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Blog Post #42: How to Get Into Freelance Fiction Ghostwriting As A Complete Beginner

C. L. GrossLeave a comment

The idea of submitting your own work as samples to potentially get work probably sounds panic-inducing, but believing in yourself might be the difference between sitting by the sidelines and getting vital experience.

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Three years ago, I took a leap that changed everything — I became a ghostwriter. I’d always loved writing: especially the creative projects I scribbled on the side, diligently working on when I got off school, and eventually work. But it wasn’t until I dove into ghostwriting full-time that I truly understood the industry and how to carve out a place in it.

If you’re thinking of doing the same, here’s how I got started (and how you can too):

1. Write Books First—Yes, Really

Before I ever pitched myself as a ghostwriter, I wrote full-length books—plural. Not for clients. Just for me. That experience was invaluable because it proved I could do it. It taught me pacing, story structure, and how to finish what I started. Clients want to know they’re hiring someone who can carry a project from page one to The End. Writing your own books first makes you credible.

2. Pull Samples From Finished Manuscripts

You don’t need to have ghostwritten for others yet—use your original work. I pulled compelling excerpts from my finished novels and memoir drafts. When clients asked for samples, I had them ready. Make sure the tone and genre of your samples match the jobs you’re applying for.

3. Find Work Where Clients Are Looking

Upwork and LinkedIn were goldmines for me when starting out. Upwork especially helped me land my first consistent clients. Don’t underestimate the power of a solid profile and a few customized pitches.

Bonus Tip: Start With Platforms That Offer Protection

Upwork might take a cut, but when you’re starting out, it’s worth it. Payment protection, contracts, and clear client reviews gave me peace of mind—and guaranteed I got paid. Once you’ve built trust and have referrals, you can branch out to private contracts with confidence.

I just wrapped up my ghostwriting chapter to finally pursue my own publishing journey. And while I’m excited for what’s next, I’ll always be grateful to ghostwriting—it paid the bills, sharpened my skills, and taught me how to thrive on deadlines.

Stay tuned as this Autumn will be an exciting time of change for me as a writer!

Blog Post #41: Fantasy versus Romantasy, and why Romantasy has some Fantasy Fans PISSED OFF!

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While Fantasy and Romantasy might seem nearly interchangable, the introduction of this new sub-genre to Romance has some traditional Fantasy fans steaming! Here, I explain how this frustration comes down to reader expectations and the tropes Romantasy are built on.

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Romantasy is a new, mixed genre that has been taking the reading community by storm. Touted with best-sellers like Fourth Wing, A Court of Thorns and Roses, and Bride, this genre has taken over social media in the past years, sparking tens of thousands of love-struck fans to rush to social media to pine for their new heart-throb through tiktok videos.

Still, there exists a subgroup of readers who find the fleeting magic systems, hollow plots, and excessive sex scenes not only juvenile but just straight up off-putting.

And the irony is that these readers who are dejected by Romantasy are the very same fans the genre was hoping to garner from the very beginning!

Who are these readers who hate Romantasy? Are they police procedural readers? Non-fiction readers? Are they Romance readers who want a contemporary, familiar world?

Nope.

Romantasy’s most ardent, fervent haters happen to be Fantasy readers.

“But how?” You may ask.

How could a genre so close to Fantasy miss the mark on those very readers? Wouldn’t fantasy stories that lean into romance tropes be exactly what Fantasy readers are looking for?

Well as it turns out… no. Not at all.

And it all comes down to tropes, reader expectations, and genre standards.

For one, Romantasy, as the name suggests, puts the Romance first. As a romance writer when I see these books I can start identifying the romance tropes right off the bat: enemies to lovers, rags to riches, star-crossed lovers, forbidden love. These are the key plot points for the story, and because the Romance is pushed front and center, this means that the relationship is the key plot point of the story.

So, fantasy readers who come to Romantasy looking for rich world building, religions, deities, languages, coups and prophecies… they would be left surely disappointed (and questioning how many sex-scenes does a YA romance need *gag* …)

The difference between a Romantasy and a Fantasy with a strong romance arc is which story line is A and which is B.

The A story-line is the main one. The B story-line is the second most prevalent in the story. C story-line is the third, so on and so forth.

So, let’s juxtaposition two different genre’s plot outlines to showcase the reader’s expectations and (di)satisfaction. We’ll go with Pride and Prejudice as the Romance and Lord of the Rings as the Fantasy. To sympathize with Fantasy readers, we’ll lay out the situation from their perspective.

