From Pandemic Isolation to Magic: Creating The Ordinary Bruja

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Magic doesn't always arrive with a flash and fanfare. Sometimes it emerges quietly from our darkest moments, when we're hiding from the world and even from ourselves.

During the silence of pandemic lockdown, when the world outside my window fell eerily still, I found myself drawn to create something that could bridge the isolation. That's when Marisol—a curvilicious Latina bruja reluctant to leave her cottage after quarantine—first whispered her story to me. What began as simple Instagram story posts soon became something deeper, a mirror reflecting my own fears about reconnection and being truly seen.

Through writing Marisol's journey, I discovered parts of myself I had been avoiding: feelings of inadequacy, of not being Dominican enough, brave enough, or simply good enough. The magic I wove into her story wasn't about wands or spells, but something ancestral and gut-deep, magic that pulses through her blood whether she wants it or not. Much like creativity pulsed through me during those difficult days, demanding expression even when I felt most ordinary.

The Ordinary Bruja emerged not from careful plotting but from raw emotion, from a tired woman sitting at her kitchen table whispering stories into the digital void, hoping someone might hear and respond. And respond they did—readers connected with Marisol's reluctance to emerge from her pandemic cocoon, her fear of being seen for who she truly is. Because aren't we all, in some way, hiding parts of ourselves from the world?

What version of yourself did you meet during isolation? What magic might you be hiding? Join me next Wednesday for "The Post That Broke Me" as I continue unpacking how this soft story took a hard turn after one Instagram comment about Dominican identity that awakened the bruja's anger. Your own magic is waiting—sometimes we just need someone else's story to help us find it.

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If today’s episode hit you in the chest the way it hit me, don’t just walk away—walk toward something that reflects you.

Subscribe to the podcast, hit that YouTube channel for the behind-the-scenes, and if you’re ready to read a story about what it really means to come home to yourself—
👉🏽 Preorder The Ordinary Bruja.

https://haveacupofjohanny.com/product/the-ordinary-bruja-book-one-of-las-cerradoras-series-j-e-ortega/

It’s about a Dominican-American bruja who’s been running from herself her whole life until ancestral magic, generational wounds, and a haunted-ass hill force her to face the truth.

If you’ve ever felt “too much,” “not enough,” or like you don’t fit anywhere, you’re exactly who this story was written for.

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Because becoming who you are is the bravest kind of magic.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh we could, we could fly.
Welcome back to have a Cup ofJohnny.
This season isn't abouthustling harder.
It's about coming home toyourself, to your voice, to your
breath, to the quiet truth thatyou're still here and you're
not starting over.
You're starting again.

(00:21):
This is your space to reflect,reset and remember who to tell
you why.
So pour your cafecito and let'sbegin.
You know, I never planned towrite a bruja story, but then

(00:44):
again, I never planned to bethis version of myself either.
This very first Wednesday ofMay, we're kicking off a new
podcast series called the whyBehind the Bruja, and each week

(01:07):
in May, I'll be unpacking theroots of my novel, the Ordinary
Bruja, not just how it came tobe, but why I had to write it.
So are we ready?
Of course we are, because whywould we be here?

(01:37):
Let's go all right.
So let me paint a picture foryou all.
It's 2020 pandemic lockdown.
I am running out of things todo and I get like an inkling of
I need to write, I need to becreative.
I also started doing homeworkouts and then all this other

(01:57):
stuff to kind of get outside ofthis space that I was in during
that time, and then I also sawother creatives just putting
themselves out there onInstagram and I believe I either
heard someone say this in oneof the many chats that I was
part of or saw it, but it wasinstant story, which were

(02:23):
stories pushed throughserialized versions on Instagram
stories and they were likehashtag instant stories.
So I was like I want to do that.
I want to do something shortyet serialized, that brings me
joy to create and brings otherpeople joy to read and

(02:46):
experience, especially sincemost of us were hanging out in
some sort of social media space.
And you know, it was kind oflike this internalized chaos
going around that time whereit's like the world was kind of
aloof and silent but at the sametime there was a lot of things
going on.

