Jen Castleberry's Blog

It's been a big week for A Wild and Unremarkable Thing!First and foremost, I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has pre-ordered a copy of my debut YA Fantasy, and to all the ARC reviewers who have posted their glowing remarks on Goodreads! Thanks to you, AWAUT officially became a category BESTSELLER on Amazon yesterday! Keep spreading the word! You guys ROCK!Check out the OFFICIAL TRAILER for my dragon-slaying novella below! Let me know what you think in the comments! And don't forget to share, share, share! You can preorder A Wild and Unremarkable Thing HERE!-J

DRUM ROLL PLEASE! Our art contest celebrating the upcoming release of A Wild and Unremarkable Thing has just ended, and I kiiiind of wish it could go on and on forever! Thank you to EVERYONE for your absolutely stunning submissions! It was so hard to choose a winner! (In fact, I had SUCH a hard time that I chose THREE!)Check out my WINNER REVEAL video below, and scroll down to see the winning entries!@ZenTangled.Vee@RoyCIllustration@JanuaryRabbitHead over to Instagram and search the hashtag #AWAUTentry to check out ALL the gorgeous submissions!Till next time!-JJen Castleberry is the author of A Wild and Unremarkable Thing, a dragon-slaying Fantasy novella which readers have called poetic, enchanting, and laugh-out-loud funny! You can snag your copyhere, or wherever books are sold!

A Wild and Unremarkable Thingwill be releasing in less than TWO MONTHS y'all! To celebrate (and to pad your pockets with a little extra holiday cash), we're hosting an art contest on Instagram! Simply follow the instructions below to enter! We'll review submissions by searching the hashtag, so don't forget to #AWAUTentry! Winners will be notified via Insta on December 10th! If you need some inspiration, you can visit AWAUT on Instagram -Youtube -Goodreads -And at Parliament House Publishing!You can also view our AWAUT Pinterest boards! Good luck!-J

Happy Thanksgiving, lovelies! Boy, do I have a lot to be thankful for this year (and every year). My life has been saturated by far too many blessings to count. Family and friends. Warm homes and warm hearts abounding. This crisp, read-leafed season. And of course, heaping plates of cranberry sauce, green bean casserole and pie!I’m sure you all have busy holidays planned, so I’ll narrow this profession of thankfulness to an item at the top of my list. My sisters.I weave sisterhood into nearly every story I write. I don’t do it on purpose. In fact, I didn’t realize I was doing it at all until recently, and I have no plans to stop. I’m the middle sister of three, and I wouldn’t trade my tribe for anything. My sisters have shaped me, carried me through my darkest places. Brightened my day-to-day, my year-to-year. Enriched me intellectually, emotionally, and empathetically, beyond measure. So it comes as no surprise that they’ve left their stamp on my creative endeavors, too.For me, A Wild and Unremarkable Thinghas, as its heart, always been a story about three sisters who’d do anything - even the very worst, most unimaginably terrible things - to help one another.I knew, in the midst of drafting, in the midst of edits, in the midst of endless read-throughs with my editor, that most people wouldn’t see the story this way. Sisterhood is not the big, obvious theme, and that’s okay. That’s wonderful, in fact - to hear that AWAUThas served different purposes for different people, that it’s carried myriad meanings among its early-readers…that was my big hope for this project. Incredibly, and in ways I’m still dumbfounded by, that hope is being realized again and again as early reviews trickle in.But that element of sisterhood, that intimate, familial bond, that’s what drove me emotionally through one draft and then the next, just as it drove Hayden and Emilia into the brothels and Cody into the Summer Alps. For me, above all else, these three, astoundingly resilient young women will always carry A Wild and Unremarkable Thingon their shoulders.Sisters are people who see you clearly. Who love you dearly. Who love you in spite of your flaws. Who understand how those flaws have improved you. Who tailor their emotional support, their advice, to best serve that beautifully-flawed person who is and always will be uniquely YOU.So this Thanksgiving, I thank the universe for my sisters, and for a mother who raised us to put one another on pedestals. To reach for one another when one of us stumbles. To check on one another.  To worry, to laugh, and to always, always lift each other up. To stand hip to hip, arms linked, and take on this world together.Happy turkey-day, readers. (And by the way, I’m thankful for you, too!)-J“The words they utter are too pretty for Ithil. The girls take no comfort in them, but for each other, they pretend.One does not believe the other, so well-washed are they by their galling lots in life.Their smiles are wizened and grim.That is the love of three suffering sisters: the pretending.Be brave, Cody says, but she does not say it out loud. Be brave a little bit longer, and I will make everything right.”-Jen Castleberry, A Wild and Unremarkable Thing

