Tag: About Me

A humiliating kick in the crotch.

Sara Mazariegos

Writing query letters is tough, especially when you’re not sure where to find good people to critique it. Friends and family rave about it, but a random person can shut it down and make me feel like no one would want to read my novel. It would be nice to find somewhere in between those two extremes. I know it needs work, but that doesn’t mean my novel isn’t good or deserving of being published.

I’m not giving up on it.

Meanwhile, I’ve rewritten an outline for my other novel’s rewrite. Luis (husband) recommends that I write a query letter at this early stage, too, to help guide the novel. So I’m going to be having fun with that as well.

In slightly over two weeks, we’re going on our fun Disney/Guatemala trip, so it’ll be another opportunity to take a break. I just feel as though I’ve been taking a break for a while now. I’m ready to write more! But it’s good to pace myself and not stack my days with too much writing, especially when I know I won’t have enough time to write a new draft until after the beginning weeks of April.

Are all writers like this?

Sweet parody.

Sara Mazariegos


The daily prompt asks what my parents did when they were my age. They already had two kids. 😬

Another asks what the title of my biography would be. That would be telling.

I’ve gotten into Schmigadoon! recently. I just started season 2, and I love it so much because it’s parodying the musicals I enjoy (Chicago, Cabaret, Sweet Charity… a lot of Cs.)

The Project For Awesome officially starts on Friday! I’ve already donated $30 because of the perks John & Hank Green announced yesterday. We’ll see if I can’t stop myself from donating more…

On the writing front, I’ve reached 54K words! 🎉 I can take today “off” from writing since I’m ahead of my word count goal already, but I will probably still write a little today because I can’t stop myself from that either.

Today is Luis’s and my twelfth dating anniversary! We’ve been together as long as our cat Boo has been alive. We will celebrate this evening by ordering some Fancy French Door Dash and listening to Parisian cafe music, like the sophisticated people we are. The last time we did that, we ended up planning a trip to Paris.

🥖,

Cinderelly, Cinderelly.

Sara Mazariegos


There’s a lot to look forward to in Saraland™ in the next few months – one of which is actually happening tomorrow! I’m going to Richmond with Luis (husband) to see Poe’s cats and learn some history. I love cats and history.

The other morning, we got up so, so early to get reservations at Cinderella’s Royal Table in Disney World when we’re there in April. We succeeded! It’ll be lunch instead of dinner, but I’m so excited anyway! By the look of things, lunch might be calmer than dinner, which is perhaps better for our purposes.

I say “like” so much when I’m excited. I didn’t realize until I watched my video back while editing.

In writing progress news, I’ve reached the wonderful 40K (halfway) point! 🎉 I’ve incorporated some of my older draft’s scenes because they’re relevant and not in need of big changes. That’s one nice thing about revising: you can go in and take the things you still want.

Since I’ve made a lot of drastic plot changes to my novel — I even changed the title! (That’ll happen more times, I bet.) — I went back into my query draft and updated it as well, to correspond with my updated plot.

My novel is definitely more focused on the romance plot now. I still think “women’s fiction” applies, too. Many contemporary romances involve women’s fiction angles, don’t they? The female lead’s point in life is very tied to everything she does. I’m drawn to novels where the female lead has some growing to do. I doubt I’m the only one.

I also feel, in my heart, that there’s a space on bookshelves for a romance inspired by Nerdfighters. I hope to provide a novel for that space.

Every old sock meets an old shoe.

Sara Mazariegos

No video today. This week has been insanely busy, for good reasons and bad.

My husband Luis’s grandfather passed away on Tuesday at the amazing age of 98 — two months shy of 99. We’re fortunate to have spent time with him in November when we visited Guatemala.

Luis’s phone has also been dramatic this week. His Pixel wouldn’t turn on, so he took it to a place to get it fixed; they kept it to “fix it”, then gave it back two days later saying they couldn’t. So he got a backup phone to have while Google works on receiving his old phone and replacing it. It’s been a lot of extra stress he doesn’t need. 😢

Meanwhile, on Sunday, we celebrated our twelfth anniversary of the day we met (our “Meetaversary.”) We went to two of the Smithsonian museums we went to on our first date and we got some pizza. Have I mentioned I love pizza? When we got home, we watched You’ve Got Mail which I hadn’t seen since it came out. I liked it a lot more than the first time, primarily because of how quaint it is nowadays. I wish they’d pointed out how slow the early Internet was!

