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.

After writing three novels last year, the most prose I’ve ever written at once and the ONLY prose I’ve written in over a decade, suffice it to say my current career aspirations are… confusing. And given the increasing professional slant to my NYRs these past few years, I’m definitely less sure of what I want to accomplish in practical terms in the year ahead! That being said, as an old married lady now, I suppose I could give a bit more thought to what I want my life, not my career, to look like by next December.

1. Save $5000. With student loan repayment on the horizon again (though since the original drafting of this post, it’s been pushed back to June rather than January), I decided not to increase my savings goal amount from last year, but I do want to keep putting money away if I can. My savings account has never looked better, and I’d like it to keep growing before the inevitable dramatic income loss that seems to hit me every 2-4 years because I work in a very volatile industry that’s only getting less stable the longer I spend in it.
2. Visit 5 National Parks. Because of our road trip honeymoon, Quinn and I asked for (and received) a National Parks Pass from our wedding registry. We only managed to hit 2 (Redwoods and Pinnacles) on that trip, but we’ve got a car, a National Parks Passport, and one year of free entry. Would be a shame to waste it!
3. Introduce physical activity into my weekly routine. I’m sure the 20th time something to this effect is on my NYR list is the charm, right?
4. Revise all 3 books I wrote last year. It’s polishing time, babes! And boy, do they need it!
5. Polish and send out 20 literary agent queries. The worst that can happen is I’m in the same place I am now: with three unpublished manuscripts I had a lot of fun writing. While it’s absolutely frustrating to have so much work (screenwriting and prose) that I love that hasn’t ever been further than a few friends’ inboxes, I will never regret the time I spent composing these stories.
6. Write 2 new scripts. Just because I’m back on the Prose Train doesn’t mean I’ve given up on the last decade of screenwriting and indie filmmaking. I’m hoping these two new scripts are a new pilot (I need new samples, as always) and the feature script I’m currently outlining with my friend Christina (also my filmmaking podcast co-host), but who knows!
7. Continue to cultivate a social life that isn’t completely professional. Because “it’s who you know” is such a cliche/reality of the entertainment industry, much of my socializing since grad school has had some level of networking slant to it, which is, frankly, exhausting. I want to cultivate a social life where I see people without having to make it productive (23 year old me is screaming, but she’s got other problems that we don’t have time to get into right now), and more regularly open my home and life to fun things like game nights, holiday celebrations, and dinner parties.
8. Finish my list of movies and shows people have recommended to me. Because I spent 2022 reading 300+ romance novels, I barely watched anything, and several people I trust recommended a lot of media I didn’t have time to consume because of that hyperfixation. Christine Cherry even made me a whole curated list of classic Star Trek TNG to help me understand the characters and tone well enough to start Deep Space 9, and I only made it through 3 episodes before abandoning all her hard work completely to read about yet another future duchess enjoying cunnilingus in the back of a carriage.
9. Re-integrate non-reading hobbies back into my weekly routine. My Libby app also has audio books, so there’s no reason why I can’t listen to a new book (and then pick up the eBook to finish at my own pace later) while painting. I spent a lot of time curled up on my bed with my laptop this year while my poor paints and empty canvases wilted in a corner, and I really did miss it. I can do both!
10. Focus on building a life I love regardless of career. Too long, my life, my decisions, and even my geography have been dictated by a career that feels, in some ways, further away than ever. I’m 30, married, and eventually interested in things like having kids, a dog, and a house with a yard in a state with seasons. I have to find things to care about and move towards that aren’t entirely consumed by my career, because, surprise surprise, that hasn’t made me very happy! In fact, last year’s resolutions that forced me to take a break and allowed me to do things like write 3 novels and read 300+ books and take trips with my husband made me happier than any number of career advancements in years prior. So I want to continue prioritizing my life first, and my ambitions second, because it seems that’s a far more winning combination.

Secret resolution: hit 100 subscribers on my romance novel recommendation newsletter! I send out three new book reviews a week, for FREE, over on my Substack, so join me, won’t you?