(03:07):
There was just a lot ofsuffering going on, unknown
anxiety and all this stuff justall together.
But then when you look outsideit was like silent, right, you
barely saw anyone.
At least that was my experience.
So it was this constant weighton my chest, and not the poetic

(03:29):
kind, but it was kind of likethis tired, some breathing, kind
of like just being disconnectedfrom everyone, to include
myself.
So, with all of that weighingon me and having this thought
that I need to create in orderto be fulfilled.

(03:51):
I've always known that, and nowI was challenging myself, based
on this information that I gotabout instant stories, that I
should be able to channel thetalent that I have, what I love
to do, into this medium, hereand and when I accepted that,
then my next hurdle was likewhat then?

(04:14):
What can we talk about?
And, and I don't know, I don'tremember how it came to me it
was probably during a showermoment or something like that,
as it usually happens in theshower driving.
But back then I wasn't reallydriving because we wasn't going
outside, so it had to have beenin the shower.
And I was thinking about whatwould it be like when all of

(04:38):
this was over?
Right, when the quarantine wasover, we were able to get out of
the house and I just had thisvision of this Latina bruja you
know curvilicious Latina bruja,full curls, just coming out of

(05:00):
this cottage on the hill whichshe's been holding up on.
She is grieving Her mother haddied, she had lost friends, as a
lot of us went through thatgrieving of losing people that
we love, but also losingconnection as well.
So she's coming out kind oflike this alien, just really not

(05:27):
connected to anything, butbeing connected to the earth,
the sun shining on her, theground she was walking on and
all of that, but not reallyconnected to her community or to
the world.
And little by little I got toknow this bruja and I got to
know that she was Marisol, whowas eating comfort food and

(05:52):
avoiding people, something thatI was doing and Marisol didn't
want to emerge from her pandemiccocoon.
To be completely honest, youknow she didn't want to emerge
from her pandemic cocoon.
To be completely honest, youknow she didn't want to do it.
It was like a mixture ofanxiety, of having to reconnect
again, having to people again,and being fearful of the what if

(06:16):
?
You know, what if she was notcareful and she came across
somebody you know and um andherded them or pass something
onto them and and all of that.
So it was like so many worries,so many fears that waited on
her that she was hiding andwhile she could come out, she

(06:37):
was still anxious about it, youknow.
So, essentially, she was hidingfrom the world even when she
could get out, and she washiding from the world even when
she could get out and she washiding from her reflection
because a lot of things hadchanged within her, not just
outside in her world, so shehadn't come to face those things
just yet.

(06:57):
So the idea of being seen forMarisol was really anxiety
ridden.
She was very scared of that,and in real life so was I.
So, like I said before, when Iwrite and I tap into these
characters, I tap into me aswell, into my experiences,
feelings that I have had, thingsthat I've experienced and so

(07:19):
forth, which is why I tend toget the comment that my stories
and my characters are veryrealistic, even though it is a
fictional story the OrdinaryRuja is very fantastical.
None of those things are real.
But the feelings and thecharacters and the things that
they go through are very realbecause I felt them and I add

(07:40):
those, I link them, I interlacethem into the story and into
what the characters are feeling.
So each day I wrote a littlemore and I found out very
quickly that the canvas for theInsta story is kind of small.
So it really challenged me toreally condense that quote

(08:04):
unquote chapter or that quoteunquote really small episode
that would fit into the screenand really pack a punch, you
know and leave whoever wasreading it or listening to it
really salivating for more.
So it was a bit of a challengefor me.
Around that same time as well,I started writing on Wattpad.

