Category: Blog

Let’s do this!!! I liked the categories last year, so I’m doing that again! I’m trying to live a more well-rounded life!

Creative/Writing

1. Grow Forced Proximity to 400 subscribers (currently at 320)
   • An ambitious goal since I’ve been on hiatus for a couple months… but I believe in me, and I believe in romance!
2. Publish (or finish prepping for publishing) Pulling Focus
   • My first romance novel that I love so much, even if it never got further than a request to read more by agents and contest judges. It’s the first of a (so far) three part Hollywood/filmmaker romance series, and makes the most sense for self-publishing next. Being aware of the financial restrictions of indie publishing, though, means that it might not be feasible, but I intend for it to at least be ready to rip as soon as finances swing back my way
3. Query The Curse Breaker at least 30 times
   • My paranormal romance feels less out of my wheelhouse after the big paranormal/romantasy reading year I had in 2025, so, fine, I really love this book and if it pigeon-holes me as a paranormal writer… so be it! Now to figure out how to blurb “a book about curses that is lowkey about Catholic guilt and grief” + “a spicy book about two of the world’s most stubborn people, and a stubborn curse that looks like a more busted Gollum.”
     • Want to read it/help me blurb??? I would appreciate it, and I think you’ll like it!
4. Write at least 1 new complete draft of a new project, either for RoWritMo ‘26 or otherwise
   • I hope this will be another book in my alien series, my “I’m writing this for catharsis and kicks” series, but who knows! Maybe I’ll finally crack my home invader romance idea that’s permanently baked into my poor whiteboard! Or perhaps I’ll get inspired to write a fourth filmmaking book…. or a holiday novel? We’ll see!
5. Finish one non-writing art project/session a month
   • Despite my hyperfixations, ambitions, mood swings, etc…. I have a lot more artistic interests than just writing! So at least once a month, I have to take a break from reading, writing, or playing one of my scammy mobile games to paint, or crochet, or embroider, or something else. I don’t lack for materials, that’s for sure!

Health

1. Complete all Finch goals every day
   • Unfortunately I am the kind of person who is made more productive if I can win daily digital currency to buy cute outfits for a virtual bird. It’s what got me back into stretching and walking and washing my face last year after having a rough few months, and I’ve been enjoying how it forces me to figure out and stick to a routine…. and then build off of it. These goals also include doing daily lunges and jumping jacks and shoulder rolls, making sure I eat lunch instead of skipping, and washing my face (aka actually have some real semblance of a skincare routine, something I tried and failed to implement years ago)
2. Order in/ eat out less than 2x a week
   • Why stop a good thing? Cooking is cheaper and healthier for me
3. Take at least one longer walk a week
   • My dog and I walk a loop at the park 2-5 times a week (while I’m living in CO with a dog) but there’s more to the park we COULD walk, if I get up early enough (see Personal Goal #5 below), and I’d like to push us a little more.

Personal

1. Get out of the house and/or city to do an activity that is not just eating at least twice a month
   • Quinn and I have already been doing better at this since leaving New York, but I want to make sure we keep at it. Keep attending local writing community events, keep exploring local festivals and fairs, do more axe throwing, keep getting out of our work from home ruts and seeing the world beyond our computers.
2. Read 300 books and maintain my Fable streak
   • I know I’ve read 400+ books two years in a row, but that’s so much pressure to start with, and I’m hoping that having more activities to do means I’ll have less time to read. Not because I want to read less, but rather that I want to feel busier and fulfilled in the real world! I do still want to read every day, at least a few pages, though. That Fable streak must be maintained!!
3. Move to Oregon and design a home I love
   • I have been trying to get back to Oregon since I first left it to attend graduate school. I don’t regret the time I spent in New York, California, and Colorado… but they aren’t home, and they never felt like forever. I have no excuses anymore (besides financial concerns) to stay away, and I know how much Quinn wants to be back there as well. No matter where there we end up, we’re not going to live like college students again; we’re making a HOME, dammit.
4. Avoid avoidance
   • I have a tendency to avoid things that feel complicated, too big, or possibly painful. I bought a swimming suit online when I first got laid off by Seed&Spark in 2023, anticipating getting back into swimming at our apartment complex’s pool with my new free time… and then was too afraid to try it on. What if it didn’t fit? What if I’m bigger than I thought I was when I ordered it? What if I hate how I look in it, despite picking one with a lot of coverage? I’ve also been avoiding getting a dentist appointment, figuring out if I should set up a 401k with my part time stagehand job and if it’ll match up with my current one leftover from Seed&Spark, finding a CO-based accountant for this year’s taxes, dusting my room, and any number of emails in my inbox. I’d like to be a little more proactive this year. Maybe I’ll set a day a week where I do all the things I’m avoiding all at once? Uh oh, is not knowing how I’ll tackle this goal another avoidance tactic???
5. Get up before 7am PT/ 8am MT on weekdays
   • Quinn is still working East Coast hours, and I’m still… bed rotting despite being awake and capable of starting my day most mornings. And then I still want to end my work day around when Quinn does. In order to earn that, though, I have to actually BE UP and doing my ever-more-complex morning routine. I also always feel better getting started earlier.

