about my first AMA (and a sale!)

Firstly, the ebook of The Ex Vows is on sale again! This time it’s $1.99 across all retailers. Here’s a handy link if you want to pick it up! The sale starts today and ends on April 5th.

Special thanks to NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!!! B.K. Borison for this lovely blurb:

Secondly, last week I awakened my Substack chat to ask people to drop some questions for an AMA (ask me anything). I used to do these pretty often on Instagram and people generally seemed to enjoy them, so I thought I’d try it out on this platform! The only downside is that Substack allows me to be much wordier than Instagram. I tried to edit myself as much as possible but whatever, I am a known yapper at this point.

Anyway, below are a handful of the questions I picked out of the bunch!

• What’s the best feeling you’ve had recently and what caused it?

  I love this question so much, mainly because lately I’ve been trying to pay close attention to any kind of feelings of joy. Early last week, the weather was absolutely perfect—cloudless sky, temperature in the 70s, a very bare breeze—so on Monday, I went for a walk along a path that follows the bay. I got to chat with my mom on the phone for a while, got to listen to my Daylist (it was romcom belter Monday morning for anyone wondering), got to soak up the sunshine and walk with everyone else who looked out their window and thought, “I’m gonna get out there.” It made me think about this phenomenon called collective effervescence, which is the zippy feeling you sometimes get during a concert when everyone is singing along to the same song and your combined voices are almost as loud as the artist’s. That’s just one example, but generally it’s that feeling of, wow, we’re all here together enjoying the same thing in the same moment. I feel it DEEPLY during concerts, but I also feel it in less obvious moments like my walk today. I like that I had the same idea alongside a hundred other people, and that we all got to enjoy the same thing and smile at each other as we passed like, “Isn’t this great?” It really was great, and it set a very joyful tone for the rest of my day!

• Did you ever write fanfiction? If so, what fandom and can you link it 🤣 jk

  I did write fanfiction and I wish I could link it, but I grew up in the Twilight fandom where anyone who went on to publish books were inexplicably judged for it, so I scrubbed my footprint before You, with a View came out. And actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t know that I’d want people reading fic I wrote over a decade ago, haha! I’m positive it doesn’t hold up to current expectations.

  By the way, I mainly wrote Emmett x Rosalie, but my greatest accomplishment was writing an Edward x Rosalie one-shot that converted a number of VEHEMENT Roseward haters (literally one of the most ick-inducing pairings to the Twilight fandom back in the day) (personally, I think they were made for each other but that’s a whole other 5k word essay).

• What’s the first song on your Spotify On Repeat?

  It is and has been “So Long, London” by Taylor Swift for months. I’m not sure what that says about my mental health, but there’s something about the way it was put together that has me in a chokehold. The way her singing mimics church bell chimes at the beginning, the underlying beat that sounds like a racing heart and running away and also like a cycle that’s being repeated until it stops abruptly at the end, the callback to “You’re Losing Me” with the lyric “I stopped CPR, after all it’s no use.” Those backing vocals pitched higher when she sings “And you say I abandoned the ship/But I was going down with it/My white knuckle dying grip” like she’s begging the other person to understand??? If she ever wanted to talk about the process of making that song (no personal details included), I would be front row, pen in hand.

  Not that you asked, but here’s my top 5:

• Any memes you’ve saved recently that remind you of your characters?

  I’m sure it comes to no surprise to anyone that I had to HEAVILY curate this assortment down, because in reality I could easily show you over 100. However, here are a few I’ve recently hunted and gathered that I love:

  

  

  

  

  

  (these are just funny to me:)

  

  for clarification purposes, I am a blond love interest supporter but this is funny bc they really give you all the ick 😭

  

  

  this one is unfortunately autobiographical

• Would love to know if there’s anything you do on rotten brain days or when you’re just a little down to help cheer yourself up!!

  I handle it a few different ways. Sometimes I go outside, take a walk, gulp in some fresh air, and remind myself that whatever I’m feeling is smaller than being alive. Even if it’s just for five minutes, it usually makes me feel better. This is super morbid, but the older I get the more I recognize time as a finite resource that moves with a terrifying quickness (can’t think too deeply abt it or I will throw up). A lot of times when I’m having a rotten brain day, it’s because I’m ruminating over something that doesn’t need to disrupt me the way it is and I just need to get outside and remember that everything is bigger and more permanent than me or my current problem.

  Sometimes I allow myself to wallow. I’ll curl up in bed for a while and refuse to feel bad for “wasting” my time there; I’ll scroll through TikTok or stare at the ceiling or listen to sad music. I’ll remind myself that I don’t exist to be productive 100% of the time and that I’m a human being who’s allowed to rest when things are shitty, and I’ll promise myself that tomorrow is a fresh start.

  Sometimes I treat myself! My favorite way to do that is getting an iced vanilla latte from my favorite locally owned coffee shop. This is a treat because it’s NINE DOLLARS. In this economy?! (Yes.) I’ll buy myself flowers. I’ll buy myself a book, and then read it outside while I’m sipping my nine dollar latte. I’ll text or call someone I love. I’ll remind myself that nothing good or bad stays, and that probably two years from now I won’t even remember what I was bumming out about.

  Those are my tried and trues! I hope this helps and I hope no matter what, you’re gentle with yourself when you’re going through it.

  (P.S. there are things I do to address my mental health in a much more formal and consistent way, but I know that’s not what you were asking!!!)

• Are u planning on writing anything outside of the romance genre? Or maybe a romance with some other genre additions, like historical fiction?

  I genuinely do not think I have the brain for historical fiction/romance. I view historical romance authors as like, ethereal, perfect beings who are far smarter than I could ever hope to be. I would love to write a book about a best friend breakup, because I think friend breakups are some of the most painful shit a person can go through. Undoubtedly, some romantic side plot would pop up—I am who I am, after all—but I have dreamed about a story that centers around the death of a friendship for years and I assume that would be placed more in commercial fiction.

