Carry On (Simon Snow, #1)

by Rainbow Rowell

May you fight your own battles and forge your own wings

Hi, this is Rainbow Rowell, the author of the Simon Snow Trilogy. With the final book – Any Way the Wind Blows – coming out this summer, I’m feeling very nostalgic and reflective about Carry On. Simon and Baz were actually born in my contemporary novel Fangirl – the characters of a story within the story. When Fangirl was over, I kept thinking about Simon and Baz and how I would write them if they were my own characters … But they were my own characters. So what was stopping me? Carry On became a Chosen One story about other Chosen One stories. And about stories, in general. About what we expect from characters. And how we’re trained to feel about them. And it became a love story, because I always want more romance in my adventure stories. (I want my more romance in my everything stories.) When I first pitched this book to my editor, I was worried it would seem like a gimmick -- that readers wouldn’t see Simon and Baz as their own characters, separate from Fangirl. It was such a relief to me when Carry On found its audience. Simon and Baz have always felt real to me. I’ve spent more time writing them now than any other characters, and I feel like I’ve shared more of myself through them. I hope you enjoy Carry On. I’ve left some notes along the way. Some are about the writing process. Some are just memories. It was fun for me to go back to the very beginning, now that I know how it all turns out. Thank you so much for reading!

Nobody knows why my magic is the way it is. Why it goes off like a bomb instead of flowing through me like a fucking stream or however it works for everybody else.

As an avid fantasy reader, I was very intimidated by the idea of writing fantasy. I didn’t think I had it in me to detach from the real world. I was trained as a journalist, and my other books tend to be very grounded in real places and experiences. I waded into fantasy with my book Fangirl, framing the Simon Snow story inside a realistic, contemporary novel. (If you haven’t read Fangirl, it’s kind of fun to read it AFTER the Simon Snow books.) But once I worked past that initial fear and insecurity, I realized how much fun it is to write fantasy. You get to make things up! I liked thinking about how magic felt for each of the Carry On characters – and how Simon’s power could be more intense but also less manageable. How unstable it made him feel.

Things I miss most about Watford:

It’s sort of a thing for me to write lists. (I think maybe all of my novels have one?) This list allowed me to settle into Simon’s character and his voice, while also giving readers a quick overview of his world. I wanted Carry On to feel like it was happening at the end of a series. Like we’ve skipped all of Simon’s early adventures and arrived at the big one. The final battle. I remember feeling like I was giving myself the lay of the land in this section. Like I was learning Simon’s story by telling it.

Magic. I miss magic when I’m away. When I’m by myself, magic is something personal. My burden, my secret. But at Watford, magic is just the air that we breathe. It’s what makes me a part of something bigger, not the thing that sets me apart.

This was my first book written in first-person, and it was such a challenge to write – because first-person demands that you constantly stay in character and in voice. You can’t use words or make references that the character wouldn’t make. You can’t ever sound like yourself. I vividly remember writing this list and trying Simon’s voice on for size. He has a very specific rhythm in my head -- and a specific tone. Simon is matter-of-fact and accepting. He doesn’t really question or deconstruct the world around him. He’s like --- “This is the situation, this is my mission, time for me to act.” He’s hard on himself, rueful. He constantly feels out of his depth. But he’s never paralyzed. When I’m writing Simon, I imagine him doggedly pushing forward, even in his thoughts. It’s a very familiar voice for me now! But reading this list is like watching a baby chick break out of its egg. I can so clearly remember when that voice was brand new to me.

Let the Mage and the Pitches and the Humdrum and everyone else fight the wars they seem to have their hearts set on. Simon and I could get a flat in Anchorage. Or Casablanca. Or Prague. I’d read and write. He’d sleep and eat. And we’d both live to see the far end of 19. Maybe even 20. I’d do it. I’d take him away—if I didn’t believe he was the only one who could make a difference here. If I stole Simon and kept him safe … I’m not sure there’d be a World of Mages to come back to.