Professional/Financial

1. Make rent and utilities with freelancing work
   • I need this to be the last time I move to Colorado for an unspecified amount of time to not pay rent. I want to have my own home, even a rental one, and a steady income to match the amount of work I do.
2. Be able to ADD to my savings account again rather than just removing from it
   • I don’t have a specific number in mind because it fills me with existential dread to look at my bank account at all… but man, I would love to have an emergency fund again.
3. Take at least two continuing professional education courses in full
   • I’m already doing a Digital Marketing class with UCLA Extension thanks to a generous free UC Excelerator program from January-March, but I definitely want to have a few new concrete skills to use on my resume and in my work next year, and this seems like a good time to do that. I’m thinking something with graphic design, since I’m rusty and relying way too much on Canva templates recently considering how much graphic design work I’m doing, but we’ll see! The trick will be to find a financially feasible version of this.
4. Figure out a set of job titles that feel like things I want to do/would thrive in
   • This one’s a little wobbly, but here’s my issue: every job I’ve had since leaving barista-ing has been made up. I ended up at a company that liked me and we built a job around what I was already doing/what I was interested in. This is obviously ideal, but that’s hard to manufacture during the job search, and it’s difficult to find new positions that feel in line with the old ones, since the old ones were “Bri Castellini.” My job was to be me, at this company. If the company doesn’t know me yet, though…. you see my challenge? Short of my freelancing becoming my full time job, which is unlikely, I need to find something that’s still flexible enough to allow for freelancing but steady and stable enough to build a life around, and I just don’t know what that is. Am I a project manager? A documentation specialist? An arts administrator? A communications manager? A community support lead? I have no idea. I assumed I’d be famous by now and wouldn’t have to worry about things like this. Alas, it’s taking a little longer, so until my rich and famous phase…. I need to have better search terms when seeking jobs.

What about you? What are your resolutions for the year?

Well I’m living in my childhood home again, with several part time jobs and a barely out of debt credit card. This year was very bad? A lot of good things happened, but mostly bad or frustrating things, so

Creative/Writing Goals

1. Grow Forced Proximity to 300 subscribers- COMPLETE
   • I’m on hiatus currently, and coming back next year on a slightly different publishing schedule, but I really love writing this newsletter and being a part of the romance reading and recommendation community!
2. Polish first full draft of Headwaters, start to query by end of March 2025- COMPLETE
   • No dice, alas, but I did it! I think what I struggle with for this book is a way to explain it in concrete terms versus “this is a story about a woman who hates herself so much she decides to make insane and dangerous decisions in order to feel anything until she has enough emotional distance from her own failures to start over” … “also there’s hot snowed-in sex, gun fights, and a hero who never imagined a future beyond a few hours away until he met her.”
   • Are you good at distilling information into a catchy paragraph or two? Do you LOOOOVE to blurb? Do you want to read this book and help me?? I promise it’s a fun ride
3. Break even with Rehabbing The Billionaire – FAILURE
   • This year, I earned $70.56 from this book, but to be fair, I didn’t do a lot to promote it because this year was absolute chaos and it just never was a priority. I don’t suspect I’ll ever break even until I get a few other books out there, which is absolutely the plan!!
4. Write at least 1 new complete draft of a new project, either for RoWritMo ‘25 or otherwise- COMPLETE
   • I finished the first draft of a spicy alien fated mates romance the day before RoWritMo ’25, then I kicked RoWritMo’s ass and wrote even more than I did in 2024! At time of writing this blog I haven’t finished that RoWritMo book yet, but I’ve written more words on it (in a month + a week) as the full draft of the alien book, so I kinda wrote two books this year. I also have 4 writing sprint sessions planned with a friend this week so… maybe I’ll finish it either just under or over the wire?
5. By end of year, decide if I’m going to continue the query route or go whole hog into indie publishing- COMPLETE
   • As I mentioned in my mid-year check in, this is less a decision I can really make on my own versus a financial reality check. I don’t have the money to move to Oregon, live a baseline life, and also go “whole hog” into indie publishing, even if that’s something I’d like to do. It’s expensive, even when you’re doing it in a budget friendly-ish manner! So unless a talented cover designer wants to offer their services to me for free, not to mention developmental editors… I’ll probably query a few more times while quietly saving enough money to get my next book out there as soon as I can swing it.

Creativity reflection: This was a really great creative year for me, which is honestly surprising, considering usually when I’m as depressed and broke as this (looking at you, 2017), I can’t get anything done creatively because I’m so spent in all the ways you can define that word. But this year I’ve got a writing group keeping me honest and accountable, a separate writing friend I meet every Monday to write for about an hour, and another writing/publishing friend I have more sporadic accountability sessions with to write together. I have a community, a routine, and I am so grateful to have had them during this absolutely awful year.

