Jody Casella - This Week on BW Presents

2 min read

We caught up with YA author Jody Casella before her interview this week on BW Presents and she shared with us a little bit about what it was like to write her debut novel Thin Space.

The winter I was writing my book Thin Space was gray and dreary and cold.

My family had recently moved from out of state into a new house. Actually, it was an old house, drafty and dank and kind of depressing. Each morning it was a struggle for me to sit down, open my lap top, and get to work.

Up to this point I had been writing and pursuing publication, somewhat seriously, for fifteen years. Squeezed in here and there around a part-time teaching job and my primary focus of being a mom to my two kids, I'd written five—I was going to say failed novels, but let's call them—"practice books," collected a bulging file folder of rejections, attended multiple writing conferences and retreats, and still wasn't getting anywhere as far as publication went.

The winter I started writing Thin Space felt like a final shot at a dream.

Every day, mostly to avoid the cold, dark house, I'd pack up my stuff and head to the local library, a warm, well-lighted place with lots of cozy chairs and a nice book-ish scent wafting around. Before I began my work each afternoon, I'd browse the young adult section, running my hands across the book spines, imagining my book on the shelf one day.

I made a slot for it on the C-shelf, nudging aside the books that would be its future neighbors, taking it as a good sign that these happened to be novels by two of my favorite authors, Rae Carson and Kristin Cashore.

I kept writing my book.

I finished it. I rewrote it. I rewrote it again.

I sent it out on submission.

Recently, (six years after I finished writing Thin Space) I was browsing around in the library. Almost out of habit, I strolled over to the C shelf in the young adult section.

And there was it was, as if it had always been there, my book, between Rae Carson's and Kristin Cashore's novels.

I don't know what the lesson is here.

The stubborn pursuit of a dream?

The power and magic of belief?

But I will say this: that day, I nudged the other books aside and made a much wider slot for all of the future stories I have yet to tell. 


Leave a comment

Comments will be approved before showing up.


Also in Free Excerpts, Lessons, Videos, and Meditations from Beyond Words

Returning the Soul to the Solstice
Returning the Soul to the Solstice

4 min read

Read More
The Most Powerful Way to Boost Your Well-Being in 2025
The Most Powerful Way to Boost Your Well-Being in 2025

3 min read

Read More
Top 5 Things to Keep in Mind When Beginning Your Tarot Journey!
Top 5 Things to Keep in Mind When Beginning Your Tarot Journey!

3 min read

Read More