In writing news, things have been chugging along well. I’ve been finding more magical cohesion in my plot. Things are starting to tie together and everything has some kind of payoff. So that’s good. It feels amazing. Some of it was semi-unconscious, too. I wrote things in and then realized they helped further something else I was planning.

It’s funny how it’s difficult to explain some of this writing stuff. You’ll just have to read my novel someday and see for yourself. 😉

It must be beautiful in Vermont this time of year. All that snow…

Sara Mazariegos

I hope you had a nice holiday season this year. It’s hard to believe 2024 is almost here.

I’m working at the office Wednesday-Friday, which feels very weird. The days feel off and most people aren’t working, so it’s like a skeleton crew and none of the tasks that matter are getting done, so why worry about the other tasks?

Holiday weeks off should be mandatory. If only I was the boss of everyone. 😉

No video this week because I’m giving myself a personal vacation even if I don’t have a work one. I’m also taking a break from writing, and I keep catching myself thinking about the revising I plan to do. “Not yet, brain,” I tell myself.

Luis (husband) and I are planning our next vacation. There’s something about browsing through Airbnb that cheers me up on a cold and rainy December day.

Nevermind that we considered Cleveland, Ohio before people reminded us that snow happens in February. So that’s been added to the autumn anniversary trip list. Hopefully Cleveland’s not bad in October. We’ve only got two anniversaries! (Dating and wedding.) We don’t travel for our birthdays. We’re not that extravagant.

…Okay, so we’re going to Disney World for my birthday next spring, but a) it coincides with another Guatemala wedding and b) it wasn’t my idea.

I’m like a five-year-old; promise me Disney World and I’ll be excited for months.

Best laid plans of mice.

Sara Mazariegos


Happy week three of NaNoWriMo! How’s your writing going?

I had an advanced Thanksgiving struggle last week, because we celebrated Thanksgiving/Veterans Day with my family on Saturday. (We’re going to be in Guatemala for Thanksgiving with my husband’s family this year.) Long story short: I ended up only writing 200 words on Saturday.

Not my proudest moment. But 200 words is better than 0 words! I’m still in it to win it (in December.)

Currently, I’m sitting at 26,162 words but I plan to turn that into 34,000 words before we leave on Sunday. *Tazmanian devil noise*

…I can’t actually make a Tazmanian devil noise.

With any luck, I’ll be able to write some (SOME) on my phone while I’m away, but I have family to visit and museums to see and a wedding to attend. It’s okay that I’ll be busy.

My goal for this NaNoWriMo, and future WriMos, is to be kind to myself.

As I said in my video up there, writing is supposed to be fun. That’s why it’s something we enjoy doing, right? Sure, it’s challenging at times, but if it’s not fun and exciting, what’s the point? Even published authors who do it as a job are supposed to love writing, right? So don’t beat yourself up about it if you have to take a break. Just don’t stop writing! Write when you can and get back on track as soon as you can.

Some advice for myself and for you.

Until next time,

Illiterate Scrabble.

Sara Mazariegos

We survived staying the night in the Lizzie Borden House! Absolutely nothing scary happened, apart from the other guests being noisy.

When we “retired” to our room for the night — Bridget Sullivan’s room (the maid who was the only witness on the day of the double homicide) — there wasn’t much to do in the room. We played Scrabble on our phones. I realized it was kind of insensitive to Bridget who, the tour guide informed us, was illiterate.

Me: If her ghost appeared, she wouldn’t be able to play. 😦
Luis (husband): She might’ve known some letters, like she could suggest ‘cat’…

She did well for herself, despite this setback. She left Fall River and moved to Montana, where she got married and had some kids. She survived the murders, grueling trial, and possible threats from Lizzie. It’s also rumored that Lizzie paid her off to keep quiet.

Anyway, ghosts don’t exist, murder is bad, and history is fun to learn about.