Health Goals

1. Stretch every morning- COMPLETE
   • So I didn’t stretch *every* morning because there were about 3-5 months this year that I was kind of down for the damn count in terms of stress and depression, BUT. According to the various apps I use to track things like this (mood/goal app: Daylio, self care app: Finch), I’m currently on a 145 day streak with stretching every day, and I’ve managed 32 weeks over the course of the year total at stretching every day, which is way better than I anticipated. 250 days of stretching overall!
2. Walk 3x weekly- COMPLETE
   • I managed this 21 weeks out of the year, thanks to moving to CO and having a dog to help motivate me (not to mention not being constantly on fire from LA weather and depressed from LA prices), so I’m also counting it a win, because that’s WAY more walking than I did last year! 113 walks was my total.
3. Order in less than 2x a week-COMPLETE
   • 45 weeks, baby! Having no money really forces you to cook, huh?? I did NOT order in 302 days this year, which, considering the last few years…. pretty damn good.
4. Develop better breakfast/lunch habits- COMPLETE
   • Done! I’m slowly but surely letting go of how I “should” be doing things (which then becomes me not doing them if I can’t do them “perfectly”) and just doing what needs doing, however I’m able to.

Health reflection: I sleep better (ish- sleeping is more a brain issue than a health one for me, but I’m definitely BETTER than I was), I feel WAY better day to day with more energy, and I’m more productive when I stay limber, incrementally increase my activity level, and cook more than I order out. I also save money. This is certainly influenced by the differences in being in a small town with fewer easy order-in options, a parent’s pantry to mine rather than having to get groceries for every ingredient, and having a dog around… but it’s a lesson I’m really really trying to take to heart. Move, bitch!

Personal Goals

1. Do more activities with my husband- COMPLETE
   • Moving is an activity, right? Because we did the hell out of that, together. Sometimes in our final move (where he drove a rental car and I drove ours) we’d call each other just to chat while we drove. We had a good year as a couple even if it was a bad year overall, and I’m just very lucky to have him.
2. Read 300 books- COMPLETE
   • Current read count: 425
   • Follow me on Fable for actual reviews, not just a regular counter!
3. Go out with friends or family once a week, or invite people over if that’s the best option- COMPLETE-ISH
   • Obviously since moving to CO to literally live with my mom doesn’t precisely count towards this, though we have made an effort to do stuff together rather than just be roommates passing in the night. But our final few months in LA were full of friends, because we are lucky to have good people around us even if that wasn’t our forever city, and we’re excited to find a community again in the future to continue hosting. Every week might not have happened, but we pushed hard not to be hermits even when the weeks were tough… and they were regularly tough
4. Declutter my possessions– COMPLETE
   • Nothing like moving to a new state to help declutter your life!

Personal reflection: For a difficult personal year… I did a pretty good job with my goals. I saw people, I didn’t go full hermit despite having truly no money for anything for months, I’m putting myself out into the world in person and online… I’m feeling surprisingly good despite how badly I should feel given the situation. And I’ve read some GREAT books this year!

Professional/Financial Goals

1. Make rent with freelancing work- COMPLETE
   • It’s been a rough couple years (getting sick of that yet? ME TOO!) for me professionally, but for the second year in a row, I managed to at least cover rent payments just through freelancing! Obviously life costs more than rent (though it rarely feels that way) but this is still a huge accomplishment considering how brutal the job market has been.
2. Be able to ADD to my savings account again rather than just removing from it- COMPLETE?
   • Weirdly Zelle, which several clients of mine use to pay me, automatically connects to my savings account, so while I’ve had transfer it out sometimes… sometimes I’m able to leave it there. Does that count? It’s better than nothing!
3. Lead 10 workshops, solo or with partners- COMPLETE
   • This one I blew past before mid-year, and most of the clients I’ve gotten for freelancing this year have come from a workshop, or as a result of having done a workshop for someone who then refers me.

Professional/financial reflection: After another brief adventure with credit card debt because of how little I earned this year which, thanks to rent-free living at my mom’s and a supportive and gainfully employed partner, I managed to get out of a couple weeks back…. it could have been worse. It really, really could have. But I am feeling confident about next year, and I’ll also be in a whole new state and hopefully finding whole new opportunities from there. If nothing else, my experience stage handing here in Colorado means I’ve got a new thing on my resume!

What a year. What a damn year. I’m glad it’s over, despite doing pretty damn well on a “goal completion” level, and while I don’t know if I’d say I’m excited for 2026, I’m cautiously optimistic. Happy new year!

So this year has been bad, right? It’s not just me? Kidnapping citizens from parks, locking up children and sending them to random countries, gutting social services, the continuing genocide in Gaza… also I haven’t been able to find full time work since 2023 (and trust me, it’s not for lack of applying to 10+ jobs a day!!!) and even managed to get laid off from my PART TIME SEASONAL job last month. It just felt necessary to level set because my January expectations of this year were… adorably optimistic.

Creative/Writing Goals

1. Grow Forced Proximity to 300 subscribers- COMPLETE
2. Polish first full draft of Headwaters, start to query by end of March 2025- COMPLETE
3. Break even with Rehabbing The Billionaire – lol
   • I mean technically I guess this is in progress but I have been barely focusing on this book at all in the face of….. other priorities…. like the financial ones further down this list
4. Write at least 1 new complete draft of a new project, either for RoWritMo ‘25 or otherwise- IN PROGRESS
   • I’m 31k words into an alien abduction romance because that’s my most recent subgenre hyperfixation. lol
5. By end of year, decide if I’m going to continue the query route or go whole hog into indie publishing
   • July update: So here’s the thing. Whole hog into indie publishing requires money. While I’ll keep querying, fruitlessly it seems, because it’s free and why not, it’s also no longer quite as simple as making the decision. Even if I do most of the stuff myself and decide to not pay for ANY marketing (which is a bad move from the research I’ve done, but putting that aside), I still will need to pay for things like a cover design, and that’s not cheap! So decision made or no, I likely won’t be able to do much until late 2026 if at all.

