We’re getting closer and closer to My Unscripted Life‘s release (less than a week!), which means we’re getting closer and closer to the end of #30DaysofRomComs! But we’ve still got some great giveaways, including the one at the end of today’s interview with one of my very favorite authors, Jessica Brody!

You’ve written across genres and categories in your career, from sci fi to rom coms, middle grade to young adult to adult, and even a nonfiction writing book! What is it about comedy that you keep coming back to?

I think it’s my personality. It just fits comedies best. I tend to keep things light in my life, always trying to find the joke in everything and always trying to make people laugh. I think making people laugh gives me more satisfaction than anything else (including even making people swoon!) So after writing three books in a very serious sci-fi trilogy, writing A WEEK OF MONDAYS (a comedy) kind of felt like coming home. Not that I didn’t love writing sci-fi, but it’s like going on a long vacation somewhere foreign. It’s amazing, the food is great, you love the sights and meeting the people, but after a while, it’s so great to be home. J

Speaking of your nonfiction book, Save the Cat Writes a Novel is something you’ve working on for a long time. I even plotted using Save the Cat thanks to your evangelism of the script writing book! Why did you want to write this book?

I think it started with teaching the workshops. Once I started teaching SAVE THE CAT! WRITES A NOVEL as a workshop, I realized how much this method can help people…specifically novelists. I also realized, in speaking to novelists in my workshops, that adapting it to novels wasn’t as straight forward and obvious as I’d thought. So I basically spent 5 years teaching the method and gathering knowledge and tweaking my approach to it, before I started writing the book. Now I really feel like I have a handle on how to adapt this amazing plotting methodology to novels and I can’t wait to share it with everyone!

I was watching your YouTube channel and realizing that you’re basically becoming an across-the-board media maven. What made you want to take your writing tips to YouTube, and what can we expect coming up on your channel?

Oh, thanks! I’m glad someone’s watching! I don’t know, I think I just have so much to say about writing! I’ve been doing it professionally now for more than 10 years, I guess, after that long, you start picking up a few things. J I started releasing a series of online, self-paced workshops about writing (you can learn more about them here) and I was getting such a great response to them, I decided to also post some YouTube videos about writing too. So far, they’ve been really fun! I think I just love working with other writers and talking about craft and process.

You write contemporary with a magical twist. What draws you to those magical elements?

Oh, I just LOVE those wish fulfillment stories. There’s something about them that really speaks to me. Girl makes a wish, wish comes true, girl realizes wish isn’t all that’s cracked up to be. It’s so fun to explore different stories within this theme. Because who hasn’t wished for something magical? To do over a day? To make a different choice in your past? To fast forward through the dreaded middle school? Obviously in real life, we never get to experience those “what ifs” but in fiction we can. So I’m kind of obsessed with doing that!

Your next YA was just announced. What can you tell us about it?

Yes! Huzzah! It’s another wish fulfillment story. And another comedy! It’s called IN SOME OTHER LIFE and it’s about an 18-year-old girl who, four years ago, made a very fateful life-altering decision that she now completely regrets. She always wonders how her life would be different if she’d made the other choice. Then she falls, hits her head, and wakes up in a parallel version of her life where, four years ago, she made the other choice. I was inspired by movies like Sliding Doors, Mr. Destiny and The Family Man, all of which I grew up loving. So this was really fun for me to write.

Thanks so much for hosting me Lauren! And congrats on your new release! I can’t WAIT to read it! XO

Thanks for stopping by, Jess! And now, if you want a chance to win a copy of Jessica’s newest release, A WEEK OF MONDAYS, comment below with what romantic wish you’d like to have granted! Contest ends October 16, US only.

When I made the wish, I just wanted a do-over. Another chance to make things right. I never, in a million years, thought it might actually come true…

Sixteen-year-old Ellison Sparks is having a serious case of the Mondays. She gets a ticket for running a red light, she manages to take the world’s worst school picture, she bombs softball try-outs and her class election speech (note to self: never trust a cheerleader when she swears there are no nuts in her bake-sale banana bread), and to top it all off, Tristan, her gorgeous rocker boyfriend suddenly dumps her. For no good reason!

As far as Mondays go, it doesn’t get much worse than this. And Ellie is positive that if she could just do it all over again, she would get it right. So when she wakes up the next morning to find she’s reliving the exact same day, she knows what she has to do: stop her boyfriend from breaking up with her. But it seems no matter how many do-overs she gets or how hard Ellie tries to repair her relationship, Tristan always seems bent set on ending it. Will Ellie ever figure out how to fix this broken day? Or will she be stuck in this nightmare of a Monday forever?

From the author 52 Reasons to Hate My Father and The Unremembered trilogy comes a hilarious and heartwarming story about second (and third and fourth and fifth) chances. Because sometimes it takes a whole week of Mondays to figure out what you really want.

My Unscripted Life
Out October 11!
Amazon – Barnes & Noble – Indiebound