(08:25):
So I've said before, if you goin there you're going to see
some of my earlier writings andI haven't put it down.
And I don't want to put it downbecause I love that beginning
side of me.
I love the passion that wentinto those stories.
I love to see that because tome that's kind of like my
genesis of writing and it showsme how much my writing has

(08:48):
evolved while still having thatcore there, that passion there,
that essence that is me stillthere, which you can see from
then until now.
But it's just the technicalityof the writing has really
evolved.
I have learned and become moreself-aware of things that I can

(09:09):
do better and with each book,with each story, I have improved
on that little by little.
Because it is true, the morethat you write, the better that
you get at it.
So that's the reason why if youlook on Wattpad, you're going
to see all my stories in there,and if you do, let me know what
you think about them.
And if you go into my storieson Instagram.
You're going to see the Instastory of the Ordinary Bruja

(09:31):
there as well.
Yeah, each day I wrote a littlebit more, and the story of the
ordinary bruja there as well.
Yeah, each day I wrote a littlebit more and the story unfolded
.
Back then, like I am now, I wasa discovery writer, which means
that as I write, I get to knowthe character more, I get to
evolve the story more, and soforth, and just something about
it felt super right, like I wasable to exhale.

(09:55):
Like doing that, giving back inthat creative way to others was
also nurturing my soul, youknow, when it comes to this
story, when it comes toexercising my creative muscle
during that time because when itcomes to Marisol, she was
ordinary, you know much like howI felt, but she also had magic.

(10:19):
She was magic, you know, andeven though she didn't want to
use it, it pulsed inside of heranyways.
And that's when I realized Iwas like shoot, that's me.
I was like shoot, that's me.
You know, she was hesitant, shewas guarded, she was soft in
places the world wanted her tobe hard.

(10:41):
She was afraid of being seenfor who she really was, because
that meant giving people thechance to reject her, and that
is hard.
That right there hit way tooclose to home for me.
But Marisol's story kind ofbecame my way of working through

(11:01):
that which I didn't have thewords for just yet my own fear,
my own internalized shame, myown belief that I wasn't enough,
not Dominican enough, not braveenough, not good enough.
So I wrote and each post, likeI said, was short, was like a
challenge how can I make itcliffhanger-ish?

(11:24):
That sounded badCliffhanger-ish and layered in
this soft magic and magicalrealism in it and that wands or
wizard magic, which I love, thatyou know.
I don't see nothing wrong withit.
But that's not what I wantedfor the Ordinary Bruja.
I wanted something ancestral,something old, something that

(11:47):
just lives in her blood, that issomething that gets passed down
.
That is aching.
That is like this gut-deepmagic.
That is something that getspassed down.
That is aching.
That is like this gut-deepmagic.
And readers responded, somepeople read it and they enjoyed
it and I saw the numbers of whowas reading it and how many
people were reading it andliking it and that as well, kind

(12:16):
of like not just boosted my egoand tapped into my ego, but
also nourish me as well, becausethat's the whole point of
writing, for me at least, is Iwant to not just see myself in
what I write because it's comingfrom me, but I will want the
readers as well to seethemselves in it, so that way
they may feel less alone, theymay feel less awkward, they may
feel less ostracized, becausenow there's a character there

(12:38):
that is going through somethingsimilar, that represents a
background that they have or anidentity that they have, or they
have the same culture as they,and so forth, you know.
So that's where I get kind oflike the oomph when I see that
readers are connecting tosomething that I've written.
That was also a good part ofall of this and what prompted me

(13:02):
to continue to write it.
Not just that, but also writeother stories, and I was like
good, this is good, you know,not just because of that, but
because through this story I wasalso starting to see myself.
So you see, that's the genesisof the Ordinary Bruja, and I'm

(13:24):
the type of writer that I have aplethora of stories.
Some are just a sentence, someare just the title of it, others
are like full on first draftsvomit drafts, as I call them and
I have so many of them and atany moment when I'm like almost
finished with one, I go throughthis Rolodex of stories that I

(13:47):
already have and tap into anyone of them and start rewriting
it.
And I have not run out of anyof those stories.
I have not had the need tocreate anything new because I
already have so many to work offof.
Because all these years beforeI started writing seriously I