As I’m drafting the first pass of this list, I’m in a cafe near my apartment after finishing my NaNoWriMo writing for the day, and I need to head home to pack for my weekend trip to San Diego for Quinn’s birthday. As you’re reading the final draft of this list, I’m on a road trip from Dallas to Los Angeles with my friend Christine (the fabled Star Trek expert) to bring her new car from her mom’s place to the city we’re both still trying to find our footing in. 2022 was me giving myself permission to slow down, and I look forward to what 2023 has in store. It feels like the freshest start I’ve had in years, and I can’t wait.

It’s ya girl, hat in hand at the end of another year, with the results of my 2022 New Years Resolutions.

Completed: 9

Incomplete (I bet you can guess!!!!): 1

Continue reading “How I Fared: 2022 NYRs” →

A year and a half ago, I wrote about boundaries, and my historical inability to stand up for myself (even against myself in some cases) to keep them steady. I’ve got some new thoughts I’d like to share. (also, kudos to me for describing quiet quitting before it became A Thing)

The first is something I learned since writing that blog, one that should have been obvious but really, really wasn’t, especially because of who I am and what my brain does. Are you ready?

Boundaries are not about controlling other people’s behavior, a patently impossible task. Boundaries are about clearly communicating your actions when other people’s behavior breaches an expectation you’ve set.

Example:

Not a boundary: If you are a coworker or especially a manager or boss, please stop sending me Slacks and text messages after my work hours end. It contributes to my burnout by making me feel I must be attached to my phone 24/7 and leads to a deeply unhealthy work/life balance which is ultimately to the detriment of both my quality of work and quality of life.

Is a boundary: If you send me a Slack or text message after my work hours end that is not an emergency, I will not respond. It contributes to my burnout by making me feel I must be attached to my phone 24/7 and leads to a deeply unhealthy work/life balance which is ultimately to the detriment of both my quality of work and quality of life.

One demands a change in someone else’s behavior, one articulates a change in mine why what triggers said change. The first example is a request, the second is a boundary when the request is not respected. Subtle but important difference.

This is a big shift for me, personally and professionally. Previously, this was an inconsistently followed understanding, where I attempted to sneak around putting my foot down by hoping that appealing to someone’s better angels would ensure changed or improved behavior rather than me having to “punish” them with my boundaries.

AKA not how boundaries work.

Boundaries are not a punishment to other people. Boundaries are how you protect yourself, your energy, your person, your time, from people whose behavior punishes you.

This is easier said than done, obviously, and far easier in professional spaces where, though it may not be entirely appreciated, I at least have the outward expectation of separation between “on” and “off” time. Sure, a workplace may be annoyed I’m not always available, but they can’t say they’re annoyed or penalize me because it’s obviously an unreasonable expectation.

Like, you can’t set up an auto-reply to a family member that you can’t talk to them right now because it’s the weekend.

The hardest part with setting actual boundaries is the maintaining, of course. It’s hard to say “if you treat me like X, I will respond with Y” in the first place, but it’s even harder to consistently do Y when much professional and societal pressure encourages or normalizes other people doing X! I hate being the responsible one, because when people inevitably get upset with your boundary, you’re now responsible for them being upset!

And because they often don’t see your boundary as positive or necessary (because it goes against their wants and needs, so it’s negative to them regardless of intent or reality), you become a villain. You’re gaslit as the immature, unreasonable one for setting a boundary they don’t agree with, which then causes you to wonder if maybe you should loosen up a bit, which, of course, means your needs once again are trampled for someone else’s comforts and status quo.

That sucks. It sucks a lot, and I’ve run into numerous instances this year where a boundary I have set and stuck to has been repeatedly tested, insulted, manipulated, or derided. I talk a big game here on this blog about how pragmatic and mature I am (cue “Sure Jan” GIF), but every single time even a minor boundary of mine is tested I’m a half second away from yanking it back and saying “just kidding! Come on in!” Because no one, not even Bri “The Bulldozer” Castellini wants people to be upset at me specifically and actions I have taken. Obviously I want to be liked and thought well of. Obviously I do not want to have dramatic or unfriendly relationships with people in my personal or professional life.

But I have also seen the result of not setting boundaries, or allowing boundary respecting loopholes when pressed: burnout. Depression. Anxiety. Having to make a New Years Resolution to take 2 full days off per month which, and I cannot stress this enough, was not in addition to weekends. There was a period in 2020 where I didn’t take a day off from work of some kind (full time job, part time job, freelance contract, podcast production, film production) for nearly 4 months. I was exhausted, I was deeply unhealthy mentally and physically, and the habits formed during that period of my life and what led to it continue to affect my day to day.

