A Lifelong Pursuit

BY ELLE MARR (IOTA NU, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO)

How did I get here? Frequently, I ask myself this question when I am stuck in the soggy middle of a rough draft that’s due to my publisher in much less time than I’d prefer. The blinking cursor could be a metronome forcing me to keep pace, or a wagging finger reminding me that I am literally making this up as I go along. When I have no clue what happens in the next chapter, I wonder: How did I write myself into this corner, when I’m the cartographer, the guide and the willing tourist who is simply pleased to be along for the ride? The answer probably lies somewhere between blaming Netflix and its binge-worthy content, and the desire to write something great.

Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. Scribbling nonsense in the pink diaries that used to fill my room, I would retell stories I knew well and others that catalogued my day: Today, Kitty refused to sit in my lap. I ate a bowl of Cheerios and it was yummy. Only, when I reached the veteran age of 10, I got it into my head that I couldn’t be a novelist. That actually filling a 200-page book would be too steep a climb, and not for the likes of a girl from a science-oriented household, who already knew that writing was too unstable a pursuit. (Sidenote: Firstgeneration-American guilt is real.)

So, I shelved the hopes and dreams of a child. Instead of filling up even more diaries, I won summer reading contests. Visited my local library whenever I could convince my parents to drive me, and walked out of the Scholastic Book Fair with a box piled high with new treasures. I dove into high school theatre, then shifted to more traditional lanes in college, where I formed lifelong bonds in Alpha Chi Omega. In hindsight, much of my adult life was influenced by the incredible sisterhood at Iota Nu: from meeting likeminded, ambitious leaders whose career paths mirrored my own for a time; to forming core friendships over late-night Golden Spoon frozen yogurt; to moving to France to teach English through a program recommended by a sister – all while the desire to create continued to flicker inside me.

It was during one very snowy winter in Normandie that I attempted my first National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo.

Across four weeks of daily word count goals, I knocked out 50,000 words, or around 200 pages, of a story I wrote purely to keep myself entertained during heavy snowfall.

I was hooked. By the time I finished the full draft one month later, I was convinced I would get a literary agent and publisher shortly. The world needed this masterpiece! A year and many, many rejections later, I realized it didn’t – insert laughing-crying emoji – so I wrote another story. This one explored the fraught dynamic of twin sisters and the frenzied search for the truth that one sister undertakes when her twin’s body is pulled from the Seine River in Paris. It caught the interest of a literary agent, then a publisher, then hundreds of thousands of readers when it was published in the spring of 2020. I now have four published thrillers, with two more slated for spring and summer 2024 – a fact that 10-year-old me would have never dared to believe.

The need to write something compelling, that would not only capture the reader’s attention but hold mine, has been a nonstop theme. A passion that wouldn’t quite go away, and which I didn’t ever fully dismiss. No matter where my path ahead takes me, I know I will always have my sisters in Alpha Chi Omega to build me up, to keep me grounded and, if the situation is truly dire, to be available for a late-night run for fro-yo.