Tag Archives: book

Settling

Dear Friends, Settling. What a loaded word, huh? It used to just mean where your house was, or where you would camp out for the night. And now it means so many things. It means you sold out, you missed good chances, you took what was in front of you instead of waiting for what made you feel alive. I’m afraid I might have done that recently with something I care about more than anything in the world. I hate […]

I’m Tired

Dear Friends, I am tired. Exhausted. Insightful. Smarter. I am having to go through the exercise of tagging my posts from the past three years. Yes – Jessicabarraco.com is nearly THREE years old! I can’t believe it either. And we’re giving her a facelift before things really start take off with The Butterfly Groove – and life. I want my website to look as prepared as I feel. And now, when you read a blog post you like of mine, […]

The Marathon & #ObsesswJess

Dear Friends, I know what you’re thinking. And no, I have not decided to be extremely focused and train for a marathon (like everyone else in big cities in 2013). This is more a metaphor for how I’m feeling in life right now. I have some great news — an agent for The Butterfly Groove, a job that is about something I really care about and is slowing down for the summer, and dating isn’t even going so badly… Yet, […]

Not Nora…

Dear Friends, It saddens me so much to write this post. My only writing icon and legend, Nora Ephron, has passed away. When I moved to NYC last year, I really thought I would be able to meet her at one point. Right before I moved, I read her most recent book, I Remember Nothing. In it, she speaks about what she will miss and what she won’t in her life. Among things she will miss, coming over the bridge […]

Hope Meets Faith

Dear Friends, If there’s one thing I was raised without, it was hope. Hope is this intangible thing I’ve had to teach myself to believe in without much proof of. I’m no lawyer, but I am quite inquisitive, so for that reason, hope is always both my best friend and enemy in life. Hope makes me feel inadequate sometimes, as if I’m almost unworthy of its gifts because I don’t *always* believe. I wasn’t born a Disney princess. While I […]

An Inside Look at Book Publishing & Literary Marketing in a Digital World

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.” These days, it seems like everyone has something to say: the average Joe, celebrities and fantasy enthusiasts with imaginations that put Roald Dahl’s witches and candy men to shame. Everyone believes they are bringing something new and exciting to the bookstore shelf, and maybe they are. But the way that value is recognized has morphed. It has moved off the page and into the online space.

It’s A Harlequin Kind of Love

Dear Friends, Don’t you love how in the beginning of every romance film, they say, “And a romance like you’ve never seen before…” Why do people think romance is so original or complicated? It really just takes passion, bravery and luck. The right at place at the right time. The right head space at the right time. You have to hope you aren’t with the wrong person when you meet the right one. There’s always this fear that meeting the […]

This One’s For You

Dear Friends, Today I remember my mother. She has been gone for twelve years today and it still feels like yesterday that I was sitting in my algebra class, and felt my heart sink at 2:42pm. I knew she was gone. I felt her leave the Earth – like so many loved ones report feeling. You know when loved ones are departing, or when they are in danger, or at worst, dead. I have devoted the past two years of […]

Flood of Emotion

Dear Friends, I lived through the first (I think?) NYC hurricane. At first, I wasn’t bothered by it. I thought, hurricane on Madison Avenue? Come on, now. Who cares. Mellow out. But half of Manhattan closed up, boarded up and was sealed to the eye of the storm. There’s something about seasonal meltdowns that cause me my own flood of emotions. I’m sure it will get worse tomorrow, as I’ll be “Castaway” in my own tiny apartment especially made for […]

Rejection

Dear Friends, Rejection. Is there anything worse? If you’re like me, you’re a person who takes risks, moves across the country, believes in herself, and does her best to suspend disbelief into the “universe,” or nothing, if you’re at all as cynical as I am. There are so many things in my life that are up in the air and instead of feeling liberated and curious, I feel scared and defeated. It’s not fun for me to not know what’s […]