Twelve Steps to Normal Author Farrah Penn on Fanfic, Loss, and the Path to Publication

I first started writing my own original stories after I got in trouble for accidentally writing American Girl fan fiction for a class assignment. I was in the fifth grade, and we were supposed to turn in a short story for English. I went home and penned a thirty-page adventure starring Molly McIntire. It was incredible, in my humble ten-year-old opinion. I had so much fun with it. But after my teacher read it, I was called to her desk. This wasn’t an original story. Molly already existed in those American Girl books. Why hadn’t I followed the right instructions?
While that somewhat scarred me moving forward, it also gave me the push to write my own original stories. I would go in my room, sit at my computer, and make up characters who had their own adventures outside the historical World War II timeframe. And I loved it.
I kept writing through middle school, but stopped in high school and college when life got busier. I knew I loved writing books. I just didn’t know how people became professional authors. Once I got to college I thought, “But you can’t major in Novel Writing, can you?!”
That led my to my Creative Writing degree. Which, you know, close enough.
My ten-year-old book-loving, story-creating self also did not know the road to becoming a Real Life Author would be full of rejection. I queried my first YA book and gained a whole lot of “unfortunately, I am going to pass” emails. Querying my second book landed me with my phenomenal agent, who is a dream to this day. Yet despite writing three different books and going on submission three different times, I hadn’t accomplished that cherished, magical book deal.
I wished I heard people talking openly about rejection during that time. On social media, everyone tends to want to share the good and not necessarily the bad, because showcasing accomplishments always leaves you on a high note. But sometimes the first book you write won’t sell. Or the second. Or the third.
Sometimes it’s the one you didn’t think would sell at all.
Twelve Steps to Normal is my debut novel, about a father/daughter relationship on the mend after Kira’s father invites three friends from his recovery program to live with them. Kira isn’t thrilled about this, so she comes up with her own steps to reclaim her life and her happiness. While it’s a story about alcoholism, it’s also much more than that. It’s about forgiveness and change, friendships and struggles, first loves and second loves, and how, sometimes, coming back home makes you a whole lot stronger.
When I started writing a young adult novel that revolved around a father/daughter relationship, I didn’t know I would lose my own father and sell my first book within the same year. It was a year of highs and lows. Losing him unexpectedly was hard to process. It still is. The grief and sadness haven’t fully gone away, and I don’t expect it ever will.
This book is close to my heart for many reasons. It’s not my story, nor is it my dad’s story, but writing it allowed me an emotional outlet I hadn’t realized I needed. It’s a reminder that sometimes, even when emerging out of your own darkness seems impossible, there is hope.
I think my fifth-grade teacher opened a creative door I may not have found if I hadn’t written a wrong version of an original story, or maybe I would have found it myself down the road. I like to think I’d have pushed it open either way.
Twelve Steps to Normal hits shelves tomorrow, and is available for preorder now.