LotR’s main “A” story-line is Frodo and Sam pushing past the temptation of the ring to drop it into a volcano. Aragorn’s return as the King of Men and the all-out-war against Sauron would be the B-plot. Pippin, Mirin, and their adventure with the Ents, Orcs, and Men could be considered the C-plot. As everyone knows, LotR’s story is about Good v Evil and how even the smallest, humblest of beings can conquer evil.

Pride and Prejudice’s main “A” story-line would be the relationship between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, a brewing, smoldering, enemies-to-lovers romance sparked when Mr. Darcy tells his friend that Elizabeth isn’t that pretty (Not very handsome, is she?) — a comment Elizabeth overhears at a courting party. The B plot would be between Jane Bennet and Mr. Bingley. The C plot would be Mr. Collins and Charlotte, which provides key insights into Darcy’s character. It is a story about forgiveness, love, and accepting someone for who they are.

Comparing these two plots you can see immediately why someone expecting the pacing and tropes of LOTR would be disappointed with Pride and Prejudice. Even beyond the genre expectations of swords, dragons, magic, and danger, Pride and Prejudice gives nothing to the readers of fantasy; it features no overarching wars between good and evil, no fantastical characters, and would be quite dry and boring.

This is ultimately the reason why fantasy readers are TIRED of Romantasy. Romantasy’s are basically romance books with a fantasy skin overlayed. The magic system, world mythology, religion, and all the things that take front and center stage in Fantasy are either pushed to the way-side or done so tactlessly that Fantasy readers throw in the DNF towel.

Now, I did want to say before I leave that this is not a hate-tirade on Romantasy. I can see the appeal, Romance is THE largest genre in the fiction writing world. The formula for how a romance is written can be applied to any genre to make millions.

As always, no genre can make everyone happy, and Romantasy is no exception.

Blog Post #40: How to Build Characters that Feel Real and the Power of Your Lived Experience

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Telling your lived experience through your artistic works is a nerve-wracking, panic-inducing idea for some, and this is a wake-up call to aspire for more than your fear’s bounds.

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One of the biggest compliments I received as a ghostwriter was that my characters felt “made for each other”.

Reflecting has got me thinking what that really means, how does someone write a character that feels real. Like a real person, so incomplete that they somehow feel whole.

In order to make the audience root for, ship, or cry for your characters, a writer must make the character feel as if they’re true reflections of our own experiences. Humans connect with stories on a fundamental level, and as writers, we need to build the “persona” of the character based on what we’ve experienced with other people.

So, draw from what you’ve seen and what you know. Draw from your own experiences. It is important to project the world accurately for your audience to be able to relate and connect to it. The polluted, fake world of Phillip K. Dick’s sci-fi classic Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Bladerunner, for you cinephiles) resonates with audiences today because we see how that could become our reality – hone that sentiment in your own works. Use your voice to actually say something.

Be courageous in your perception and retelling of your existence; don’t shy away from the harsh truths and painful emotions. It’s often in our depictions of these circumstances that we shine the brightest. We connect with characters that have gone through pain, who have experienced trouble and turmoil. We relate to these characters because we all understand what it’s like to struggle in some way or another; to suffer is a universal human experience.

So, embrace it.
Embrace the hard.
Confront the ugly to spool something beautiful out of the benign.
To create something daring from the desolate…

Rising from the ashes, that’s what gives us humans good character, after all.

Blog Post #37: Writing Different Romance Subgenres and How I Keep Reader Expectations Straight

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Different Romance Subgenres have different expectations, and not abiding by reader expectations can spell DISASTER for a manuscript.

As a ghostwriter I feel it is my duty to understand reader expectations in and out, and my career relies on that knowledge. Often times my clients are new to the self-publishing realm and don’t really have a firm grasp on how it works as a whole (and they often are paying for courses to walk them through publishing books written by ghostwriters).

To learn all of these tropes has a steep learning curve, as there are integral story beats that follow each trope. For example, you wouldn’t want to read a romance book with a single-father if the child isn’t going to be a key part of bringing the couple together. Likewise, you wouldn’t want to read a romance with a forced-marriage trope if the audience hardly gets to see the awkward moments of flirtation and frustration that comes with being in an arranged marriage.

