It’s been too long since I posted an update here, so I figured I should remedy that. I am now exclusively working on writing dark YA novels. (Horror? Paranormal thrillers with elements of mystery? Who knows what I should call them?)
Since discovering that writing in this genre feels more like “me” than any other novel genre, I have been busy. Finding what you truly love can be so energizing! In the last year, I have:
attended the Big Sur Children’s Writers Workshop in Cape Cod, the Highlights Whole Novel Revision Workshop, the Highlights Making Magic Workshop, and the annual AWP conference. I’m currently enrolled in the Story Studio Novel in a Year program for YA and MG writers. I also started a Substack! It is called Haunted Compost.
My first foray into YA, a Jersey shore vampire novel, is complete. I revised it and queried it briefly. Did pretty well with requests, but now I am giving it another round of revisions before heading back out into the query trenches.
I am also working on a new manuscript! (That’s where the Story Studio course comes in, of course.) It’s a book with a revenge ghost! Who is only partly human! And it’s also about complicated girl friendships and grief. (Still thinking of possible comps, and I definitely need a more modern one, but it’s a bit like Carrie–if she died first before exacting her revenge.)
I knew this would happen! Just as I found myself getting back into a regular writing practice, I dropped the ball. The class I was teaching came into the final week. I busied myself by prepping for the last session and stopped working on my own writing. Then the class ended. A few days passed. I still wasn’t writing. I mean, yes, I have other big stuff going on right now (moving house, *lots* of school-at-home days) but I had been maintaining pretty well.
When this happens, I often just feel like a failure and give up. But this time, I’ve been investigating. Trying to figure out what’s going on. I had been chugging along on my YA novel draft, and now…crickets. Why?
By asking myself what was different, I separated the idea of me-the-writer from the writing work that was coming out (or not) on the page. And guess what? The problem wasn’t me. It was the scene.
I realized I was in the middle of a scene that didn’t feel right. I was already thinking it might need to be changed or cut in the next draft. But I was already there. So, what to do?
This morning I made the choice to forge ahead. I’ll worry about revising once I get a complete draft finished, and not before. Since I was already into this scene, I wrote a little encouraging note to myself: get out of there. I figured out how to quickly extricate my characters and now I’m moving on. I wrote over 600 words this morning. Onward!
I just created a Word doc and called it “Cool Shit Happening In My Novel.” Why? Because I crossed the 40,000 word mark yesterday, and I need to keep up my momentum. This list is an affirmation that there is, indeed, Cool Shit Happening* in this book. But I have to finish this draft before I can make it even cooler.
*Roller Derby, Female Vampires, and Mind Control, anyone?
What’s some of the Cool Shit Happening in your novel?
If your child has special needs, you’re probably exhausted. Not just a little tired. I mean wiped out. All.The.Time. (If that’s not your experience, please let me in on your secret!) You may find yourself working day in and day out to improve your kid’s outcomes. Reading articles about social, emotional, and physical development. Maybe you’re providing an extra educational boost at home during the pandemic. Or maybe you are 100% homeschooling. Right now, all parents are tired. But I think it’s accurate to say that many (most?) special needs parents were already feeling pushed to their limits before Covid-19. I know I was. Now, stress levels have somehow risen higher than we could’ve imagined possible.
And yet, we still need to create time for ourselves. My outlet is writing. If I could live in a library, spending my days reading, researching, and writing fiction, I would. But that’s not real life. And so, when I began navigating the educational system for my child, my creative life deteriorated. I found I didn’t have enough energy left for my novel. I worked in fits and starts. I stopped finishing short stories. I met with my writing group, but I never had anything to submit for critique.
Then something strange happened. I took a job. I hadn’t taught in about nine months, and I still felt busy all the time. But I said yes to teaching Novel Writing because I absolutely loved teaching it last year. Now that I have a responsibility to think about writing, and to guide others as they find their way to a completed manuscript, I’m finding that I have more creative energy. In addition to preparing weekly lessons and reading/critiquing other writers’ work, I’m also getting back into a regular writing practice. It’s funny, because one piece of writing advice I absolutely loathe is the decree that “real writers write every day.” I think the reason I hate it so much is that it usually seems to come from people in positions of extreme privilege–like a super wealthy, older male with either no children or a partner who seemingly performs all the caregiving. Often this person is already a famous novelist. So, my kneejerk reaction is always they have no idea what real life is like. Not everyone can write every day. I still believe that’s true. But I’m also finding myself able to write nearly every day…and it’s not like I discovered new hours that weren’t there before. I’m prioritizing because it’s making me feel really good. And I found a system that’s working for me. So far. (I really hope I’m not jinxing this by writing about it!)
What I’ve started doing is simple. After my child is at school (either in person or online), I take a cup of coffee to my writing area and open my manuscript. Then, I write 500 words. No matter what, I stop when I hit my word count goal. I’ve found I often have more to say than those 500 words, but I stop anyway. This works for me because I’m not burning myself out. There are a few more tips to my new process, and I’ll share those soon. In the meantime, is there a number of words that seems within reach to you? Maybe it’s less than 500. Maybe it’s more. Either way, if you’ve been in a creative rut, maybe a new writing routine is in order. And who knows? Maybe tapping into your creative outlet begets further creativity.
I have had this website for some time, and yet I have resisted writing blog posts. Why? I think I’ve struggled with the messaging that many writers receive about “branding” themselves. I feared making a mistake, somehow coming across wrong. Labeling myself into a corner.
But the biggest issue I worried about is this: I don’t want to be a brand. I’m a person, and I have many disparate interests. Sometimes my interests change! I find new things to obsess over. I don’t want to be the writer who specializes in just one specific thing. So, to free myself from worrying about all this, I decided I’ll just go ahead and declare right here that I’m a writer. I usually write for adults, though my current project is a YA novel. I love mystery and horror–Gothic above all else. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy humor, romance, cozies, and literary fiction. I do. I’m a sucker for poetic turns of phrase, for witty criticisms, for ingenious sentences.
Who else am I? I’m a parent who’s struggling, as many others are, with being the primary caretaker for a child during the global pandemic. I spend hours reading and researching methods for improving the lives of people living with ADHD. I am learning to meditate, and to be mindful, and to return to the present when my mind begins an anxiety-spiral about the future. Yoga is another practice that I am slowly coming back to, after months (years?) of neglect. And I am a teacher. I love teaching writing classes. I don’t claim to have any magical methods that will help students summon whole works of art in mere days. But there is nothing better than helping guide writers through a project by sharing practices that have helped me on my own writing journeys. The community and discussion and support in writing workshops is its own kind of magic, I suppose; a kind of ideas-coming-together-at-just-the-right-moment serendipity that I don’t often find anywhere else in life.
So, that’s who I am. At least for today. Welcome to my blog.
Chelsea Covington Maass writes fiction of all lengths: flash, short stories, and novels. Her flash fiction has been published at Shotgun Honey and Hoot Review. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Newfound.
Chelsea lives in the Philadelphia area. She earned her MFA from Rosemont College, and she’s taught composition to undergrads at several local universities. She’s also had the opportunity to teach creative writing at the MFA level. Most recently, she taught Novel Writing I and Novel Writing II in the Rosemont Writer’s Studio, a non-credit program available to the Philadelphia writing community. Read more
Chelsea Covington Maass 