The Vent with Jessica Parra and THE QUINCE PROJECT

In Which Jessica Parra Helicopters In and Tells Us About Her New Book

Listen, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about starting a fictional and metaphorical cruise ship packed to the poop deck with writers, it’s that you make things up as you go along. Last post, I introduced Ventorship Presents, in which we talk with a specific author venting to us about things they encountered on their writing journey. After I published the post, I instantly knew that was the wrong name for the feature, so we’ve rebranded it as The Vent. It’s the exact same thing, but with a new name, one that needed a capital T and capital V as authors have decided to go from anonymous venting to openly sharing with us their writer woes. What do we think?

This week I am thrilled to be venting with Jessica Parra, author of RUBI RAMOS’S RECIPE FOR SUCCESS and the upcoming, THE QUINCE PROJECT (which I had the privilege of getting to read a couple months ago and just adored!). So grab your seat in the Ventorship Theater and please welcome to the stage, Jessica Parra!

Ventorship Captain, Jason June (JJ): When you started your writing journey, what was the biggest frustration you encountered as you tried to find an agent and/or went on sub to editors for the first time that you wish you could have vented about?

Jessica Parra (JP): I was a little unprepared for how much more opaque going on sub is versus jumping into the query trenches. There are a lot more resources and places to research agents, for example Query Tracker and Manuscript Wishlist. Places to scope out editors like Publisher’s Marketplace, are behind a paywall, and even then, it only shows reported deals so many of the sales are not in real-time, and therefore not completely reliable when it comes to assessing whether the editor has acquired something similar to your book. Also, when I tried to look up the editors via socials, I was surprised by how many of their accounts were private. For these reasons, I mostly left the sublist up to my agent’s discretion. For a control-freak like me, surrendering to the process was weird and super vent-worthy.

JJ: How about once you got your first book deal? How did your frustrations (if you had any) change, and what would you have vented about or did vent about to author friends?

JP: I don’t think I have ever vented in my life as much as I have since entering publishing! For the sake of keeping this relatively short though, I will vent about reviews. Yes, I get that “reviews are for readers, not authors” and that “not every book is for every reader,” BUT… I’m a chismosa which means I do occasionally look at reviews—and it irks me to no end when I get one that says something along the lines of: “this read too young,” “I’m not the age demo for this,” “this felt like a teen book”….

Um, I write YA contemporary, so it is supposed to read young. If you’re not a teen you probably are too old for this as Young Adult books are meant for 12-18 year-olds. Of course YA is also for readers young at heart (YA is one of my fave age categories to read), but I always recalibrate my expectations before diving into it. I don’t know if readers need to be more cognizant of the age category and genre before requesting or reading a book, or if publishers are not correctly marketing novels which leads to readers not fully knowing what they are getting, but either way this type of review is something I have vented to family, author friends, and even on author panels at book festivals lol!  

JJ: Tell us about your latest book! And (I bet you know where this is going) what’s the biggest vent you’ve got about the process of creating this novel?

JP: My sophomore novel is THE QUINCE PROJECT, which is a YA retelling of the classic J. Lo film The Wedding Planner, but with quinceañeras instead of weddings—and the main plot revolves around a teen working through grief and loss while planning a Star Wars themed quince at Disneyland. Thank you so much for generously providing a beautiful blurb for it, JJ! 

As far as vents regarding the creation of this novel, I knew writing under a contractual deadline was going to be tough. But as a Virgo Moon, I had crafted a perfect plan to tackle it head on, and yet… What I’d forgotten was that Life doesn’t adhere to plans or schedules. In the months I was supposed to be drafting QUINCE, I lost my father, uncle, aunt, and my three cats. As if that wasn’t horrific enough, other life altering events happened during that time—which made delivering the draft on time impossible.  

I was able to get a three-month extension to be able to write the book, but of course I got covid and RUBI copyedits (and proof and final pages) hit so the extension got whittled down to six weeks. In hindsight, I should’ve asked for another extension, even if it meant bumping the book to another season. But I was too afraid to ask for one and let my publisher down. PS, these unrealistic expectations authors place on themselves could be another vent!

JJ: Any words of wisdom you have for writers whether they are at the beginning of their journey or multi-published?

JP: The biggest life lesson I’ve learned in the last few years is to lean on your support system. Life can be hard. Publishing is definitely hard. The only way to navigate both is to ask for help when you need it. Writers need to remember that they are working WITH their publisher not FOR them, so in most cases, your team will be more than happy to support you when you need it. Do not be afraid to ask for help! 

JJ: Thanks so much for joining us aboard the Ventorship, Jessica! Author-passengers, read below for more info about THE QUINCE PROJECT!

About THE QUINCE PROJECT

The Wedding Planner gets a YA makeover in this delightful and heartfelt novel from the author of RUBI RAMOS’S RECIPE FOR SUCCESS.

Castillo Torres, Student Body Association event chair and serial planner, could use a fairy godmother. After her mother’s passing and a disastrous mishap at her sister’s quinceañera, all of Cas’s plans are crumbling. So when a local lifestyle-guru-slash-party-planner opens up applications for the internship of her dreams, Cas sees it as the perfect opportunity to learn every trick in the book so that things never go wrong again.

The only catch is that she needs more party planning experience before she can apply. When she books a quinceañera for a teen Disneyland vlogger, Cas thinks her plan is taking off…until she discovers that the party is just a publicity stunt, and she catches feelings for the chambelán. It’s clear that her agenda is about to go way off-script and that real life is more complicated than a fairy tale.

But maybe Happily Ever Afters aren’t just for the movies. Can Cas go from planner to participant in her own life? Or will this would-be princess turn into a pumpkin at the end of the ball?

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Authors, the Ventorship is looking for traditionally published writers to be featured with their latest book release in a future edition of The Vent! Email me at heyjasonjune@gmail.com with the subject VENTORSHIP to let me know you’re interested. All you’ll need to be featured are answers to the same four questions asked above, as well as an author bio and information about your book.

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If you’d like to vent about anything author/writing related, write to me at heyjasonjune@gmail.com with the subject: VENTORSHIP. I’ll give you my take in a post, and we’ll crowdsource author opinions in the comments. You’ll remain anonymous, and any haters will be thrown overboard. Ultimately, I think you’re going to be buoyed up by author love and support as we realize we really are all in the same boat 🛳️