(14:09):
want to say six years ago I'vebeen writing through just
passion.
Passion was what fueled mebefore and I was just writing
just to write whatever and a lotof those things from way back
when I've come to find out thatthey're kind of timeless.
They still hold some weightright now, right now, and all I

(14:38):
have to do is continue to writeit, to mold it, that story, and
develop it a little bit more,and they have turned out to be
books, just like the OrdinaryBruja, just like another series
that I'll be working on afterI'm done with the Ordinary Bruja
, mrs French's Evil Ring I don'tknow if y'all heard me.
That was like 20 drafts at thevery least.
It was a story written a whileback and it was something that I

(14:59):
just kept rehashing, rehashing,rehashing and going through
different versions until itbecame the final version that I
published.
So these stories that you see,I had had them in my drive for
quite a long time had them in mydrive for quite a long time and
, for whatever reason, witcheshave always been kind of like in

(15:20):
my purview, in my kind of likerear view mirror always.
So it was always something thatI've used.
That motif per se of witches,of ancestral magic, of some sort
of magical power, has beensomething that I use in my main
characters a lot.
So I have quite a few of those.

(15:40):
But I want y'all to read thisnew version of the Ordinary
Bruja, because I'm just givingyou the genesis right now.
That didn't come from a bookidea or from a writing retreat.
I didn't plot it.
It didn't come from my Scribnerfile.
It literally came from myInstagram stories and I had to

(16:05):
copy and paste it into myScribner app so that way I can
start from there Like no joke,that's exactly what I did.
I went back into my Instagramstories, copy and paste it,
because that's how I was backthen.
I was just.
Every day I will wake up andI'm like what am I going to
write?
And I was just every day I willwake up and I'm like, what am I
going to write?
And, straight up, just wrote itin there and went on, you know,

(16:28):
posted it On the next day.
I will write again, and soforth.
So when it came time to fleshingit out as a whole book, I had
to go back to the and I thinkthat's what was holding me up
for the longest, because I'vebeen wanting to do this for so
long to revisit that story nowthat some time have passed and

(16:48):
I'm kind of like have alreadyhealed not fully from that, but
healed enough where I can lookat that and not feel the sting
of everything that I experiencedback then.
And that's usually how it works, like I write something in the
moment where I'm feeling bigfeelings and then I just leave
it there in the background, youknow, because I don't want to

(17:10):
process it any longer.
And then, when time passed andI'm able to look back at that
time and I can process it again,I just pull that story again,
like I did with the OrdinaryBruja, and go through it and
then make it into an actual book.
But yeah, no plotting, no,nothing, just a tired,

(17:36):
overstimulated Dominican womansitting in my kitchen table,
sometimes in my living room,with the TV in the background,
just whispering her story intothe void, hoping that someone
would read it and echo it back.
And it did.
The Ordinary Bruja was born outof my isolation and she
reminded me that there's stillpower in being ordinary, that

(17:58):
even in hiding we're stillworthy of our own magic.
And if you're still with me, Iwant to say thank you.
Thank you for listening to thisgenesis of the ordinary Ruja.
And next week I'll be sharingthe moment when this soft little
story took a hard left turnAfter one Instagram comment,

(18:24):
back again on Instagram onDominican Identity thing, and
that's when the bruja got angry,literally, and on the page.
So tune in for episode two, thepost that broke me.
And if this episode touched you, you liked it, go ahead and DM
me or tag me at HaveACoupleJoaniand tell me what part of

(18:47):
yourself did you meet during thepandemic, because maybe, just
maybe, that version of you hasmagic too.
All right, folks, have anawesome week and I will see you
next Wednesday.
Bye, if today's episode spoketo you, share with somebody

(19:14):
who's finding their way back too, and if you haven't yet.
Visit haveacupofjoanniecom formore stories, blog posts and the
bits that started it all.
Thank you for being here.
Until next time, be soft, bebold and always have a cup of
jun.