Penelope was so valuable to me as I was writing Carry On because she acts like a reality check. A less passioned observer. Simon and Baz are in the story up to their eyes. Whenever I wanted to be able to see the forest and the trees, I’d switch to Penny’s POV. She also lets us see the Simon/Baz dynamic from the outside, which I always like in a romantic story. In this section, I wanted to show how grave Simon’s situation really is. Simon might not question his role, but Penny loves him, and she’s worried. She wants to save him from saving the day.

She leans forward and presses a kiss into my temple. No one has ever kissed me there. No one has ever kissed me anywhere but on my mouth.

This line still breaks my heart like no other.

Even some of our cookbooks are banned. (Though it’s been centuries, at least, since the Pitches ate fairies.) (You can’t even find fairies anymore.) (And it isn’t because we ate them all.)

This joke still cracks me up. (Writing a novel is long and lonely. You have to amuse yourself.)

And when I felt myself slipping too far, I held on to the one thing I’m always sure of— Blue eyes. Bronze curls. The fact that Simon Snow is the most powerful magician alive. That nothing can hurt him, not even me. That Simon Snow is alive. And I’m hopelessly in love with him.

This scene was so much fun to write. At this point in the book, we’ve heard so much about Baz from Simon – he’s almost a legend. Baz is cool and handsome and possibly evil. He’s confident and untouchable. And then Baz shows up, and we’re inside his head, and he’s a wreck! I think, at the time that this book was released, many readers weren’t expecting Simon and Baz to have canonical feelings for each other. And they really weren’t expecting Baz to be the “hopelessly in love” one. Carry On is so much a book about tropes and archetypes and story conventions. I really loved flipping those conventions whenever I could. To walk a familiar path with a reader -- orphan, magic sword, etc. -- and then turn away from that path. I hope that this is a moment when readers think, “Oh, this story is headed in a new direction…”

Those were my fifth-year fantasies: kisses and blood and Snow ridding the world of me.

It’s no secret that Baz is my favorite character to write. One of the reasons I wrote Carry On was that I loved writing Baz so much in Fangirl. I kept imagining Baz stuck inside of Fangirl, whispering, “Rainbow … I’m right here… Languishing… You could do so much with me.” I love how melodramatic he is. I mean, only Baz would allow me to write a phrase like, “kisses and blood and Snow ridding the world of me.” I love how vulnerable he is. I love that he’s cold and sharp on the outside, but absolutely desperate for love and connection just below the surface. There’s a sort of hopelessness to everything Baz says in Carry On. But he’s very funny about it. Baz makes me laugh, even as I ache for him. As an author, I find myself wanting to help him. To give him a break.

“We,” she declares, “are finding out who killed Natasha Grimm-Pitch.” “The legend,” Baz says. Penelope gives him a soft look, the kind she usually saves for me. “So she can rest in peace.”

I, myself, am very soft for the Penny/Baz friendship. I write them together as often as possible. I love the ways that they’re alike – their intelligence, their love for magic, their mutual respect. And I love the ways they poke at each other. Baz is often shocked by Penny’s ruthlessness.

“You’re—you’re wearing jeans.”

Did NOT expect this to be a breakout line.

He smiles, and he’s made of trouble. We should have dropped him in the Thames in a bag of stones. We should have left him out for the fairies.

Fiona is another character who makes me laugh, even as she’s breaking my heart. (It must be a Pitch family trait.) I liked how Baz’s relationship with Fiona shows another side of him. He’s already more grown up than her, in some ways. And their relationship is so much about the loss they share – Baz’s mother. Fiona was so much fun to write that I brought her back in a big way in Any Way the Wind Blows.

I am going to die kissing Simon Snow. Aleister Crowley, I’m living a charmed life.

Could Baz be any more Baz than this? “I am going to die kissing Simon Snow” was the title of one of the Spanish editions of Carry On -- Moriré besando a Simón Snow.

“Nobody’s seducing a vampire,”

This scene was an absolute blast to write. Getting to write all four of them in a room, bouncing off each other. My favorite thing in a big bantery scene like this is trying to make the dialogue so specific that only the person speaking could have said it. As a writer, it feels like juggling. Can I manage all four characters at once? After Carry On, I started writing a comic called Runaways for Marvel. That book is pretty much nonstop conversation juggling. It’s really, really fun for me.