Working with multiple editors (each client comes with their own freelance editor in tow) has sharpened my knowledge of common romance tropes that are key to the modern romance writing game. However, each subgenre of romance comes with its own rules, bending and molding the old tired trope into something new and daring (or at least fun and exciting). As you can imagine, an arranged marriage trope is going to look a lot different in say 1800’s Regency England v. 2020’s NYC USA. However, there’s still going to be a good amount of overlap when it comes to the emotional expectations the readers have for the trope itself (e.g., family and friend drama surrounding new partner’s arrival as a marriage prospect, the difficulty getting used to being intimate for show ((especially if there’s an enemies to lovers trope included, which often goes hand in hand with arranged marriage)), etc., etc.

Here are five key ways I keep the expectations straight between subgenres that utilize the same tropes.

  1. Know your tropes.
    Here’s the keys to the castle y’all, because everything in stories comes down to tropes. Story Tropes, by definition, are common or frequently used devices, themes, images, or plot points in a work of art or literature. Think amnesia, secret child, surprise pregnancy, orphan, “the chosen one” … these are all story tropes utilized in almost every genre ranging from westerns to horrors, from romances to mysteries.

    Understanding how these tropes play out requires an understanding of how people function and react to situations. A surprise child reveal isn’t going to hit the reader emotionally if there wasn’t a good reason (i.e. danger) to keep the child a secret in the first place, they’re going to start pondering the ethics of keeping children away from their perfectly decent (yet still flawed as we all are) parent.

  2. Know your subgenre (read ALL the books you can).
    If the story tropes are the keys to the castle, consider the subgenre the castle itself. Subgenres are sub-categories of a main genre, examples being: Regency Romance, Psychological Thriller, Police Procedural Mystery, Zombie Horror.

    Understanding the nuances of the sub-genre is integral to writing a story that readers will love. Readers who love Werewolf Shifter Romances, for example, are going to be very annoyed if you don’t understand Alpha/Beta dynamics of packs, as well as heat cycles, transformation, and a whole slew of other details no where to be found in really any other sub-genre of Romance (besides twists and variations in other shifter works such as Dragons, Vampires, etc).

  3. Know your audience.
    Here’s the third ingredient for success (but clearly, the most important by far) and that’s Audience Expectation. See, most readers of fiction lean towards a handful of specific genres and then a few specific subgenres in those genres; sure, they may go out and read something completely different every once in a while, but everyone has favorites, and voracious readers are no exception.

    This means that the new readers to your story have most likely read 20+ other stories very similar to your own, some even featuring the exact same tropes you’ve chosen.

    That’s kind of terrifying, isn’t it?

    So, in turn, you have to make sure you’re READING AS MANY BOOKS IN YOUR GENRE/SUBGENRE AS POSSIBLE. You need to be aware of what your readers are reading and how those popular books are shaping the market.

    The market always moves, and you better move with it, otherwise you’ll be left behind.

  4. Read Reader Reviews
    As well as reading the most popular books you need to be reading up on the reader reviews of the books you read — or haven’t read, as I also suggest going through the complaints of some of the worst books in your genre to see what readers DON’T like. Reading up on reviews available by readers gives you insight into what the readers, your target audience, are looking for. I often scrap the Romance subs in Reddit looking for what readers are demanding when brainstorming for new stories.

  5. Practice, Practice, PRACTICE!!!
    The final piece of advice is the same old thing you’ve always been told: if you want to be a great writer you have to WRITE. I advise writing literally as much as possible, some days that’s going to be zero, other days it might be 10,000 words, but getting words on the page, no matter how boring or useless, is always good practice, and practice, as they say, makes perfect.

Blog Post #35: From Unemployed to Self-Employed, How I Got Into Freelance Ghostwriting and Editing

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I’ve had some people tell me that I’m being taken advantage of as a writer by ghostwriting for cash, but I see it as honest work, almost like a paid internship.

I had this blog post drafted nearly two years ago, but at the time I knew I hadn’t worked long enough as a ghostwriter to be able to discuss it appropriately; I hadn’t paid my dues, in a sense.

Now that I’ve been doing ghostwriting for over two years, I feel I can give some insight into entering a freelance career as a former “nine-to-fiver”.