So you’ve made it through draft one! YOU’RE AMAZING! Even if your manuscript is trash, you’re amazing. You did it. You crossed the finish line. You stuck with that trash-story and now it’s a heaping pile of COMPLETE.Well, it’s as complete as a first draft can be. Now comes the second draft. And the third, fourth, fifth. However many it takes to turn that sow’s ear into a silk purse. To turn that coal into a diamond. (To turn all those trash-cliches into brilliant turns-of-phrase!)Overwhelmingly, this next stage in the creation of a query-worthy manuscript is called tedious, frustrating, infuriating, etc.  Rarely is it called fun. But I’m here to tell you that editing doesn’t have to be the pits! It doesn’t have to suck dry all your enthusiasm for the story at hand!  This dreaded phase doesn’t have to be, well, dreadful.Here’s ten tips I’ve used to keep the story-spark alive during edits!1. Take a breakGive yourself some distance from the story. In the course of drafting, you’ve certainly lost all semblance of an unbiased perspective, but you can regain it – to a small but invaluable degree – by stepping away from your manuscript for a set period of time. Stop thinking about that world, those characters, and all the tangled knots you’re so keen to unravel.  Let your mind rest. You’ve just done a triathlon’s-worth of writing!  Your creative-muscles are just as prone to exhaustion as any other muscle in your body! Come back in a week, maybe two. Maybe in a month. Set a date and stick to it. Give your brain a little reprieve so you can jump into those edits re-energized and refreshed.2. Read!So what in the world are you supposed to do with yourself during this so-called mind-cation? Read! Read, read, read. Read books in and out of your genre, but read books that inspire you! Read your favorite books over again. Read new books. Read poetry. Read scientific articles. The only criteria is that you feel interested and engaged. Reading will nourish your creatively-sapped mind! Have you noticed that your once-lyrical phrasing has become banal? That your intuition has waned? That your well of ideas – once overflowing – has parched? You haven’t lost your gift – you just need to feed it! Head to the nearest library and eat all the books!3. Consult with BetasCan’t stand the fact that your manuscript is just sitting there, untouched? Send it to a beta reader! There’s an enormous community of readers right at your fingertips who are willing and eager to give notes on a first (or twelfth) draft! Early readers are great sources of unbiased opinion who can let you know what’s working in your draft, and (more importantly) where to focus the bulk of your edits. If you’re in your final rounds of editing, you can pay for a more professional and in-depth service to critique your work – but if you’re in first draft mode (or close to it), there are literally thousands of people who will read your MS and offer their feedback for free. (The Goodreads community is a great place to start your beta search!)4.Give Secondary and Tertiary Characters More DimensionMost likely, by the time you finish your first draft, you know your main characters (or at least your hero/heroine), like the back of your hand. But what about the rest of your cast? The histories, missions, and minute details of minor characters may not seem important to your overall plot, but you might be surprised by what these characters have to say once you give them a voice! I can’t tell you how many throw-away characters have proved themselves to be central to plot simply because I granted them an interview. Follow this rule: every character that has a name should be fully-fleshed in the mind of the author. Three-dimensional side characters – whose fullness may never be revealed but nonetheless exists – will enhance the richness and believability of your world, and are very likely to provide a wealth of new ideas to incorporate into your narrative!5. Phone A FriendOr text. PM/DM. Have the world’s weirdest lunch-date conversation and spill all the beans about that mysterious project you’ve been working on while pretending the diners at nearby tables can’t hear you. I worked out some of the biggest plot hurdles on my WIP while on a kayaking trip with my husband. Unraveling a synopsis