Other highlights from our trip were the Eastern State Penitentiary (way more sad than creepy), the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino (I’m biased because I love the Hard Rock), and Moshulu (a restaurant on an old ship!)

All of the places we stayed (except lovely Bridget’s room) had TVs with streaming included, so we were also able to watch Taskmaster!

This was one of the best trips we’ve been on together. One thing that helped was that I was calm instead of anxious about everything. I don’t know how that happened. I wish I could just force myself to be calm. Ah well.

Til next time,

Chilling challenge.

Sara Mazariegos

My husband and I are going on a week-long anniversary adventure up the East Coast. We’re visiting Eastern State Penitentiary (supposedly haunted and probably sad), Atlantic City (if ghosts were real, definitely haunted because of all them gangsters, see?), and the Lizzie Borden House (we’re staying the night! I’m so excited!! I don’t care if it’s not really haunted, some spooky stuff really happened here!)

Calm down, Sara. This isn’t a Haunted Mansion blog anymore.

When we told family we were staying in the Lizzie Borden house, the reaction was “You’re STAYING there?!” Mwahaha. 😈 I think she definitely killed her parents, but she had her reasons. (That doesn’t mean it’s okay, but life was hard for young, single women back then, so I also can’t say I blame her.)

In case you can’t tell, this trip will help me write an upcoming novel… in the future. I’ve got three books in the pipeline now.

I’ll have lots of fun stuff to report back next time!


Unless a ghost gets me, à la The Haunting of Hill House.

Restless bones etherealize.

Sara Mazariegos

I finished my revision yesterday! 🎉

The plan now is for me to take a nice, long break and not think about writing this story. 👀

Easier said than done, when I know I have a list of things I need to change. But I’m going to be good and take a break. It helps that we’ve got fun anniversary vacation plans coming up. I can devote time to be excited about them, instead of using up so much headspace on my novel.

I printed all 314 pages of it and put the manuscript into a binder, for editing. Funny, it’ll probably coincide with me writing the first draft of my next novel. Funny should really be in quotes here. I don’t want to put off either project, but the thought of working on them at the same time seems daunting, to say the least.

Anyway, enough about all of that. I feel like I only write about writing here. It’s my main theme for this site, but it’s not the only thing I care about!

Spooky season is finally upon us. I’ve had my Halloween costume since February. My husband and I have been watching scary movies. We get a jump on Halloween* because our anniversary trip takes time away from it (for good reason, though!)

It’s my favorite time of year. It’s only fitting I should have a writing break now to fully enjoy it.

* I don’t usually get my costume this early, though. Let’s just say I was extremely inspired.

We use small words.

Sara Mazariegos

This is definitely one of my top three favorite music videos of all time.

My husband and I are traveling to Philadelphia this weekend to see Peter Gabriel! He surprised me by buying the tickets when I thought he was going to say I was crazy. :’) PG is coming closer to where we live, but in the middle of a week, so I thought we’d never be able to see him… But Philly is just around the corner from where we are. I’m just incredibly happy and excited to get the opportunity.

Peter Gabriel became a pandemic-era fave of ours because YouTube kept recommending we watch the Sledgehammer music video, so we finally did and then we were hooked.

In other non-PG news (that sounds like I’m about to get risque) I’m within the big climactic scene in my novel and enjoying it. I’ve noticed that my writing really gets affected by the things I’ve been reading or watching. I had a fresh burst of figurative language when writing yesterday and I’m not sure exactly where it came from or how I can make sure it keeps coming back!

I watched a video about how to effectively edit a novel — I’ve watched possibly too many of those, ha — and I had SO much three-ring binder envy. I’m the Leslie Knope from Parks & Rec or Amy Whateverherlastnameis from Brooklyn 99 kind of person, apparently. I always want to be the April or Rosa, the tough and moody lady, but realistically I’m too optimistic and eager to please.

My sister says I’m Spongebob.

Dangit.

Anyway, between planning for fun trips (more are coming!) and writing as much as I can per day while being reasonable, I’ve been having a nice early September. I’m looking forward to when it gets colder, though. I’m wearing a hoodie today, just on the off chance it decides to stay below 80 degrees.