I lost my Administrative Assistant job at a small company that did union benefits back in March of 2020. I was not upset over this (in truth I was giddy) because I had already seen multiple integral employees of the small office find new jobs, and rumors had been circulating that the office wasn’t going to be open much longer. At the same time the earliest reports of COVID spreading through China had been all over the US news for the past three months; everyone was getting pretty nervous that it was going to jump the Pacific and come to America, and no joke, the morning I was let go was the morning I awoke to news that COVID had spread to the US and that people in hospitals had tested positive.

Before working at that little office I had never gone longer than a month without working, working at a student loan call center for nearly six years beforehand and doing consistent retail work before that.

Getting let go from that little office for really no reason outside of them finding someone cheaper to do my job allowed me to stay home and collect the unemployment I had been paying into for over ten years while the world seemed to fall apart.

I spent that year and a half on unemployment earning my certificate in Copy Editing from ACES and Poynter while also writing three more manuscripts; bringing my total of manuscripts up to five. These are the books I’ve been holding on to, waiting to polish and publish under my own pen names, one of them being Anastasia Frost.

It was when I was notified that unemployment was ending that I began to look into freelance editing and ghostwriting. The consistent payouts from my unemployment was more than I’d be able to make initially while just starting out, so, I held back until it ended to begin. I did research, though, I researched the best freelance websites, and began taking scenes from the manuscripts I had written to create samples to send to jobs.

Admittedly, breaking into my first client was the most difficult aspect; the ghostwriting field is competitive and the editing sphere even more so; we’re talking 20-50 applicants per job at times. One must hone their craft by reading writing books and learning how to create characters and stories so they don’t receive constant rejects, or worst, get a job over their head and make a fool of themselves. Reviews are king; and having good reviews is what brings in new clients.

If a freelance career is began with a one-star rating, one may as well give up entirely.

My first client was a sweet girl who had an entire story written but wasn’t comfortable writing the sex scene and needed the ending finished up. I wrote the scenes for her and she gave me my first rating: a perfect five out five with a glowing review.

That review has been responsible for every other contract I’ve sealed. That’s not to say I haven’t had a less than stellar review; I have (and I’ll explain that in another post), but I feel for certain that had it been subpar, I wouldn’t have had as much work as I have.

Consistency, is key, though, and so to maintain getting new work I need to maintain stellar reviews going forward.

Transitioning to freelance work has given me the freedom and liberty that I never had at any other job; no longer do I have a boss attempting to micromanage my every move.

Not everything is greener on the other side, however, as my fears of being fired for not doing my job have been replaced with fears that I’ll be seen as a failure and a loser if I don’t succeed as a freelancer.

After all, success as a freelancer is directly relative to the person themselves. There is no boss to blame, no co-workers. Your work speaks for you, and if it’s not good enough, you’re not good enough.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to roll and show your belly all the time. I’ll be documenting the ins and outs of all clients, including how to politely tell a client to fuck off; like I had to very early in my freelancing career.

But that is for another day.


Blog Post #33: When It All Comes Down and Dealing with Grief

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It’s hard sitting here and finally writing this blog post. It’s a post that’s been on my mind for years, my courage to write it ebbing and flowing like a tide.

Well, today, the tide breaks, and I’m here facing an emotional post I’ve been putting off from writing for a long time.

The last four years have been an emotional journey of infertility for my husband and I, but probably not the story of infertility you’re expecting to hear. My husband and I do not have an issue conceiving children, but keeping them long enough to survive outside the womb. It is with bitter, salty tears that I tell you all we’ve lost not one, not two, but five pregnancies in a row over the past four years, and this has rocked us emotionally.

My previous surgery that I had back in 2022 was not the answer to what’s keeping us from having children, and, as much as I hate to say it out loud, pursuing specialists has also come up short on providing an answer overall. They have no answers to give on why we’ve lost five babies, and that ate me up for a long time, making me a hollow, jealous version of myself that I detested.

I’ve realized now that I’ve been in circles of grief for the past four years. After each bout of dashed excitement from losing another baby, I drove myself into a self-destructive grief cycle for the following six months, emerging only when I’ve gained enough hope to run headlong into trying again. This culminated in 2023, when we lost three babies back to back, and my husband and I decided to run away on an expensive New England road trip that we’re still paying off now. That trip brought us back together, but we’re still reeling from the psychological blow this entire experience has been. We’re still wondering if it’s worth trying again, and we’re both petrified that it’s going to just blow up in our faces. We’re both people who never yearned for careers, but for kids, and so this entire experience has had us both questioning what we’re supposed to do with our lives, which is kind of silly because raising kids still means you need to be your own autonomous person, but raising kids has always been something that seemed like a higher calling outside of pursuing a career.

