It’s here! Save the Cat! Writes a Young Adult Novel is now out in the world and in this post, I’m thrilled to share all the juicy details. Are you ready? Let’s dive in! First off… There’s a new Save the Cat book? Yup, in case you haven’t heard, there’s a new Save the Cat!  … Read more

My first official copy of SAVE THE CAT! WRITES A YA NOVEL has arrived! Of course, I couldn’t do just a regular unboxing video. See how many of Save the Cat! references you can catch!   Also, don’t miss out on your chance to nab 5 Bonus Beat Sheets (100 pages of extra content) when you preorder  … Read more

Want to know what really goes on in my head when I’m writing a book? This video comes pretty close! I hope you enjoy this “behind the scenes” peek at the making of my latest novel, Amelia Gray is Almost Okay! And if you want to continue even further down the rabbit hole, scroll down  … Read more

To my Readers, The Chaos of Standing Still is a very different type of book for me. I’d often heard authors, in the past, talk about their “heart books,” but I never quite understood what that meant. Wasn’t every book a “heart book”? Didn’t all books come from the heart? Wasn’t that the very essence  … Read more

Not every scene makes it into the final book. Here’s a never-before-released prologue that I wrote for A WEEK OF MONDAYS that was deemed “entertaining, but not necessary.” It was definitely a darling that I had to cut but the book was already long and my editor and I both agreed that it wasn’t completely  … Read more

Hey Disney Descendants fans! So I’ve just emerged from the writing cave after finishing off book 4 of the School of Secrets series (WOOT!) And I discovered that (OMG!) Book 3’s release is right around the corner (on 2/28/17!) I was also ecstatic to discover that Disney had just revealed the AMAZING cover!!! As you might  … Read more

A WEEK OF MONDAYS, my new young adult novel is out in the world! Hoorah! The book is about sixteen-year-old Ellie Sparks who finds herself reliving the same horrible Monday over and over again, in which her boyfriend breaks up with her. And although yes, that does sound horrific, it’s actually a comedy! Click here  … Read more

This is it! The FINAL week of the first draft of A WEEK OF MONDAYS! I finished the draft this week and it was sent to my editor for her comments! I just want to say, this was SUCH a fun project–blogging my progress of writing a book. And if you’ve been following the posts,  … Read more

YAY! I’m back to drafting! If you remember from a previous post, I’d stopped drafting and went back to start revising from the beginning. I feared that I was starting to lose the trail of the story and I needed to start fixing up the first 3/4 of the book before finishing the last 1/4.  … Read more

I hope everyone’s having a great NaNoWriMo! I’m busying revising away and trying to fill in the countless blanks in my manuscript. Sheehs, Past Jessica! You really left me some big work! Here’s a recap of what I did this week! WEEKLY SUMMARY: Date: 11/5/14 – 11/12/14 Word Count at the end of Last Week:  … Read more

This week is going to look a little different as I actually stopped drafting and went back to the beginning to start to revise. So the word count is not building, it’s actually getting smaller as I start to cut things and rearrange. So instead of giving you a day-by-day play-by-play, I’m going to sum  … Read more

Okay, so this is technically week 8, but week 6 and 7 I got absolutely NO writing done because I was on tour. So I’ve combined all three weeks into this one! But really, there’s nothing to report for weeks 6 and 7! As always, below is my weekly summary (with chart!) and my daily  … Read more

Wow! Week 5 was a surprisingly good week! As always, below is my weekly summary (with chart!) and my daily breakdowns in case you’re interested in the more day-to-day process of writing. Click on chart to see it bigger. WEEKLY SUMMARY: Date: 10/1/14 – 10/7/14 Weekly Words Written: 14,356 Total Words to Date: 57,993 Number  … Read more

Week 4 and more than halfway through the rough (emphasis on ROUGH) draft! As always, below is my weekly summary (with chart!) and my daily breakdowns in case you’re interested in the more day-to-day process of writing. And notice the MASSIVE drop in mood this week! YIKES! Click on chart to see it bigger. WEEKLY  … Read more

Okay, wow. Week 3 is already complete. Sorry for the delay in posting! I can’t believe I’ve been working on this book for nearly a month! It has FLOWN! As always, below is my weekly summary (with chart!) and my daily breakdowns in case you’re interested in the more day-to-day process of writing. Click on  … Read more

In case, you’re wondering, I’ve switched to posting weekly instead of daily. The daily posts just seemed a bit excessive. However, I’m still recording my daily stats and notes, I’ll just be consolidating them into one weekly post for ease of reading and following. So, in this post, you’ll find my weekly summary (WITH CHART!!!)  … Read more

Week 1 COMPLETE! Hoorah! This post will double as Day 7’s post AND my first Weekly Roundup post, where I’ll summarize my progress and thoughts for the entire first week. Did someone say “summarize?” Oh yeah, that was me. And you know what THAT means!??? GRAPHS and CHARTS!!! This is what happens when you let  … Read more

Stats: Date: 9/8/14 Words Written: 1492 (Columbus sailed the ocean blue?) Total Words to Date: 10532 (10k! Milestone reached!) Pages Written: 7 Total Pages To Date: 43 Chapters Completed: 2 Total Chapters to Date: 10 Time Elapsed: 1 hour (speedy gonzales!) General Mood (1-10): 8 Notes: WOO HOO! I bounced back today! Bounce Bounce Bounce!  … Read more

Week 1 is almost over! Here’s my recap for day 5! Stats: Date: 9/7/14 Words Written: 1649 Total Words to Date: 9040 (almost to 10k!) Pages Written: 5 Total Pages To Date: 36 Chapters Completed: 1 Total Chapters to Date: 8 Time Elapsed: 1.5 hours General Mood (1-10): 6 Notes: You’ll notice my word count  … Read more

Day 4! Stats: Date: 9/6/14 Words Written: 914 Total Words to Date: 7391 Pages Written: 4 Total Pages To Date: 31 Chapters Completed: 1 Total Chapters to Date: 7 Time Elapsed: 1 hour General Mood (1-10): 7 Notes: I’m glad I pushed myself to go beyond my daily word count (1500) the last two days  … Read more