“What you are is a fucking tragedy, Simon Snow. You literally couldn’t be a bigger mess.” He tries to kiss me, but I hold back—“And you like that?” “I love it,” he says. “Why?” “Because we match.”

You really learn a lot about yourself when you’re writing books. There’s this feeling of, “Look what came out of me. Is that who I am?” When I started Attachments, my first book, I really had no idea what sort of stories and characters would come out of my head. As I type this, I’ve written seven novels, a few short stories and a bunch of comics. And what I know now is … I love messy characters. I love broken characters. I love characters who feel lost and disconnected and ashamed… And I love it when characters like that find each other and heal together. This scene with Simon and Baz is the ultimate romantic moment for me – to be seen at your lowest, to be completely revealed to someone, and then to be accepted and loved.

But I can’t just sit here, doing nothing, damn it! (Damn him.) (Damn them all.) Even when I’m not involved in their stupid drama, I’m still involved—I still have to play my part.… And this is the part where I always scream for help.

Agatha was absolutely the most difficult character for me to write. Part of it is her beauty, I think. It’s hard for me to imagine moving through the world as she does, knowing that most people find her attractive. But also … she’s sort of disaffected with magic. And that’s hard for me to imagine, too. I originally wasn’t going to involve Agatha in the ending of this book. But my literary agent had taken a liking to her and kept saying, “Where’s Agatha?” I realized that I was dropping the character because I was avoiding the work of figuring her out. I rewrote this chapter and Agatha’s role in the climax so many times. I had to find my way into her, the ways that we were alike. When it was time to write Wayward Son, once again I tried to sideline Agatha. (She was going to be in California, minding her own business.) And, again, my agent was like, “Where. Is. Agatha.” The irony (I think this is irony) is that Agatha became hugely important to the trilogy and ended up getting some of my best lines! I can’t even imagine Any Way the Wind Blows without Agatha.

Tape. Exists.)

Classic. Agatha.

I didn’t know that something was wrong; I’d never been pregnant before. And no one had ever been pregnant with you, Simon.

This chapter was the most emotionally difficult to write, and is still the most difficult to read. Probably because I was tapping into my own feelings about pregnancy and childbirth, and how you have to reconcile yourself with your own parents’ relationship. It’s a funny chapter to have in a YA fantasy. “Dragons! Kissing! Introspection about pregnancy!”

I never thought there was a path that would lead here, a fourth-floor flat with two bedrooms and a kettle and a grey-eyed vampire sitting on the couch, messing with his new phone.

Aw, Simon. I’m happy you got here. I wanted to give Simon and Baz a hopeful ending and to give readers closure -- but I also felt like I was leaving the characters in such a precarious place… Happy endings always make me so nervous. Especially in adventure stories. Especially when the characters are teenagers. Simon has been through so much. The events of this book turned his whole world upside down! He saved the day, and he got the boy – but he lost his place in the world. I immediately started writing Wayward Son in my head. I didn’t want to leave Simon like this, with such an unstable happy ending.

I’ve read and loved so many magical Chosen One stories—how would I write my own? That’s what Carry On is. It’s my take on a character I couldn’t get out of my head. It’s my take on this kind of character, and this kind of journey. It was a way for me to give Simon and Baz, only half-imagined in Fangirl, the story I felt I owed them.

Thank you so much for reading Carry On. I hope you enjoyed my behind-the-scenes thoughts. If you want more, I’m planning on annotating Wayward Son, the second Simon Snow book, next. The final book – Any Way the Wind Blows – comes out July 6, 2021. It takes Simon and the crew back to England and back to Watford, and it answers some of the biggest questions left open in Carry On. (I think it answers all of them, but I’ll let you be the judge!) Follow me above to get notified when I annotate Wayward Son - the second Simon Snow book. You can add also it to your want to read shelf on Goodreads: goodreads.com/book/show/44017627-wayward-son