THE CASSANDRA CLARE STORY

Though Cassandra Clare has sold millions of books by spinning fantastic tales that draw from myth and legend, when it comes to actual writing, she is nothing if not a realist. She dismisses moments of golden light inspiration or a romanticized calling. "Inspiration, when it does come, doesn't come from outside of you. It comes from the work that you do, from the process itself," she wrote. She sees writing as a serious commitment, as a series of choices. And it's that hard work and practical dedication that have taken her from a girl who read fantasy novels to a woman who writes them.

Cassie was born Judith Rumelt, July 27, 1973, in Tehran, Iran. She traveled all over the world with her parents, Elizabeth and Richard, and had been a resident of England, France, and Switzerland before she turned 10. As she moved from place to place, sometimes attending school and sometimes being homeschooled, books were her constant companion, and she often found herself dipping into her father's science fiction and fantasy books, though she read in a variety of genres. She was introduced to oral storytelling by her father, who found ways to make stories part of daily life. Cassie recalled, "My father was a great storyteller and he used to be able to bribe me to do whatever he wanted — finish my homework, do the laundry — with stories. It made me realize the great motivational power of fiction!"

She described her younger self as "really, really quiet, which is always a shocker for people who know me now." She elaborated, "I was the quiet kid in the corner, reading a book. In elementary school, I read so much and so often during class that I was actually forbidden from reading books during school hours by my teachers. I've always thought that was something of a counterproductive measure. I mean, shouldn't you want kids to read? Admittedly maybe not during biology class." At age 12, when she got her first computer, she started writing books, experimenting in various genres: "I wrote a terrible vampire novel and a terrible mystery novel and a terrible romance novel and a terrible Arthurian novel," she said.

When Cassie was in high school, the family settled in L.A., where she kept reading and writing. At age 15, to entertain her friends, she even wrote a thousand-page novel called The Beautiful Cassandra, based on the Jane Austen story of the same name. (That story eventually gave her part of her pen name; her adopted last name is her grandmother's middle name, as well as the county in Ireland she came from. Clary's name was also a tribute to the courageous, quick-tempered Irishwoman.) "One of the great joys of being so young and writing for fun is the lack of pressure and the freedom to write whatever you want," said Cassie. She credits a dedicated creative writing class as a huge boost to her development, noting, "It allowed for a lot of personal attention being paid to each student's work and a lot of critique."

Cassandra took more writing classes in college, but they didn't have the same impact, and while she still loved writing, she assumed she wasn't cut out to write fiction. She became a journalist instead, writing for various tabloids and entertainment magazines. She didn't love the subject matter or the hours though, and she found her mind drifting back toward fiction.

Needing a creative outlet after her day job, she returned to the fictional worlds she loved and wrote fan fiction u