Health Goals

1. Stretch every morning- IN PROGRESS/FAILED
   • I did this faithfully for like three months and then got depressed and stopped. I endeavor to do better, but I guess officially I’ve failed?
2. Walk 3x weekly- IN PROGRESS/FAILED
   • So I’ve definitely walked exponentially more this year than before! And when I’m in Colorado (where I’ll be long-term until early 2026 starting in September) I walk almost every day because of the dog. But definitely week to week isn’t quite as consistent as I’d planned.
3. Order in less than 2x a week- IN PROGRESS/COMPLETE SO FAR
   • It’s funny how having no money breaks you of expensive and unhealthy habits! I can’t even pay for music or the scant few Patreon subscriptions I have right now, so there’s no way I can afford to order in even once a week! But hey, that’s still a win!!
4. Develop better breakfast/lunch habits- IN PROGRESS/COMPLETE SO FAR
   • The benefit of cooking more and ordering in less is that we usually have leftovers now, and I can’t just get lazy, so I definitely have gotten better about this through necessity. And wouldn’t you know, I DO feel better! Hmmmmm

Personal Goals

1. Do more activities with my husband- IN PROGRESS
   • Money being tight is definitely putting a bit of a drag on this, but we’ve also been more intentional about doing activities together and not simply near each other. Taking a longer walk to the independent cafe rather than the Starbucks across the street to write together and have breakfast, playing Baldur’s Gate together, taking walks and drives, hosting friends and family. This might sound crazy, but I love my husband and hanging out with him and am very lucky to have him as a partner. Gross. Moving on.
2. Read 300 books- IN PROGRESS
   • Current read count: 265
   • Turns out being depressed and unemployed gives you a lot of time to wallow and read books!
3. Go out with friends or family once a week, or invite people over if that’s the best option- IN PROGRESS
   • Once a week was possibly the most ambitious way to have phrased this, but I have done my best to see people more often, and it’s been lovely, especially as I plan to leave LA!
4. Declutter my possessions– IN PROGRESS/COMPLETE SO FAR
   • We’ve officially started this physical process in anticipation for moving. I’ve got a spreadsheet and everything!

Professional/Financial Goals

1. Make rent with freelancing work- IN PROGRESS
   • Well considering we won’t have to PAY rent as of October…. I haven’t had to ask for money from anyone and have been able to faithfully pay my half in rent (barely) until then…. but that’s mostly because of my pre-layoff CBS gig, which I guess is technically freelancing but that’s not quite the spirit of the law. So I have a lower goal overall due to not anticipating paying rent in Q4, but I’m still a way off
2. Be able to ADD to my savings account again rather than just removing from it- HAHAHAHA
   • In tHIS economy? Hopefully October’s loss of rent and utilities expenses will help, but… I’m not holding my breath. Not that there’s much to remove from my savings anymore… [nervous sweating smiling emoji]
3. Lead 10 workshops, solo or with partners- COMPLETE
   • This one I’ve actually blown past, which is heartening! Most of these gigs weren’t paid, alas, but they all netted me new opportunities to get in front of potential freelancing clients, and I’ve got quite a few already scheduled for the rest of the year as well. So that’s something. I’m in demand, even if I’m not making rent. Somehow one’s got to influence the other, surely.

What about you? How are your resolutions for the year going?

Trying something slightly different in format this year! Instead of one list of ten resolutions, I’m sorting my goals by their category, because there’s a lot to do this year in a lot of different sectors of my life.

Creative/Writing

1. Grow Forced Proximity to 300 subscribers (currently at 231)
2. Polish first full draft of Headwaters, start to query by end of March 2025
3. Break even with Rehabbing The Billionaire
   • Currently I’m still -$1,145.16 in the hole from what it cost to publish it
   • THIS IS MY MOST GRANDIOSE GOAL
4. Write at least 1 new complete draft of a new project, either for RoWritMo ‘25 or otherwise
5. By end of year, decide if I’m going to continue the query route or go whole hog into indie publishing
   • I spent most of 2023 and the first half of 2024 querying a book now called Pulling Focus, which I adore and which every person I’ve given it to personally has loved. I did not find any trad pub purchase, and I have a few theories about it that are a bit too late to implement. Then in 2024 I self-published Rehabbing The Billionaire and learned a LOT, plus gained a whole new indie publishing community. I want to give myself one more dedicated year of querying a book I think has a better shot based on what I’ve learned finding an agent (Headwaters), but after that, though I may send a query here or there if an opportunity feels right, I’m done holding back with books I really love that I want out in the world. So if by the end of 2025 I don’t have any significant momentum on the trad pub side of things, I’m going to spend 2026 and beyond, at least for the foreseeable future, releasing books independently.

