What did happen is, a few years after my debut as a feminist author of reimagined fairy tales, I became a Christian.

Like many young Christians, my initial understanding of a life of faith was largely black and white. I understood Christianity as a list of dos and don’ts. At the same time, I was starting to realize that some of these don’ts involved media like movies, books, and music—some things were Christian-approved, others were not. I vividly remember finding out that a friend had decided to scratch a cross into all of her secular music CDs, in an effort to purify her music intake. In my own home I was sheltered too, partly by ideological objections, but mostly by my parents’ total lack of interest in current pop culture. It seemed like living a Christian life involved the shunning of certain narratives. I quickly realized that this could have ramifications for my own creative writing pursuits. Were some stories dangerous? Tempting? Even corrupting? I figured I was better off safe than sorry, and I abandoned any nascent dreams of being a writer as a career.

I did keep writing, though—I whiled away many hours as a child and adolescent writing stories, just for fun. Along the way, I also fell in love with movies and television. I would read the film reviews in the paper and then ask my mom to rent me the most acclaimed ones when they came out on VHS. I can only assume she trusted me, since she never bothered to look at the ratings and even got me the R-rated ones. As for TV, though I wasn’t allowed to watch everything, I read the TV guide cover to cover every week and planned out my fantasy watching schedule. I decided that writing scripts would be the path for me—if I was going to be a writer, which again, I wasn’t. I even made a few short films with my sister and a friend. But the night before a big shoot, our video camera malfunctioned, cutting short our grand plans and leaving pieces of unused set design all over the house to collect dust. For some reason, I let this one roadblock stop me—I’m sure a young Spielberg wouldn’t have, but to my young mind, uncertain if this creative path was really one I was morally allowed to go down, it felt like a sign that I should be spending my time reaching for more appropriate achievements.

I still lobbied my parents for years to get a video camera of my own, and it eventually materialized on my 15^th birthday. I wish I could say that on that day I finally dropped everything to do what I’d always wanted, but it was too late. I was already halfway through high school and deep in the positive feedback loop of academic effort. Changing course seemed pointless, when not-so-deep-down lurked the fear that my interest in making movies was at best a frivolous waste of time, and at worst actively in conflict with my worldview. Since I’d already stopped considering myself “creative,” I gravitated toward math and science instead, especially biology. So it’s probably no surprise that I soon decided that I’d be a doctor—the least creative, most obvious choice for someone with my transcript. Nothing controversial about getting good grades. Plus, medicine is a “good” career that helps people in concrete, measurable ways—the kind of thing a good Christian girl should set her heart on, right?

I ended up applying to only two colleges: MIT, the premiere place to study science and technology, and USC (I told myself it was because of their excellent medical school, not at all because of its proximity to Hollywood). I got in to both, but the contest was already decided by my choices up to this point—I was extremely privileged to have both options, and MIT was the better choice for sciences. Thus, my fate was sealed (at least for the next four years).

Ah, college. Instead of being a period of exploration like it is for most people, college for me was a matter of survival. I’d selected a school that challenged me beyond my limits, and I struggled to complete the bare minimum of required classes to graduate on time with the major I selected as a freshman: biology. It will come as no surprise, again, that I did not need to take many arts or writing classes to graduate from MIT. The longest paper I wrote in college was only thirteen pages, double-spaced, and it was about nematode genetics. In retrospect, the amount that I struggled might have been a sign that I was on the wrong track, but I was so overwhelmed that I didn’t have the bandwidth to contemplate alternatives. (Still, my long-denied artistic interests somehow managed to occasionally assert themselves—I remember once staying up all night before a test, not to study but to write a story. I dismissed it as simply my way of blowing off steam.)

There was only one instance during college when I took the time to seriously doubt the path I was on, and I raised my concerns to my dad. I remember him asking me, “Well, what do you love?” Without hesitation, I said, “Movies.” Not unkindly, he replied, “Everyone loves movies.” He made a good point, but I took it further: This passion doesn’t make me special, so there’s no reason I need to take it seriously. I squashed down the thought and got back to organic chemistry.

Ultimately, my original plans for medical school were shattered by my hard-won but unimpressive B-average GPA, but college had proven to me that I didn’t like school enough to keep doing it for four more years anyway, so that was for the best. Exhausted from years of sleep deprivation and stress, I was fortunate enough to land a job at a small health-care biotechnology start-up, and I settled in for the long haul, uttering perhaps the most stupid phrase I’ve ever spoken: “I never want to learn anything again.” (I know for a fact I said this, because my friends quote it back to me.) Of course I didn’t really mean it, but hidden in there was a grain of truth. I was tired of challenges, and every time a little voice suggested that maybe I should take on a new one, like finally pursuing my lifelong passion for writing, I hushed it. I wanted to relax for a while.