out loud can help you identify plot holes and inconsistencies you hadn’t noticed before, while providing a novel arena in which to tackle them. What’s more, gushing about your favorite characters, your swoon-worthy romances, and all those twists and cliffhangers that WORK feels decidedly akin to fangirling. Find someone to talk to that will make you fangirl about YOURSELF. You deserve it, and I bet you’ll be more eager than ever to jump into edits when you finish that conversation!6. Speaking of Fangirling...Write Fan-FictionLet me clarify – write fan-fiction with your own characters. One of the most enjoyable parts of editing, for me at least, is indulging wild new ideas as they come to me, with utter abandon. I used to hold tight to the structure of my narrative (particularly if it followed a firm outline) and toss any deviating idea into the trash. It’s scary to trade something so-so, but solid, for something exciting but uncertain. To get around my feelings of insecurity, I started treating wild, new ideas for a MS as fan-fiction exercises. I’d open a new document, copy-paste my original there, and then indulge whatever bonkers-fantasy I’d concocted with a no-holds-barred attitude. If I made a mess of things, it didn’t matter – the original was still waiting for me, safely squared away. Let me tell you, more often than not – WAY more often – these bananas ideas made their way into the final MS, improving it beyond measure, all because I was brave enough to give them the time of day. At the very least, they enhanced my understanding of world and character. Even if you completely pitch everything about these endeavors, they’re enjoyable! They get you hype about the bones of your story, and they work your creative muscles. Think jazzercize for your brain![Here's a video of SJM talking about writing fan-fiction with her ACOTAR characters]7. Play With The Technical AspectsTake a couple days to rework your first-person perspective into a third-person, or your past-tense into a present-tense. Play around. You might find you have a knack for a totally different style of narrative. At the very least, reworking each sentence to fit a new technical structure gives you the opportunity to revisit the manuscript on an almost cellular scale. Have you ever read a book that felt entirely magical – every single sentence flowing lyrically into the next? That doesn’t happen in a first draft, and it doesn’t happen during large-scale edits. That’s the nitty-gritty, friends. And on the days when you’re feeling particularly inspired, those tiny brushstrokes are fantastically satisfying to make.8. Read Your MS Three Different WaysRead it on your computer screen. Read it on paper. And read it aloud. You’ll be surprised what sorts of things you pick up on just by examining the MS in three different ways.9. Find A Brand New Place To WriteGet out of your sweats and hit the library, or the coffee shop or a café or a park. Or, if you always clack away at your keyboard while sipping Starbucks in a pair of stilettos (right on!), stack those pillows and plan to spend the day writing in bed. Stir up your workspace, and you’ll stir up the creative juices inside your head!10. Have Fun!Last, but not least, remember that writing is FUN! I promise it’s fun! It sure doesn’t pay a lot (usually), so why do it unless you love it? Shrug off that pressure you’ve been putting on your own shoulders. Say, “I got this!” (Seriously. Say it. Out loud. To yourself. Just do it.) Smile. Sing. Squeal. Give yourself a round of applause when you finally fix that pesky chapter. Better yet, do a little dance in the kitchen. Post something self-congratulatory on Facebook. Call your mom. Call your bestie. (She thinks you’re a nerd but she loves you anyway.) If it’s a chore to write, it’s going to be a chore to read. You’ve got a beginning, middle, and end. Now you’re well on your way to a masterpiece. That’s exciting, so be excited!What tips do YOU have for keeping the spark of a story alive? Share them in the comments below!Happy editing!-JJen Castleberry is the author of A Wild and Unremarkable Thing, a dragon-slaying Fantasy novella which readers have called poetic, enchanting, and laugh-out-loud funny! You can snag your copy here, or wherever books are sold!