Health

1. Stretch every morning
   • I started doing this in 2024, really liked it, then just… stopped. NOT IDEAL
2. Walk 3x weekly
3. Order in less than 2x a week
4. Develop better breakfast/lunch habits
   • We’ve gotten a lot better in my household for dinners and meal planning for those, but I often leave breakfast/lunch to the chaos of my day, which often means skipping them or just going to Starbucks. I can do better! But like… why do humans have to eat so regularly, it’s such a pain

Personal

1. Do more activities with my husband
   • We’ve broadly been doing pretty well at this, but we have a whole closet shelf full of games we love but never play, and we always say how much we like doing art together but then only do it when we have an external reason to. So we’re both trying to be more intentional about not just doing our own thing in the same room (which is great!!) but also more regularly actively doing things TOGETHER in addition to going to movies
2. Read 300 books
3. Go out with friends or family once a week, or invite people over if that’s the best option
   • I really gotta get out of the apartment more, and, failing that as an option (because $$$), spending time with my community here, because Quinn and I are 99% likely moving to Oregon in 2025. It’s the right move for us for now, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to miss our friends and family here! So I want to try and pack in as much time together as we can
4. Declutter my possessions
   • I’m moving! I can’t have all this crap! Also, I just got a notice my iCloud storage is almost full so I wanna work on my digital decluttering as well

Professional/Financial

1. Make rent with freelancing work
2. Be able to ADD to my savings account again rather than just removing from it
3. Lead 10 workshops, solo or with partners

What about you? What are your resolutions for the year?

What a year!

1. Make rent with my business by the end of the year.
   • NEAR COMPLETE! I’m actually surprised by this- I’m only about half a month short! I paid 11.5 months of rent (though not utilities, car payments, food, or anything else) just with my freelance and book earnings! Now, if we want to start getting into my pure profit, not accounting for expenses…. we’re a bit further away. But sheer gross income being just a tad shy of rent? Not bad! Not bad at all, considering it was a TOUGH year, financially and in the industry!
2. Finish first draft of Headwaters.
   • COMPLETE! I finished a few weeks after my UCLA Extension Romance Class, which was a tremendous experience for me for a lot of reasons, primarily because I now have a vibrant romance writing community! Together we’ve revised half of the now-complete Headwaters, along with many chapters of everyone else’s projects, we invented RoWritMo to replace the sadly disgraced NaNoWriMo, and I’m so grateful to every one of them.
3. Full revision draft of Good Deal.
   • COMPLETE! Finally, after two years of procrastinating! Is it good yet? Ask me next year. But it’s in MUCH better shape than it was, so that’s a win.
4. Revise & explore self-publishing options for Rehabbing The Billionaire.
   • COMPLETE! In that I did, in fact, indie publish this book! Get a signed copy of your very own, or read it on Kindle Unlimited or eBook. It was a tremendous learning experience, and I’m glad I did it. If you’re curious about the numbers and the biggest insights, you can join my Forced Proximity subscribers to read a full case study!
5. Win NaNoWriMo 2024.
   • COMPLETE! As previously mentioned, NaNoWriMo is NaNo-More, at least as far as an ethical choice to participate in for a variety of reasons. But my romance group and I made a new version just for ourselves, RoWritMo, I built a massive interconnected tracker spreadsheet, my friend Sriprae designed some gorgeous badges, and it was a success! I finished my 50k words faster than ever, in 3 weeks, so this was dEFINITELY a win. My new book (full draft completed 19 days after the challenge ended) is called The Curse Breaker, my first foray into paranormal romance, and I’m really really proud of it!
6. Read 20 new authors.
   • COMPLETE! In fact, I read 78 new authors this year! Subscribe to my romance novel newsletter for a full accounting of the 400+ books I read in 2024 😉
7. Successfully propagate a succulent.
   • UNCLEAR! But I didn’t kill any. I definitely successfully transplanted several plants, and nothing is withered in any of my propagation pots, but neither is anything flourishing? I think I needed to dry them and let the roots grow for longer…. but I don’t know if this is an entire failure or if it’ll just be extra slow!
8. Order in less than twice a week, consistently.
   • COMPLETE! Obviously some weeks are harder than others, depending on travel and work, but overall we order in significantly less than we used to, we’re building better systems for sharing the cooking
9. Find reasons to leave the city/state at least twice a season.
   • This was more of a resolution to get us out of our staying inside funk, and I am calling it complete!
   • Spring:
     • Malibu Creek State Park (painting and picnic for my birthday)
     • Colorado in February
   • Summer:
     • Santa Barbara (for my brother’s wedding!)
     • Colorado in August
     • Fall/Winter:
       • Topanga Canyon (for our friends’ wedding!)
       • Oregon (for Thanksgiving!)
       • Colorado (just me) (for Christmas!)
10. Incorporate physical activity into my new self-employed weekly routine.
    • Listen. We can’t have everything.

How was your year? Any resolutions you made and tried to complete? Let me know!

If you currently follow me on Instagram and don’t want to see a LOT of dedicated romance novel marketing in the coming weeks/months… you should probably mute me now. Fair warning. Because I have decided to self-publish an open-door (that means on-page sex scenes, family) romance novel on August 1st, 2024.

Let’s back up.