And I regret that I have but one life to give to my country… and I finally have the perspective of age (says the wizened and wise 30 year old still writing on her blog she started at 13) that I want to be happier and healthier far more often than I want to be useful and accommodating. Someone else’s discomfort is not more important than my own. I am allowed to take up space. I am allowed to advocate for my needs, even when they come at the seeming degradation of someone else’s. I am allowed to put myself first on occasion without feeling constantly guilty. So I’ve gotten a lot more hardcore about my boundaries, and understanding and internalizing that the only person I can control is myself, so a boundary’s efficacy starts and ends with me and my choices and ability to communicate.

I do think it’s fair to point out that not all boundaries are reasonable. Like, it would be unreasonable for me to tell my husband (holy shit guys, I have a husband now) that if he ever said the work “spatula” to me that I would divorce him. Boundary Trigger: the word spatula. Action taken: divorce.

This is obviously an absurd example, but I wanted to clarify that this post isn’t here to make the argument that all boundaries set are made equal. Some people’s boundaries are unfair! Some people’s boundaries are unreasonable! Some are downright manipulative, designed to look like they dictate the boundary setter’s behavior when in fact they force the other party to change their behavior in order to maintain the relationship or access to something. Like when a parent gives the “boundary” that if their child comes out to them, they will kick them out of the house. Or when a white woman sets the “boundary” to not discuss racism in certain ways at work because she spends so much time doing anti-racist activism in her private life and needs a break as a way of stifling accusations about how her own behavior at work is racist.

Setting a boundary does not mean the boundary isn’t allowed to be questioned or discussed, and it doesn’t mean it can’t evolve in the future. Having a combative relationship with someone right now and setting a boundary to temper the resulting toxicity does not preclude a more productive and positive relationship with that person in the future when the boundary gets relaxed as behavior (of your own or of the other person’s) improves or changes. Circumstances change, priorities shift, existence is fluid! I contain multitudes!!!

Anyways. I recently reread that old blog about boundaries and realized I was due for a tune-up and clarification. Also, being a year out from even that less than perfect understanding of boundaries finds me in a much happier, healthier place mentally, which felt worth updating you all on! Setting boundaries is uncomfortable, but when done with good intent, lends to extremely positive results!

Other stuff and things that feel relevant to me posting a personal blog:

1. I’m a married woman now! You can send cash to congratulate me on my anniversary ever October 8th into infinity. Fun fact: apparently October 8th is also Jim and Pam from The Office‘s anniversary! See select photos of my nuptials below.
2. I’m participating in my first “official” National Novel Writing Month in a decade! Follow my progress on the NaNo website here. If successful, this will be the third brand new manuscript draft I’ve written in 2022 (after completing Camp NaNoWriMo in both April and July).
3. I have officially read 305 romance novels in 2022 at the time of writing this blog. And if you haven’t already heard, I’m now writing a newsletter where every Friday I recommend three new ones centered around a theme!
4. I play Animal Crossing now and have Opinions about how it compares in gameplay and general satisfaction to Stardew Valley, a game I have also played. (listen I ran out of other stuff and things but felt weird leaving this list at just three items)

Surprising absolutely no one but me, apparently, after my months-long hyperfixation reading romance novels at breakneck speeds, I wrote one. I’m now two chapters into a second one. Don’t ask me what I’m doing with them yet, because I don’t know. I’m just trying not to police the muse.

It’s been strange revisiting prose after nearly a decade away from it. I thought I’d categorically left it behind, and was frankly happy to do so. I hated writing descriptions, preferring to focus on dialog and plot, and I enjoyed how comparatively breezy the process of completing a new script was compared to even a relatively short piece of prose. There was also always something vaguely terrifying about being solely responsible for the complete story and its execution, rather than just a piece of it.

But now that I’m a 100k book and two chapters back into prose, I’ve been reminded of the things I’ve kind of missed.

Continue reading “I write romance novels now” →

Hi, it’s me, your resident blogger. This is how it’s going with my new years resolutions so far!

Completed: 3

Going well: 6

Going poorly: 1

Continue reading “2022 NYR: Mid-Year Check In” →