Bluebird: It doesn’t get easier, you just get stronger . . .
It only takes one ‘YES’!
I believe that dreams can come true. Not by chance, but by bringing together steely determination, focus, hard work, self-belief and a sprinkling of luck.
I believe this because it has happened to me twice in my life. The first time was when I was sixteen and was accepted to study at the Perm Ballet School in Russia. The second time was when I got a phone call from Kunak McGann of The O’Brien Press telling me they wanted to publish my book Bluebird.
Perm Ballet School, Russia
That first ‘Yes’, in 1991, from Lyudmilla Sakharova, director of the Perm Ballet School, was the beginning of a long journey, that eventually led me to European stages, standing in line as a swan, a fairy, and many other characters. I would look out into the audience hoping that there was a little girl like me sitting there, making herself a promise that one day, she too, would be on that stage. The second ‘Yes’, from The O’Brien Press, came after years of writing, re-writing, editing, learning, and never giving up on my dream to write the book I would have devoured when I was that teenager dreaming of life in a ballet company.
Both experiences started with imagining. When I was a child, imagining that I could be a ballet dancer, imagining life in a full-time ballet school, imagining living in the wings of a theatre, with heat from the lights on my skin, the smell of make-up and hairspray hanging in the air. And twelve years ago, imagining writing about this adventure.
Bluebird: letters, diaries and notebooks
Sitting on the 46a bus, a young girl appeared in my mind’s eye. Hope, a baby abandoned in the midst of a Russian winter, on the steps of an orphanage. Adopted by Irish parents, growing up in Dublin, a ballet fanatic. What would happen if Hope got the chance to return and study ballet in the country of her birth, to fulfil her dream of becoming a Russian trained ballerina?
In 1991, when I travelled to Perm, a city on the edge of the Ural mountains, there were no mobile phones, no internet, we couldn’t pick up the phone and call home without booking that call through the post office in advance. And so, we wrote letters. And our families wrote letters to us. Thankfully, my mother kept all my letters, and I kept all hers. I brought all my letters and diaries down from the attic and started remembering; the school boarding house, the ballet studios, the other students, the disgusting food, the fierce teachers, the theatre and the amazing adventures we had as teenagers, miles from home, with no parents, and dollars in our pockets.
I wrote every day. Filling notebooks with memories, stories, creating a new world, inspired by the reality and allowing my imagination to wonder what would unfold for Hope in this world.
At that time, I didn’t know how to write an entire story. I got out my childhood novels and studied them for structure, plot and dialogue. I read books on writing, did workshops, and started making connections with the writing world.
‘Just write it!’
As I became more serious, I transcribed my notebooks and listened to the advice that said, ‘just write it’. I took time off work and wrote every day for two weeks, when finally, I was able to type the words ‘The End’ on my first draft. It was 150k words. Now I had something to work with. I had experienced the joy of finding out key storylines as they unfolded on the page seemingly unbeknownst to me.
Twitter was then a place where opportunities could be found. A comment about the Times Chicken House competition caught my attention. Now I had a goal. I started editing. “Kill your darlings” they call it. I was ruthless, deleting huge chunks of text that I loved but that were superfluous to the story. I edited and cried, edited and hit walls, edited and read aloud, until finally I had something shorter. Covid had hit, and I sent my draft into the competition, allowing my imaginings once again to get me through the summer of the pandemic.
Hallelujah! An email arrived telling me my submission had been longlisted. A couple of weeks later, a UK number came up on my phone and I answered. The voice was that of Barry Cunningham OBE. My book, then called Waiting in the Wings, had been shortlisted to the final five. Joy of joys!
Bitter disappointment followed when my book wasn’t chosen. I realised that writing, like ballet, is a deeply personal and subjective endeavour. Rejection of one’s writing, like being cut from an audition, cuts deep.
Bluebird: the rewrite
All was not lost, and I got the opportunity to work on the manuscript with Kesia Lupo and Rachel Leyshon of Chicken House. From that work, another character emerged; Yulia, a Russian ballerina, in her thirties, daughter of the school’s terrifying director who wants nothing more than to escape the world of Russian ballet. Now I had Hope’s and Yulia’s voice living in my imagination. I rewrote the book putting it into first person present tense to allow their voices space to tell their stories.
I started editing again, killing more darlings, tightening up the storyline, all the time embarking on the painful exercise of trying to find an agent. I did all the things; made a spreadsheet, sent out queries in batches, listened to every podcast and scoured every helpful website and blog that claimed to hold the key to the perfect query letter. I worked on my pitch, found my comps, researched agents, personalised queries. All was met with rejection. And like auditioning, every rejection toughened my skin a little more.
Silence, Rejection, Success
I started sending queries to publishers who would take unagented submissions. Silence and rejection. I was ten years in and beginning to think that I should listen to the advice that says write something else. Life began to take over. Work became busier, children were dealing with school issues, and everything else in my life started taking up precious space in my imagination.
At this point, my ballet training must have been working overtime. I still dreamed of seeing my book on the shelves, of ballet girls and boys reading the story. I gave myself one last chance. I had sent a previous draft to The O’Brien Press with no joy. My story was now very different to the one I had submitted. What did I have to lose? I sent it in with no expectation of a response. This submission was for me alone. At least I could say I tried everything.
And suddenly, ten days later an email arrived in my inbox. Do I have any more of the manuscript? Do I what? Absolutely. I sent the full draft. And waited. I have become expert at waiting.
Two weeks later a phone call. THE call. The one ‘yes’. We want to publish Bluebird.
I cried and celebrated. A dream comes true.
(c) Harriet Parsons
About Bluebird:
It’s 1991; at a Russian ballet school, ballet is everything – beauty, perfection, endurance, sacrifice …
When Dublin girls Hope and Emily are chosen to study at the famous Pavlovgrad Ballet School, they think all their dreams have come true, but the challenges they face will be harder than they could ever imagine.
Daily life in the Soviet Union is like stepping into another world – freezing winters, sugar shortages, boarding at school with the other ballet students – but the chance to learn from the best, and the chance to become the best, makes all the sacrifice worthwhile. Or does it? For Hope, adopted from Russia as a baby, returning to the country of her birth to fulfil her dream of becoming a ballerina uncovers secrets buried deep…
Order your copy of Bluebird online here.
And read more Meet the Authors of Children’s and Young Adult books on Writing.ie here.