So since I began my romance novel reading sprint in early 2022, then my romance writing sprint not long after, I’ve returned to my prose roots with a vengeance. I’ve written five complete manuscripts, including the subject of this post, entitled Rehabbing the Billionaire. I spent a little over a year querying (that’s reaching out to potential literary agents) my first manuscript, Pulling Focus, and after that resulted in the same number of meetings as the first time I tried querying a novel back in college (zero), I remembered something important.

I’m an indie filmmaker! My primary sources of income at this point in my life revolve around my understanding of how to make movies for nothing, with no permission needed, and getting them in front of audiences! Did I, or did I not, make a short film about my experiences with anxiety and asexuality that still gets views seven years later and has racked up over 160k in that time?? So what am I doing, depending entirely on the gatekept publishing industry when I’ve got stories to share now?

Obviously it’s not that simple, but in some ways, it’s more simple. Do I want to yet again become a one woman hype team, harassing everyone within eyeline to consume a thing I’ve made? Not particularly. But I’m also tremendously proud of the book I wrote, and I think it’s a good fit for “the market” based on the 800+ romance novels I’ve ready since 2022. So while I continue to revise and go about things “the right way” with other manuscripts, I decided in late 2023 I wanted to do an experiment.

Operation Amazon Chum

My first manuscript, Pulling Focus, is precious to me in a lot of ways. I’m not ruling out an eventual self publishing opportunity with it, depending on how everything cracks out, but I knew early on when noodling about taking matters into my own hands with my creative endeavors that I needed a sacrificial lamb to experiment on.

I will make many mistakes over the course of this self publishing process, which is an accepted part of the scientific method and is something I have made my peace with. However, if I was going to take big risks and swings, I wanted a book I cared less about. Something that I conceived specifically with the intention of self-publishing, that would feel at home on Kindle Unlimited, that I could market using the lessons I’ve learned from other authors I follow as a reader, that I wouldn’t mind flopping.

So ahead of National Novel Writing Month 2023, I designed what my husband and I started referring to as my Amazon Chum novel. It would be trope-forward so I could make one of those arrow trope Canva graphics for Instagram, it would involve archetypes I usually lean away from (billionaires! virgin assistants! oh my!), it would be simpler in narrative construction, and it would look, smell, and taste like one of the hundreds of other breezy contemporary romances I’ve enjoyed and observed in the current indie publishing marketplace. It would be a book just unlike me enough that I wouldn’t take it personally if things didn’t pan out, and I only sell a handful of eBooks to those in my life brave enough to read their asexual friend’s erotic imaginings.

Reader: I failed.

I failed to write a book I didn’t care about. Two chapters in, I was obsessed with my messy billionaire, Nick Hartshorn, and delighted in writing him some truly awful dialogue. I was endeared with my hyper-organized heroine, Ellie Kerr, and her passion for her work and her determination to not get bulldozed by her boss (outside of bed, at least, WINK WINK WINK WINK preorder my book here).

Anyone who knows me will not be surprised by this failure, because how could I possibly dedicate the time and energy to a story and not, a little bit, fall in love with it? Writing is an inherently vulnerable, intimate process, especially when writing a genre that’s so character- and relationship-forward. Romance is the genre of people, and god help me, but I love people. As my friend Christine Cherry once said, I am viscerally excited by other people, even if my introvert tendencies mask that to strangers. Of course I wasn’t able to keep an academic distance.

However, the operational design of this experiment remained, despite the higher stakes. I just couldn’t subject myself to another querying adventure right away, especially not for a book that, despite my surprising love, isn’t really the kind of book I want to write again. It’s third person past tense, unlike my preferred first person dual POV; it’s about a billionaire (a demographic of people who should not exist); it takes place in a corporate world and a medical setting (two environments I’m not super comfortable writing and uninterested in returning to). This book is special to me, but it’s not “on brand”. So despite loving it, and caring about it, it’s still the best suited vehicle for the learning process of indie publishing.

Thus, here we are! I’ve commissioned a cover designer (shout out to the amazing Vida!), built a conditionally formatted spreadsheet to lay out my marketing plan, designed an unhinged number of graphics based on research I’ve done on similar authors, learned about scary things like ISBN numbers and copyright, and bit the bullet.

Rehabbing the Billionaire: a boss/assistant marriage of convenience romance, coming to an eReader near you August 1, 2024

How can you help? I’m so glad you asked!

Pre-order a copy of my book! I’m only releasing it digitally, because dealing with physical deliverables gives me hives and also that sounds like more work than I’m interested in putting into what’s very much still an experiment. Will I do a small batch printing eventually? Perhaps. I’ve got the ISBN number for a paperback version. But not now.

Leave me a review! If you have a book review social account or blog, email me (brianna.castellini@gmail.com) for an ARC! If you’re just a casual reader, but have a Goodreads or Amazon account, leave one there! Reviews are the #1 way authors can get in front of new potential readers.