Check out my review below!Let me know what you think in the comments!Happy reading!-J

Check it out below, y'all! Happy reading!-J

NaNoWriMo has officially begun! (A few days ago, whoops!) For those of you scratching your heads, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. You can officially join the competition HERE, where a super supportive team of thousands are all striving to hit a wordcount of 50k before month’s end. This is marathon-writing at its finest, and to help you along, the website offers free writing advice on the daily, y’all! (Plus lots of other free features. But come on, what beats coffee-and-a-peptalk-from-a-bestselling-author? Maybe if Chipotle offered breakfast burritos…but that’s about it.) The point of NaNo, and of marathon-writing, really, isn’t to write carefully, cautiously, even thoughtfully. We’re not re-reading chapters (and re-reading and re-reading.) We’re not twiddling our thumbs because we’re stumped. We’re not crafting a masterpiece while strolling leisurely along our outlines. Nope, we’re sliding into home plate with bloody elbows and dusty knees, sweating and heaving, and what do we have to show for it? A first draft that’s complete. Maybe it’s genius, divinely-inspired writing. Probably, it’s a lot of jumbled, stinking garbage. But it’s done. And that’s huge. Let me tell you why.For many aspiring authors, finishing projects routinely is one of the hardest habits to master. We’ve all seen the memes. You’re gung-ho about your fresh idea until it’s not so fresh. Until – even with your intricately-detailed outline – you become stumped. Until that newer, fresher idea strikes, and you think, “Why am I wasting my time with this nonsense? That idea, that’s where it’s at." And the cycle begins again. ‘Round and ‘round it goes. Starting a new manuscript is like starting a new relationship – the first few dates are exciting and fun. This story doesn’t know the whole you, the flawed you. The clumsy, tongue-tied, word-hoarding, delete-button-mashing you. It only knows the hopeful you. The brilliant you. The sparkly, eyebrows-plucked and legs-shaved you. But then… Tedium sets in. Or writer’s block. You can’t break through it. You’re bored. You’re inadequate. You’re suddenly not the same author you were when you plotted your outline. When you wrote that first, fantastic chapter.What happens next? I’ll tell you what happens to me, without fail. Some Baywatch-bodied idea in a speedo strolls by and saps all my enthusiasm for the idea at hand. Saps all my old optimism for what could’ve been. Saps my once-totally-realizable fantasy of writing that last (perfectly-executed) sentence, hitting the save button, and sighing happily at my clear, creative genius.To those who are nodding along with chagrin, I say, push through. Finish the first draft. Marathon-it. Don’t expect it to be perfect. That’s too high of a standard for a first draft! Guess what. They’re supposed to be bad. Even when they’re not supposed to be bad, they’re bad. Accept the reality that you’re not going to be the first author ever to forgo edits without consequence. Read what your favorite authors have to say about how your favorite books evolved, and accept – no, embrace the fact that your story is going to get better and better with time. It can be bad right now. It can be so, so, embarrassingly bad, and still be a work of art one day. Stop beating yourself up over bad sentences, bad strings of dialogue, bad chapters. Don’t let yourself get so stuck on a bit of bad writing that you pitch the whole project. Plow through that roadblock, make a note to rework it in edits, and move forward.You can undergo as many rounds of editing as your heart desires after that first draft is complete.  Contrary to popular belief, editing doesn’t have to be a nightmare. (Okay, sometimes it’s a nightmare, but a lot of the time – with the right attitude and the right tactics, it can be fun! I’ll share more on that later.)If you forget everything else I’ve said, remember this: You can’t edit a blank page. This, by and far, is the best piece of advice I ever received as an author! You can spin straw into gold, but first, you need the straw.If you decide to abandon the manuscript later, fine. Abandon it. Plenty of authors, myself included, have drafts tucked away that have never (and should never) see the light of day. But let the MS be finished first. Finishing is not a waste of time, even if what you’re left with is crap. Finishing is a skill, and it requires practice. Don’t let yourself get into the habit of tossing out half-finished and quarter-finished novels. (If you’ve developed this habit already, so what? Use this month, and the rest of your writing career, to break it!) Every time you finish one thing, it becomes easier to finish the next thing, until one day, when you write a great thing, you’ll write it to completion. (I’ll talk later about salvaging stories that seem better suited for the sewage system.) This is a great month to write. And write and write. Keep pushing through. Don’t look back. Plow recklessly toward your ending. Get it done, fix it later. Start the habit of finishing things instead of abandoning them. Don’t forget that the stubborn, bane-of-your-existence idea was a Fresh New Idea once, full of poetry and promise! Hammer through, and sand down the edges when it’s finished. You've got this, writers! Now sit down, nurse that coffee till it’s bone-cold, and write!Jen Castleberry is the author of A Wild and Unremarkable Thing, a dragon-slaying Fantasy novella which readers have called poetic, enchanting, and laugh-out-loud funny! You can snag your copyhere, or wherever books are sold!

Cad may be VIP (he is my hubby, after all), but even HE had to wait to get his hands on a copy of A Wild and Unremarkable Thing! He just finished reading his ARC, and even though my upcoming YA Fantasy doesn't release till January, we're already dream-casting a BIG-budget film!Check out our giggle-fest video below!Pre-order your copy of A Wild and Unremarkable Thing on Amazon NOW for just 99c!Happy reading!-J

Hi guys! Some of you may have seen me unbox this beauty a few months ago! Check out my review below!This was one of my FAVORITE summer reads! Have you read it? Let me know what you thought in the comments!Happy reading!-J