There was a time I didn’t think anyone would read this story.

Not because I didn’t believe in it, but because I didn’t know if it would matter to anyone else. It lived quietly in my mind, then in my drafts, then in a corner of my life that felt both deeply personal and strangely uncertain.

And now?

The Ordinary Bruja is sitting in indie bookstores from California to El Paso, Florida to North Carolina. It has crossed oceans into Germany and the UK. It is finding readers I have never met.

But this story did not begin as the book you see today.

It began as something softer.

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Where It Started: A Hopeful Story in Lockdown

During the COVID lockdown, when the world felt paused and uncertain, I started posting a short story on my Instagram stories called #instabruja.

It was a feel good story.

A quiet one.

It followed a girl emerging from a kind of emotional hibernation into a world she did not fully recognize anymore. Everything felt unfamiliar, fragile, shifting. But underneath all that uncertainty was something steady.

Magic.

Not the kind that sparkles. Not the kind that performs.

The kind that lives inside you.

It was about rediscovering that.

It was about hope.

And at the time, that is what I needed. Something gentle. Something reassuring. Something that said, even if the world changes, you still have yourself.

When It Turned Dark

But then something happened.

I came across a post talking about Dominican identity. I left a comment. A simple reflection. I spoke about how deeply Dominican culture is rooted in African and Taíno heritage, and how often that truth gets overshadowed by the emphasis on Spanish colonization.

That comment sparked something.

What I assumed were Dominican nationalists came into my comments and began attacking me. And to be clear, I was not intimidated. I have never been someone who backs down from strangers on the internet. I responded, I blocked, and I moved on.

But something lingered.

Because while that interaction did not shake me on the surface, it stirred something deeper underneath.

At that same time, I was revisiting #instabruja. I had plans to expand it into something bigger. Something fuller. A novella.

And suddenly, I was not writing from softness anymore.

I was writing from anger.

The Birth of Marisol

That anger asked a question I could not ignore:

What happens when we forget who we are?

Not just on a surface level. Not just in language or tradition. But in the quiet ways. The ways we shrink ourselves. The ways we edit ourselves. The ways we silence parts of who we are to be accepted. Because I knew that behind the unkind words in those comments was someone afraid that the truth they were standing on was being dismantled.

That is where Marisol came from.

She was no longer just a girl rediscovering magic.

She became a girl who doubted herself so deeply that she could not recognize her own power. A girl who minimized herself. Who censored herself. Who believed she was less than what she actually was.

And the magic?

It did not disappear.

It became buried.

Distorted.

Weaponized against her.

The story turned dark. Really dark. Because that is what happens when identity is fractured. When history is erased. When you are taught, directly or indirectly, to disconnect from your roots.

Marisol’s journey became about fighting through that.

Fighting through doubt. Through inherited silence. Through the internalized voice that says you are not enough.

Until she remembers.

Until she reclaims.

Until she becomes the magic she was always meant to be.

The Personal Cost of Finishing This Story

Finishing The Ordinary Bruja was not easy.

Because I was not just writing Marisol’s journey.

I was living my own version of it.

There is something about unearthing who you are that is not soft. It is not always beautiful. It can be uncomfortable. It can be confrontational. It can force you to stand in spaces where you once would have stayed quiet.

I realized I had reached a different version of myself the moment I pushed back publicly. The moment I did not shrink. The moment I chose to stand in what I believed, even when it was met with resistance.

That fire did not just stay online.

It followed me back to the page.

It pushed me to finish the book.

It pushed me to expand it into a series.

It pushed me to stop waiting for permission and start reaching out to bookstores.

What Happened Next Changed Everything

The most unexpected and beautiful part of this journey was not just publishing the book.

It was who found it.

Readers who saw themselves in Marisol reached out. They connected with her struggle. With her doubt. With her eventual reclamation of self.

And alongside them came something else.

People who resonated with my resilience. With my refusal to shrink. With my willingness to show up and keep going even when it would have been easier to stop.

From those two groups came something I did not anticipate.

Opportunities.

Leads.

Messages from people telling me about bookstores looking for stories like mine.

And I followed those leads.

I reached out.

I asked.

And doors opened.

From Anger to Shelves

What started as a hopeful Instagram story…

What evolved through anger, introspection, and identity…

What was written through doubt and persistence…

It is now a self-published book sitting in multiple indie bookstores across the United States.

California.

El Paso.

Florida.

North Carolina.

And beyond that, it has reached readers in Germany and the UK.

That still does not feel real sometimes.

But it is.

What This Story Taught Me

This book was born from something raw.

From questioning identity.

From pushing back.

From refusing to stay silent.

From choosing to believe in myself even when the outcome was uncertain.

And what I learned through all of this is simple but not easy:

When you believe in your voice, even when it shakes…

When you honor where you come from, even when others try to rewrite it…

When you keep going, even when doubt is loud…

You create something that finds its way.

A Story I Will Always Stand Behind

The Ordinary Bruja is more than a book to me.

It is proof.

Proof of what happens when you do not let yourself be minimized.

Proof of what happens when you turn anger into creation.

Proof of what happens when you choose to remember who you are.

This is a story I am proud of.

And it is one I will continue to stand behind.

Always.