Tell a friend! Know someone who loves romance? I’ve prepped some language for you to share:

Hey- you’re a fan of those billionaire romance novels, right? My friend Bri is self-publishing one! It’s called Rehabbing the Billionaire, and is a sexy marriage-of-convenience story set in the world of physical therapy. You can pre-order here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D1RWK2WS

You like romance novels? My friend Bri has one coming out soon called Rehabbing the Billionaire, about a CEO in need of a more wholesome image and his anti-billionaire assistant who needs money to finish her physical therapy degree. They get married to solve both their problems at once, but NOT because they intend to fall in love. You can pre-order here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D1RWK2WS

This year is shaping up to be one of my most complicated yet! It’s the first year I’ve started unemployed… ever! At least, since being employed was a requirement to buy food/pay rent. Survival is definitely on the mind, which makes this year perhaps slightly less fun looking but in ways I’m ready for. I think. I hope!

1. Make rent with my business by the end of the year. While I’m ambitious and hopeful about building my solo consulting and education business, I want to be realistic. So if I can end this year at the very least making enough from my consulting/teaching freelance work to pay rent each month, I’ll be tremendously proud! For context, rent is $1,189.00/month (not counting utilities).
2. Finish first draft of Headwaters. A book I started plotting last January that might be one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. Except for how hard it is to get all the way out of my brain. I want to at least complete a draft this year, and I’m thinking the UCLA Extension Romance Novel Writing class I decided to take this winter/spring will be helpful here!
3. Full revision draft of Good Deal. Another book that, at its core, is so special to me, but whose first draft is a damn mess. I meant to do this last year, and I did make some progress, but several other projects (including my co-written feature, the books above and below in this list, and starting a business) allowed me to procrastinate. But no more! This is my only book (so far) with a canonically asexual lead character, I should have a real draft!!
4. Revise & explore self-publishing options for Rehabbing The Billionaire. This was my NaNoWriMo 2023 project, which I finished the first draft of just under the wire of the year. It’s wildly unlike anything I’ve written before, because I designed it in a lab (my brain) to be a fit for Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited self-pub community. It’s tropey, shorter and less complex narratively, and extremely horny. I don’t want to commit to self-publishing if it turns out to be the wrong direction for me professionally and creatively, but I want to prepare this book as if I were self-publishing it, and get serious about looking into exactly what that may entail.
5. Win NaNoWriMo 2024. Because I’ve got so many active projects, I don’t have a new story idea… yet. But I’ve LOVED participating in NaNoWriMo again for the first time in years, and I want to commit to it early! It’ll be my fifth official time doing it (though I unofficially wrote 50k in a month April and July of 2022 as well) and, hopefully, my fifth time winning it.
6. Read 20 new authors. I have a Goodreads goal (200 books, because I wanna not put too much pressure on myself but I’ve already read 8 and last year I read 435 so. We’ll see) but I don’t just want to read, I want to read more broadly. I particularly want to make an effort to seek out authors of color and more queer love stories, because my favorite reads of 2023 were very white and straight for the most part, and that’s because I was mostly finding authors from authors I’d already read, and since I started from mostly white authors… you can see how this happened. I have a romance newsletter– I should be reading more broadly anyways!
7. Successfully propagate a succulent. I love my little windowsill succulent garden, but some of them have grown weirdly because of access to sunlight and my halfhearted attempts to keep them healthy, so I’ve done some propagation research and between that and some pots without plants currently inside them, I’m hoping to trim back and regrow some of my more unwieldy plant children.
8. Order in less than twice a week, consistently. Look, some weeks are tougher than others. But now that my income has been dramatically cut back and in the next two years Quinn and I want to try for a house/a permanent homestead to start trying to have a family, so for health AND financial reasons, I gotta stop letting laziness get in the way of good decision-making.
9. Find reasons to leave the city/state at least twice a season. Day trips are fun! Traveling with my husband is fun! Seeing friends/family who don’t live near us is fun! We both (currently) work remotely, it’s easier than ever to pick up and wander off for a week or two to a more interesting locale. Plus, we always have a good time.
10. Incorporate physical activity into my new self-employed weekly routine. There’s no excuse! And yet, every year, I sit on my butt. I’ve already incorporated stretching and it shames me to admit that I already feel better. Whoops.

As always… what are yours? Let’s keep each other accountable!

FIRST UP! For just $5, join me in developing next year’s New Years Resolutions on the first Sunday of 2024! It’s the first event my new company is hosting in the new year, and I’d love for you to join me! Especially because it began as a way to reclaim one of my favorite events back from Seed&Spark to continue doing the work that matters without being hamstrung by a company that doesn’t care about its users despite overwrought public claims to the contrary 🙂

So this year obviously went differently than expected. I was laid off mid year, which obviously forced me to make a lot of changes very quickly. That being said, it was truly the best thing that could have happened to me for a lot of reasons, I’m thrilled to not be connected to that company any longer. While I’ll be facing some new, unique challenges as a result of not having a full time job at the minute, I’m excited for what’s to come.