Ultimately, we’ve decided that if we can’t have natural children we’ll adopt, and adopting has always been something I’ve wanted to pursue. It’s just seeing everyone my age so easily have children, I’m literally surrounded by many female friends who are stepping into motherhood, something that I seem to be repeatedly rejected from. Finding life outside of a goal I’ve had as long as I can remember has been difficult, but I knew I didn’t want to write this blog post until I had been on the other side, until I had realized that I needed to decenter having kids from my life; that only by doing that was I able to move on from the trauma my infertility journey had caused me . . .

To anyone on a similar journey in their own lives, I know full well that nothing I say could bring you any real peace or comfort. Still, the only thing that gave me solace was that I am not the only woman suffering from this situation; and neither are you. You are not alone, us women affected by multiple miscarriage are with you in spirit and grief.

This blog post isn’t just a complete trauma dump, in some ways it’s an announcement of my return. Fighting through this pain the last four years has been the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life, but it’s also shown my how strong I truly am.

In six months I will be debuting my first novel as a Closed Door Romance author, and I hope that you will continue to support and watch as I pursue the passions that are within my control. My goal is to start publishing blog posts multiple times a week as I did in the past, and I encourage you to visit my website to get to know me better as an author and writer.

Thank you all for your support, logging in today to see how many of you liked my posts from years ago gave me hope that this was not all-for-naught.

Sincerely, Chelsea Gross

(Anastasia Frost’s real name)

Website: www.etherealquill.com

LinkedIN: www.linkedin.com/in/cgross1218/

Short Story: Nightshade and Pomegranate, Part Two

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“Zeus,” she said, her voice small.

“Where is the Goddess of Spring?”

“In the gardens,” Calypso said. Zeus nodded to her, and she scampered off, escaping the ire or desire of the King of Olympus.

“You heard her, brother,” Zeus said, his voice dark. Without looking, his shadow peeled away from itself, and a secondary shadow walked away, silhouetted against the wall. It crept up to an open window, and slunk away outside.

“What is that horrible stench?” Demeter asked, annoyance across her face. Zeus approached her, attempting to calm the nervous mother.

Persephone sat outside in the gardens, alone, still cultivating multiple bushes. A shadow came over her, tall and dark, and she turned towards it, and had to contain her excitement. Hades stood before her, his physical form materializing out of the shadow that he had arrived in. His tall, slender frame came into reality, his pale, gray skin and gaunt face looked down at his love with adoration and affection.
To Persephone, Hades smelled like autumn leaves and his shadow was a deep shade of black she was never able to get her flowers to achieve.

To Hades, Persephone was like a cherry blossom tree in bloom: timelessly young, elegant, and floral.
Hades took Persephone into his arms, holding her against him. “I’ve come to claim you as my bride. I’ve come to bring you to the Underworld.”

Persephone looked at him, beaming with excitement. “I want to be there with you, I want to go there now.”

Hades approached the flowers and bushes that Persephone had grown, and from it he crafted a crown of Pomegranates, Roses, and Nightshade flowers, a floral crown symbolic of their love and matrimonial bond. Hades loved Persephone more than anything he had ever known, her beauty was beyond any other Goddess in existence now, or ever to exist, and he was willing to do anything to have her as his Queen. Gently, he placed the crown upon Persephone’s head.

Zeus edged towards Demeter.

“What do you want?!” She said, her voice harsh. She didn’t trust the God of Olympus, the man who would go to great lengths to disrespect his wife and sleep with anything that moved.

“What is so bad about letting your daughter make her own choice?” He asked, his voice soft.

Demeter looked at him with daggers in her eyes, she bit her lower lip in anger.
“Let my daughter, the Goddess of Spring, lock herself in the Underworld to be the Queen of the Dead?! What kind of mother would I be if I allowed her to do that?!”

At this point, all of the Gods were looking at the pair, their eyes boring holes into Demeter. Demeter’s eyes flicked around the room, she saw that Persephone was nowhere to be found.

“You all smelled him, the stench of death he brings with him!” She cried, whipping around the room, looking for her daughter. “You all know he came tonight, snuck in the manor behind my back, and yet you all laugh in my face and console me with your feigned kindness. Where is he?! Where is my daughter?!”

