Guest Post by Rebecca Serle

Since I was a child, the only thing I ever wanted to do was to be a writer. When I sold my first book in 2010, a re-telling of “Romeo and Juliet” from Rosaline’s point of view, I was thrilled. I was only 24 but I already felt like I had been pounding the pavement for years (I know, I know).

I met my brilliant first literary agent, Mollie Glick, at Foundry, and the two of us worked together for eight years and published four novels.

Then, in late 2011, I had an idea I knew would be a game changer. You can tell them when they come. You almost always think, “Why has no one done this before?” Followed quickly by: “I better work fast.”

“Famous in Love” is the story of Paige Townsen, a small-town girl who gets plucked from obscurity to star in the next major feature film franchise based on a bestselling book series. I had never had an idea that lit me up quite like this one. It was exactly the sort of thing I wanted to read — so I wrote it.

The book took eight months to write, but it was another three years until it was published. I was impatient, particularly because I had begun to turn my attention to another iteration of the world. I wanted “Famous in Love” to be a TV show. And I wanted to write it.

There wasn’t exactly a working model for this, and to my knowledge no author had ever become the creator of their own show. The story for most authors is this: Hollywood comes calling, you accept their terms gratefully, and you sign on the dotted line. But this was my story. I wanted to be the one to bring it to life, not watch from the sidelines as it happened.

I wrote a pilot script. It took me a year. I studied scripts in various stages, and read, watched, and re-read the pilots of shows I admired, just as I had learned to write novels by reading obsessively, and as I had broken into the publishing industry by talking to and observing its major players. (In graduate school I blogged for The Huffington Post, interviewing writers at every chance I got, attended every literary drinks night in the city I could find that didn’t require an invitation, and showed up at every reading.)

You want to know a second-mark breakdown of the “Gossip Girl” pilot? I’m your girl. I read Robert McKee’s titular “Story.” I spoke to every television creator I could — and read interviews from ones I couldn’t. I was lucky to have my manager, Dan Farah, who helped me learn what I needed to about the business and pushed me out of my comfort zone over and over again.

I had many conversations with my incredible female colleagues like Lauren Oliver, bestselling author, about what it means to strive, to want to create outside the box, to pursue a more untrod path. I was inspired often by “Gone Girl” author and screenwriter Gillian Flynn, one of the only working women authors to successfully shepherd her own novel to the screen.

Many thought I was nuts. What did I know about television? “You write books,” people reminded me, as if I’d forgotten. “Stay in your lane.”

But I didn’t want to stay in my lane. I’ve never wanted to stay anywhere — I’ve only ever wanted to grow.

Next week, “Famous In Love” will air on Freeform. Along with Marlene King, I remain the co-creator and co-executive producer.

I recently had lunch with one of the actresses on our show. We were talking about her business and she was confiding in me that one of the people on her team is quite negative and tells her not to expect too much. She was debating how to handle it. “She’s realistic, though,” she said. “And I’m not always.”

I thought about that — about how, as women, we are often told to not want too much, to not be “ridiculous,” to have reason, to “look at the facts.” If I had listened to those voices around me this show wouldn’t exist today. Nothing is possible until it is.

So, be unrealistic. It takes a lot of hard work and a lot of sleepless nights and often many tears (zero shame), but if you can believe, if you can have joy, if you can want it bad enough — incredible things can happen. And they do.

“Famous in Love” stars Bella Throne and premieres April 18.

Rebecca Serle is an author and television writer who lives between NYC and LA. Serle most recently wrote the YA book series “Famous in Love” and its sequel, “Truly Madly Famously,” both published by Little Brown, publisher of “Twilight” and “Gossip Girl.”