Complete

1. Save $5000.
2. Polish and send out 20 literary agent queries.
   • Final year count: In fact, I’ve so far sent 88, received 1 maybe, 52 outright rejections, and 23 passive rejections (nonresponsive agents after 2 months get this label). Ah, well.
3. Write 2 new scripts.
   • I also won NaNoWriMo for the 4th time, and wrote half of another book I’m genuinely really excited about if I can ever finish a first draft. It was a good writing year, if not specifically for scripts.
4. Revise all 3 books I wrote last year.
   • They weren’t FULLY revised, but I polished book 3, really polished book 1, and have a solid plan for rewriting book 2 which is more than I had at the start of the year!
5. Continue to cultivate a social life that isn’t completely professional.
   • I love my friends, I love seeing them and talking to them, and it’s been lovely (especially since post-layoff) to have time to spend on non-career hangouts.
6. Focus on building a life I love regardless of career.
   • This will always been in progress, but I really feel like I did a good job this year. I went on little day trips, made plans with friends that went beyond a meal or a coffee, went to more movies with my husband, spent time with my mom and brother, and just generally had a fulfilling year outside of my constant career anxiety.
7. Secret resolution: hit 100 subscribers on my weekly romance novel newsletter

Failed

1. Visit 5 National Parks. Whoops, between layoff and my mom’s hip surgery, we didn’t do a lot of traveling. Our priorities shifted for the year, alas.
2. Introduce physical activity into my weekly routine. Just wait til next year. I’m sure it’ll be the first time in 15 years this will totally happen, for sure.
3. Finish my list of movies and shows people have recommended to me. Um. Well, I saw like 500% more movies since I joined the AMC A-List, which helped somewhat, but I read over 430 books this year and that was really all I had time for, media-wise. But the list exists! I will get through it eventually!
4. Re-integrate non-reading hobbies back into my weekly routine. Weekly routine, nope, but I did do some embroidery and played Starfield and did a bit of art/crafting, and altogether I had a good year so while this might be a technical failure of specific terms

I had a surprisingly good year, overall. There are things I want to work on next year for sure (join my workshop!!) because every year I want to do better and feel better, and it’ll be an uphill battle to ensure my finances stay solid, but I’m confident, I’m genuinely happy, and I’m so blessed to have the people in my life that I do. Life could be better, but it could be (and has been) much much worse. Bring it on, 2024.

Well, it’s certainly been a year, and it’s only 6 months in. Hours ago, SAG authorized a historic strike, joining the ongoing WGA strike, and I’m psyched to see the solidarity strengthen protections for both unions. However, given that I am unemployed as of a few weeks ago and moved to the very expensive Los Angeles, CA to work in that industry, the timing for me personally is pretty much the worst. So….

Complete

1. Save $5000.
   • Thank goodness I made sure to do this early, since I got laid off from my full time job at the end of June! But that’s why I’ve had savings goals the past few years, so I’d have a bit of a safety net if/when I was back on the job market.
2. Polish and send out 20 literary agent queries.
   • In fact, I’ve so far sent 77, recieved one maybe, 38 outright rejections, and 24 passive rejections (nonresponsive agents after 2 months get this label). That’s showbiz, baby.
3. Write 2 new scripts.
   • Not only are Christina and I on the third rewrite of our feature, but I also wrote a terrible new pilot that I’m afraid to look at again! Doesn’t matter, though, because it’s complete and so is this resolution.
4. Secret resolution: hit 100 subscribers on my weekly romance novel newsletter
   • I hit this metric this morning, in fact! I want to personally thank Maya Rodale, historical romance author who I love, because like half of those subscribers found me because her Substack recommends mine passively and she recently sent a newsletter personally recommending me alongside another few publications for romance lovers. THANK YOU MAYA!
   • Also in the last week, folks have started tentatively signing up to pay for exclusive bonus posts, so the first one of those has gone up and was designed to start a fight with fans of a certain romcom. Join me?

In Progress

1. Visit 5 National Parks. Unemployment, mom’s hip replacement, and other preexisting travel concerns have slowed down this considerably, but we did briefly dip into Joshua Tree in January!
2. Introduce physical activity into my weekly routine. If I can convince myself to try on my first bathing suit in over a decade to finally take advantage of the pool I can see from my apartment window, perhaps this will change.
3. Revise all 3 books I wrote last year. I’ve polished books 1 and 3 from last year, because I realized book 2 requires far more comprehensive edits than expected and I’m afraid of it. But ? ain’t bad for halfway through the. year!
4. Continue to cultivate a social life that isn’t completely professional. Much easier especially post-layoff, and I’m really enjoying getting to spend time (virtually and IRL) with the people I love
5. Finish my list of movies and shows people have recommended to me. Oh no oh gosh. I’ve gotten through 2 of the shows on this list but then the list doubled. I also got back into Skyrim and finished my 234th book of the year yesterday, so whoops, perhaps not this year.
6. Re-integrate non-reading hobbies back into my weekly routine. Maybe soon, I have some ideas but it’s so hot I basically just want to lie around and wallow.
7. Focus on building a life I love regardless of career. Good timing to be laid off, eh? Thankfully, this one is also going pretty well. In relative terms, that is. Quinn and I are trying to get out of the apartment more often, see friends more often, I’m trying to organize a new DND game, and absolutely none of that has anything to do with my career. I’m enjoying this slowdown (even though, as my friend Shannon recently pointed out, my schedule doesn’t look like it’s slowed down at all post-layoff) and this opportunity to be creative and enjoy the world and people around me without also having to clock into a company I was increasingly frustrated with!

I said at the end of last year that 2023 felt like a true fresh start, and, well, that’s been truer than I could have even imagined. But I’m really happy, and I’m excited for what comes next.