It was at that moment that the room fell into hushed whispers, everyone’s eyes darting back and forth.

Within a few more moments, the back doors to the garden swung open. In came Persephone and
Hades, wrapped in each other’s arms, a crown upon Persephone’s head.

“I’ve chosen my suitor, mother,” she said, happiness written across her entire being. “I wish to marry Hades!”

Blog Post #31: Where Did I Go?

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Hey guys!

Life has been a whirlwind these past three weeks, and I’m sorry for not giving you all a head’s up on what I was doing.

To cut straight to the chase: I had neck surgery and I started freelance ghostwriting romances! I am no longer unemployed, I am SELF EMPLOYED!

Like I said, it’s been wild!

I am recovering well from surgery and I have three clients who I am regularly turning pages into for cash. I am finally a paid writer! All three of them are looking to be long term clients and I am so happy and grateful for them!

I started an LLC for my ghostwriting/editing business, and as soon as I have the official declaration of my business, I’ll be promoting it on this blog 🙂

You can still look forward to my short stories and blog posts (Nightshade and Pomegranate is still getting written, no worries), I’ve just been having a hell of a time juggling everything with three clients who I am trying to impress with my work and consistency!

I am very thankful for my surgery, it was to correct a genetic condition inherited from my grandmother, and it should be the answer to me becoming a mother. Once my calcium regulates naturally, I will be able to start trying again with my husband. I am thrilled and terrified. Losing our first pregnancy last year still chokes me up with tears, and I’m petrified that I’ll experience that loss again. However, I can’t let that fear swallow my life whole.

Fear is the mind killer, after all.

Short Story: Nightshade and Pomegranate, Part One

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“Demeter, what if he comes for her?”

“Come? Here? He’s the God of Death, would he dare walk the halls of Olympus and cross me?”

Demeter turned to the nymph, her round face and dark eyes looked down with smoldering fury and annoyance. Her lips pulled in a tight line, curled downward at the sides. Her hand pulled to her hair, pushed a strand behind her ear. Demeter’s eyes flicked around the room, scanned the other gods in attendance, deities that she had known since their births, since the destruction of the Titans, and since Zeus had taken his throne over them all. They had all come tonight in anticipation of who her daughter, Persephone, would choose as her king.

Gathered in the room were the bachelors that Demeter had chosen: Ascelpius, Hermes. She had even invited married Olympians who despised their wives like Hephaestus, which drew the criticism and interest of the rest of the gods who now stood in the halls of the sprawling manor, filling it with the murmurs of their words.

“All of the men of Olympia are here,” a feminine voice said.

“All of the bachelors except for one,” another, masculine chided.

Aphrodite looked to Eros, a gleam in her eye. “Demeter can try what she may, but you and I can feel the tug between her daughter and the God of the Underworld. I can’t blame Demeter, her daughter, the Goddess of Spring, so overflowing with life; to watch her wither away at the side of Death himself.”
“Would she wither?” Eros asked, a finger pulled to his puckered lips in sincere thought. “Or would she become something new?”

“Persephone’s change to anything other than her mother’s babe will be like withering in Demeter’s eyes,” Aphrodite said, watching Demeter and her devoted nymph, Minthe, talk to one another in fevered, hushed pitches.

“Where is the woman of the night, anyway? Where is Persephone?”

“Probably out in the gardens. That girl is always looking for a rose bush to talk to, Calypso even said Persephone told her that she prefers to talk to flowers than the rest of Olympia. What a strange lady.”

Persephone was outside in the gardens, joined by Calypso who watched as Persephone’s hands cultivated a rosebush three times larger than a naturally occurring bush.

“Your gifts, Persephone,” Calypso said, cupping a large rose in her hand and
taking in its scent. “What a gift to Earth you are.”

Persephone smiled softly, but it soon faded from her face, She took her friend’s hand into her own. “Calypso, I don’t want to be here.”

“I know, Persephone,” Calypso said. “Have you considered talking to Zeus about taking a spot with Athena, Hestia, and Artemis as a virginal Goddess?”

“Yes,” Persephone said. “I want to take that virginal pledge as much as I want to be here, at this courtship party.”

