whatever happened, my life would never be the same. Secretly, I planned on marrying a NASA astronaut and never coming back.
My first day of my Floridian life started with the news that I couldn't work until I got a Social Security Number, and I couldn't get one of those until the red tape around my visa had been untied by immigration bureaucrats. I didn't have a car and so found myself trapped in a mile-long triangle formed by my apartment, a grocery store and the gates to Walt Disney World. As for housing, I needed someplace within walking distance of work which left me with two options: take a room in the one apartment that fit the bill or take shelter beneath a freeway overpass. Already living in the apartment were three young girls from Kazakhstan who couldn't speak English, and hiding there, seven of their closest friends. They were all in the US illegally. And, perhaps more pressingly, they never locked the front door.
I'd assumed I'd be spending my Floridian days skipping merrily through the Magic Kingdom drinking liquid pixie dust through a Mickey Mouse-shaped novelty straw; in reality I was trudging alongside the smoggy highway, sipping on lukewarm Coke in a Big Gulp cup.
Things got better - eventually. But I returned home in 2008, unchanged. (Well, a little bit tan, a disciple of Starbucks and with a serious avocado addiction, but otherwise unchanged.) I even had to move back in with my parents. For shame!
The first thing I did was finish writing my book about the experience, Mousetrapped. Then I spent more than a year trying to get someone - anyone - to publish it. One day I heard a loud crack coming from my chest cavity as I opened the post; the latest rejection letter had broken open my heart. (Too dramatic? Perhaps a tad.)
So I decided to take the plunge and self-publish Mousetrapped instead.
This past weekend, I sold copy number 4,000. In the last twelve months, I've gone from Girl Who Sits At Desk in PJs to Professional Writer Who Sits At Desk in PJs and Earns Money From Doing So. In between, there's been newspaper articles, a magazine interview, radio shows and speaking engagements. And everything I've done with this self-publishing malarkey has improved my chances of realising my biggest dream, next to being serenaded by Josh Groban: getting my novel published.
I may never have married that astronaut, but going to Florida did change my life. As Dirk Gently said in Douglas Adams' The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."
Find out more about Mousetrapped on mousetrappedbook.com.
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Comments (11)
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Wed Apr 20, 2011 - 10:41 pm
So great that you followed your dream, even it did bring you back home. Good luck with your book.Reply -
1 reply, Last reply by catherineryanhoward on Wed Apr 20, 2011 at 11:08 pm
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Wed Apr 20, 2011 - 9:33 pm
Go you. That's well cool. And inspiring too to hear that that s**t happens to actual real life people! Good for you :)Reply -
1 reply, Last reply by catherineryanhoward on Wed Apr 20, 2011 at 9:53 pm
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Report Wed Apr 20, 2011 - 3:16 pmFirst off, congratulations! Good for you in getting out of your comfort zone and chasing after a dream, even if it was a bit different. And to be able to write about an experience that didn't turn out how you expected, even better. What is your next adventure?Reply -
1 reply, Last reply by catherineryanhoward on Wed Apr 20, 2011 at 9:15 pm
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Report Wed Apr 20, 2011 - 4:28 pmWell done you! Here's to the next 4,000!Reply
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1 reply, Last reply by catherineryanhoward on Wed Apr 20, 2011 at 9:14 pm
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Report Wed Apr 20, 2011 - 6:59 pmLove that quote you ended with, so appropriate. I'm going to look into your book, sounds so interesting! I'm native Floridian about to move to the UK. We've been going back and forth between where the right place is for us to live, but I'm confident that we will end up where ever we need to be.Reply
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1 reply, Last reply by catherineryanhoward on Wed Apr 20, 2011 at 9:13 pm
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