By Cheralyn Barrington, Layout Editor
Chelsea DeVries is a 19 year old Saint Leo University student and has already written ten novels, two of which have been published. She is majoring in accounting and is getting her minor inwriting. This reporter interviewed DeVries to get a closer look at her book writing experiences.
Cheralyn Barrington of The Lions’ Pride: What you enjoy doing in your free time?
Chelsea DeVries: Writing novels, poems, and prose, reading Young Adult novels, Nicholas Sparks, or Christian books, and listening to music. I like anything and everything. I also make mix CDs for my family and a few friends. It works out because my initials are C.D. I enjoy watching television; my favorite shows are Sonny with a Chance, The Big Bang Theory, and Vampire Diaries, and if skateboarding is on, I’m watching that. Watching movies like Napoleon Dynamite, White Chicks, and Malibu’s Most Wanted is another pastime of mine. I love comedies. I also enjoy working out, doing pilates or cardio, and holding random dance parties with my best friend and dog, Geniveve Rosalynn. We have made up a dance to Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack and we dance to it. I put a video up on YouTube of her dancing. Her hips don’t lie, for sure. To see this video go to: (Youtube.com/threefloridasisters).
CB: How long have you been writing?
CD: I have been writing professionally since I was 15, but I’ve been writing altogether since I was seven. In the second grade, my teacher Mrs. Demarco told me I had talent in writing and would use my stories I wrote in class as models to teach workshops at the local community college on the weekend.
CB: How did you get interested inwriting?
CD: I became a writer because I’m a soft-spoken girl with a lot to say about a lot of things. I also have a gift to use my words to motivate, to heal, to move, and to inspire.
CB: Why did you decide to write books?
CD: I decided to write books because at the age of 14, I was reading Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley books one day and I said to myself, I could totally write something like this. I modeled my format for my novels (vignette style chapters where the characters talk in first person) after those books. I also model my writing after my favorite author, Janette Rallison. She writes Young Adult romantic comedies. What I try to do with my books is mix romance and humor. Dream Girl and Jessica’s Choice are sort of satirical romance because they make fun of all the cheesiness of romance novels and movies.
CB: What can you tell me about your books?
CD: My books are romance novels that are set in Walt Disney World. The story started in my freshman year of high school when I was given an assignment to write a short story for a state-wide contest and then began what would become Dream Girl year later. As I was writing the short story, I just felt it wasn’t finished. That short story later became three novels. Dream Girl is about Jessica Cortez, a new actress, who invites two of her male suitors to Walt Disney World. Her suitors are Pete Young, a male model and an old friend from high school, and Jeremy Koeingzfield, an actor, and Jessica’s longtime celebrity crush. Jessica’s Choice is the sequel to Dream Girl and continues the story of Jessica Cortez’s adventure to find her soul mate at Disney World while introducing a third male suitor, Bryan Snyder, who is Jessica’s longtime friend and skater boy crush. To be honest, it is just an exaggerated version of my love life at the time; my friends joke that my love life seems to always follow this similar pattern where I always end up having to choose between two guys. Life imitates art I guess you could say.
CB: Were there any challenges or setbacks in your writing or publication process?
CD: The only challenge I’ve faced is not having a marketing team because I’m self-published so it’s harder to get the word out about my books, but social networking helps a great deal. Plus, I have a public blog that I update and hope random people view and maybe get intrigued enough to purchase my books. For the third novel, I’m either going to market it to an agent or I’m going to send it to national publishers and see if I get any bites. No matter what, I’m not giving up. I’ve come too far with God’s help and worked too hard on this third novel for it to end up never read by young adults and my peers.
CB: Think you’ll write any more books?
CD: I definitely see myself writing more books. The third novel that is still unreleased will be titled Her Beauty Dazes Me. I’ve also written seven other novels. Most always involve a skater boy but that’s because I’m a major supporter of skateboarding and Ryan Sheckler. I’ve followed his career for six years. He’s basically my hero. Somehow over the course of all seven novels, I think he has like three aliases. I would be honored if he started using them to make reservations. That would be pretty funny.
CB: What do you see happening in the future?
CD: I see myself graduating college and either moving to New York or California to become a corporate accountant while obtaining my masters in accounting. While doing all that, [I’d like to] be traveling the world on a book tour as a best-selling author. I would love it if my trilogy becomes a movie. I already started adapting it into a script, just in case. Sounds like a big dream but you only fail when you don’t try.
CB: Anything else you’d like The Lions’ Pride to know?
CD: I’m also a published poet and people can view and read my poems at poemhunter.com/chelsea-devries. Dream Girl and Jessica’s Choice are available on Amazon. Most of the time, I have copies that I sell right here on campus; this way people don’t have to pay shipping charges. Portions of my total sales get donated to charities such as The Sheckler Foundation, March of Dimes, St. Jude’s Research Hospital, Special Olympics, and the American Cancer Society. If anyone wants to read my life story, they can visit my blog atchellyzlife.blogspot.com. People can friend me at facebook.com/chelsea26 and follow me on Twitter attwitter.com/ChelseaDeVries