  Otherwise, I can’t see myself straying from the genre. Before I got published, I desperately wanted to write a new adult romance, but was told there was no market for it. I think that’s changed? So anyway, I have an idea that’s like, a quarter baked, and I could see myself pursuing that at some point. I’d also love to write a romance with some magical realism or paranormal element to it, which I think fits given that I regularly talk about conversing with my dead grandma, often consult with psychics and tarot cards, etc. But idk, I love love and think it is the answer to everything in all its forms, so!

• What’s a physical trait and a personality trait that you love in a book boyfriend?

  A physical trait: I love dimples and when men blush, throat and ear blushes especially. I love tattoos, particularly when it’s thigh or neck or full sleeve. I like very specific physical traits that their love interest obsesses over. I love when a very ordinary body part is written with a lot of devotion—like, someone’s knee. When you’re attracted to or in love with someone, that could be the hottest little stretch of skin over bone you’ve ever laid eyes on. Basically, I love being talked into appreciating what the main character loves about the other person.

  A personality trait: softness. My god, just give me a soft man. He can be that way from the outset, or he can be prickly at first, doesn’t matter. My best friends Anya and Kate and I call these characters coconuts, because they’re hard on the outside and sweet on the inside. With those types, there’s always a moment where that shell breaks and you see the softness; for me it’s game OVER. The most recent example of this I can think of is Jack from Where You’re Planted by Melanie Sweeney. That man springs from page one with attitude for days (my type my type), but Melanie softens him so beautifully and with incredible depth.

• How do you draft your substacks? What’s your process from getting an idea to turning it into a finished post?

  Truthfully, a lot of times I just sit down, open up a post draft, and think, “What do I want to get out of my brain today?” I start writing stream of consciousness and usually some sort of theme will hook onto me. In my post about being good, for instance, I sat down to tell you all that I’m not sure when my next book will come out. But in that first line, I unthinkingly mentioned that I’d been drafting it in my mind, most often in my car. I looooooove a theme, so that specific detail sparked the idea to use the car as a metaphor for the way my brain has been (not) working and how my relationship with writing has changed. It kind of rolled out from there.

  I self-edit as I go, and reread it a bunch of times to make sure the pipeline from stream of consciousness to revised and sensical is complete, and then hit send. The whole process is maybe an hour? Sometimes more if I’m getting interrupted. I really try not to overthink this platform too much, honestly, which I wish carried over into the way that I approach my book drafts (like I will be killed for sport if I don’t write a perfect sentence).

  This question was asked in an advice capacity and I don’t know if I helped at all, but my biggest piece of advice is just to have fun with it and talk about the things that really interest or perplex or frustrate you. Also, lean into your natural voice. I tend to be conversational/confessional (for better or worse…) and keeping that vibe has, I think, helped me find a community that resonates with my style.

• What inspired you to write summer/traveling novels? what’s your favorite place to visit/travel to?

  It’s so funny because in real life, summer is my least favorite season, but fictionally, there’s just something endlessly romantic and sexy about it. Like, heavy darkness and hot skin and bodies of warm water and candlelight and TRYSTS!!! Especially ones you don’t expect to last. I mean, I can romanticize any season, honestly, but fictional summer just feels full of possibility and unexpected things in a way other seasons don’t. You can become anyone you want.

  I’ve thought a lot about why I always have some sort of traveling element in my books—not just the ones you’ve read, but the ones I’ve drawn up concepts for, too. There is always a moment where I’m like, “okay so she’s headed to this brand-new place” and some other part of me is like “wait—” I think part of it is because I moved around a ton when I was a kid, so I associate the fundamental change a character undergoes with a literal uprooting of their known world. I think it’s also that, even though in real life I vastly prefer staying put, there is a part of me that has Bolter blood running through it. Maybe psychologically there’s something to all of that and it’s just the way I view a fictional journey, idk. I’m sure someday I’ll write a main character who doesn’t leave the city she starts in, but I also kind of like the continuing thread of it in my universe.

• What are some tropes you love to read but wouldn’t ever want to write?!

  I eat up celebrity romances, but I don’t think I personally have the vision for it. I absolutely love reading marriage in trouble, but wouldn’t try to tackle it now because (imo) it’s a very difficult trope to get right and it feels WAY beyond my current skillset. I adore a forbidden romance and would potentially to tackle it someday, but it’d have to be the right plot. I love accidental pregnancy, but I think it’s been done pretty flawlessly and iconically by a handful of authors already so I’m not sure I’d throw my hat in that ring. But I don’t know, everything else feels like fair game: I love sibling’s best friend/best friend’s sibling, single dad, friends to lovers, cowboy romance, fake dating…I could go on. I won’t say never to the possibility of many things (that are, of course, legal and consensual) because who knows what story will come to me in the future!

• When will we hear more about The Soulmate Charade?

  The hard answer (for me haha) is: maybe never?? After working on it for so long, I’m just not sure it’s meant to live out in the world. It’s a not-unheard-of but I think not-often-talked-about truth that sometimes authors pitch ideas and start drafting with every intention of seeing it through to the end and the story just doesn’t work for whatever reason. There’s one chapter of TSC that lives in the end of The Ex Vows that I pretend doesn’t exist, but I’m not sure it’ll ever get past that! I am actively brainstorming other ideas, though, via music, long drives, voice notes to willing subjects, etc 😂

  Since you may only ever know TSC this way, I’ll end the newsletter with a glimpse at the Pinterest board and playlist for these two:

All right, that’s all I got! I’ll answer some more questions in the not-too-distant future if you enjoyed this. Take care, ily.

xoxo

jess