I’ll confess, I never saw Wicked. Didn’t even listen to the cast album. But I’ve been filling in my Broadway gaps with friends this year—Les Mis, Newsies, Miss Saigon—and of course I finally watched the new Wicked movie.

I didn’t watch it earlier because one question turned me off: how was I supposed to like a wicked witch? The answer, of course, was backstory, the why of the character. When Elphaba sang “Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?” I saw the girl she’d been, the one who was thrust into a bad-guy role by the world around her.

Suddenly, I realized that this show had solved something that’s haunted me about Painting Celia: as the novel opens, Celia is brokenly wooden and León wields charm like a weapon. Why would anyone like them?

Prequels! Write and show why Celia folds herself into silence, why León confuses applause for love. And just like that, I had stories inside me again.

Practical Magic

You see, for the last eight months, I’ve worried that I’d lost the muse.

After launching Painting Celia, I became an author-shaped person who wrote blog posts about craft, character sheets for my second book, and too few social media posts. I went to author events and made promises when readers asked if there would be more in the Incubadora series. I moved house, completed a huge day-job project, and drafted Kelsey’s novel with all the passion of a grocery list. Words felt stiff. Scenes got from point A to point B with no heart.

I told myself it was burnout. That doubting the muse—the one who would always come back—was ungrateful. You’ll get there, I told myself. Creativity isn’t easy.

But I missed the electric hum of a story demanding to be written. The kind that claws at your ribs until you surrender.

Then the witch showed me the way. Writing Celia’s prequel plunged me back into feelings and words and the magic of storytelling.

It’s a heartbreaking little story, a hard read that I’ll have to put trigger warnings on. I became the little girl curling herself smaller and smaller to survive. No outline, no keyword research—just a raw, gulping need to answer, how did she become so afraid of her own voice?

The muse didn’t knock. She kicked the door down.

I’m writing little León’s story now, already in its third draft. It’s fascinating to feel his head swell when teachers praise his talent, to hear his excuses the first time he uses a paintbrush to manipulate instead of create. It’s messy. It’s indulgent. It’s alive in my heart.

Kelsey’s up next. I’m not writing another word of her novel until I write her origin story. I want to meet the pre-teen who shoplifts lipstick and preens under the male gaze before I write the woman who walks into Incubadora’s second book.

Andrew and Trevor’s stories will follow. All five prequels explore the origins of the scars we collect.

Scars demand context

Elphaba wasn’t born wicked. She was made. Scraped raw by a world that called her “other” and then blamed her for owning it. Context doesn’t excuse her—it transforms her.

These prequels reveal Celia silencing her useless voice, León coasting on talent, Kelsey feeling her invincible youth, Andrew reaching out when feeling excluded, and Trevor losing his family simply for being who he is.

I don’t want to publish these stories in the usual way. They’re specifically for you, the readers of Painting Celia. So once they’re done, you can have all five for free when you join my monthly newsletter.

In turning what I once saw as flaws into untidy beginnings, I’ve found my muse again. I’m glad she’s back—and surprised that she arrived in green skin.