Calypso wrapped Persephone in a hug, putting her head on her shoulder. “I know that who you love is not here but your mother, the rest of Olympia… they’ll never accept your love for one another.”
“Then I don’t want live here, in Olympia with them. I’ll live in the Underworld, with him!”
“What will happen to you there?!” Calypso said, her words fast and scared. “What what happen to the Goddess of Spring, the embodiment of burgeoning life, when she lives in the Underworld of the dead for eternity?”

Persephone turned away, pulling out of her friend’s embrace. “I would rather die in the Underworld with my love, than live here, dead already.”

“You speak with no regard,” Calypso said, rolling her eyes.

“I speak with no regard?!” Persephone asked, her eyes throwing darts at her friend.

“No, you don’t,” Calypso said. “Your mother is here to set you up with a respectable suitor and you’re moaning about it! You walk the land with mortals, you understand what their lives are like! Hard, and rough. Not like your existence, not like here.”

“Calypso, I thought you of all would understand what it was like to have love ripped from you,” Persephone said, her voice tight with sorrow.

“The fates set that dream straight,” Calypso said, her voice heavy with relived torment. The sadness she had felt releasing Odysseus, and telling him how to build a ship to sail away washed over her again. As did the pain as she watched Odysseus leave, knowing he was to return to his true love. The anguish that even the body of a Goddess was not enough to sway a mortal man from his wife had ripped anew, an old, ever existent wound.

“The fates,” Persephone said, ruminating on the thought. “Are they here? They would know the truth of what’s to happen. They can guide me tonight.”

“I didn’t see them –” Before Calypso could say anything further a large commotion echoed from inside the manor. The voices of gods and goddesses clamored among one another, creating a torrent of sound.

Calypso ran to the doorway to see what caused the excitement. Her soft steps carried her through the manor, a large crowd gathered in the center of the foyer. A hand snatched her arm, she turned her head back to find Zeus holding her. Her eyes widened, her legs shook. A smile spread across his face.

Blog Post #29: Facing Burnout while Writing Submissions and Entering Short Stories for Cash in between Writing/Editing Novels

C. L. GrossLeave a comment

When I began this blog my goal was always to “soft publish” my short stories here and then submit them for publication before compiling them into a short story compilation. Finding where to submit, how to submit, and when not to submit has become a whirlwind of quick learning. Keeping my muse from burning out has also become quite burdensome.

Submissions is a new realm. When I was in community college there were student journals and papers that were published where students could submit work. My best friend got a work of hers published in it while she was pursuing her AA in English. At the time I was working full time and burning myself out, causing myself to lose financial aid and nix my ability to continue college at that school. Bummer. Due to that burn out I never got the chance to attempt to write anything, let alone submit it.

Currently (but not in the future), my short story titled Dejavu is on this blog in five parts. I will be taking these down soon to polish it up and submit it for publication to Silver Blade Magazine. Fingers crossed, I will get chosen and receive a small cash prize. In the works I just plotted a new short story I will be posting, in parts, on this blog titled Nightshade’s Fate, a retelling of the story of Persephone, the Goddess of the Underworld and the night Hades takes her away. I will be submitting this to Quill & Crow Publishing for their The Damned and the Divine submission call. I’m extremely excited to write this short story.

However, I also feel the siren call of burn out on the horizon. I just finished the first draft of Silver Blood in September, then I finished Dejavu, a short story I started two years ago (and something that had been on my mind for two freaking years!). Now I’m jumping into a new short story. Short stories are, admittedly and obviously, easier than full novels. Short stories can move faster where a full book requires more pacing. Short stories are where clever prose matters most, where every word counts in a tale.

Short stories, like novels, are still work, nonetheless.

My next steps with Silver Blood are to add a B plot to thicken the word count and add more to the world. I’ve wanted to step away from the manuscript for a few weeks to a month (or two, even), so I can come back with fresh eyes and fresh ideas. The short stories I’ve been writing are entirely different than the storyline of Silver Blood, so I’m hoping not to succumb to burnout for too long.

Even if I do burn out, I’ll still be here to tell you about it. Not every part of writing is easy, and now that I’ve been pursuing writing stories as a part-time job to full-time hobby, I recognize that burnouts are cyclical, not a reflection of my inability to become a great writer who has an awesome following. My burnout does not reflect my inability to write well, or to craft stories. My burnout is just a result of pushing myself hard, and when I let my mind rest I allow myself the space to let my muse ponder and give me some ideas.

See you all next week! I will be starting Nightshade’s Fate Wednesday morning!