Tag: Disney

It’s gonna take patience and time to do it right, child.

Sara Mazariegos

Days off in the middle of the week. Last week, I had Tuesday and Wednesday off and it was so nice to have a break in the middle of the week. It gave me some much needed rest, even if I did wake up early both days to get Disney reservations. It gave me more time with Luis, which is always wonderful. And it made the weekend come sooner. The only downside is the weekend ends up feeling too brief. But then, weekends are always too brief, arent they?

I do intend to keep this in mind, though. Having days off on Monday or Friday to stretch out the weekend is good, but there’s something to be said for having the middle of the week off, too. Especially when I’ve been as tired out as I have been during this summer’s Metro construction. Only twelve more days until things go back to normal and I get to have my shorter commute back! Yes, I’m counting the days.

Spider-Man and potlucks. We were planning to see Spider-Man: Brand New Day again last weekend, but our movie theater unexpectedly closed for maintenance. I was really looking forward to seeing it again (especially not so up-close this time.) We ended up having a nice brunch instead, and watching Jaws, which was nice. There was a “Vinyl Day” at the library nearby, and I’m pretty sure it had a huge turnout because people couldn’t go to the movies. Could’ve been worse. It’s good to support your local library.

Also on Saturday, we went to our neighborhood’s block party. Luis made tostadas that were a big hit. It was nice to see everyone, but we are the neighborhood shy people, so we mostly sat quietly and ate food together. Some ladies introduced themselves and were very into talking about their fresh bean orders online, which was amusing if a bit strange. We have a friendly neighborhood. Oh wow, that’s what I could’ve called this section. “Friendly Neighborhood + Spider-Man.” D’oh!

Disney excitement. On my days off last week, I watched some YouTube videos on how to walk from our hotel to the Magic Kingdom, and how to take the Skyliner into Hollywood Studios and EPCOT. I love that there’s a video for everything these days. The hotels in the videos I found are even the exact hotels we’re staying at, so we don’t have to try to transpose the information for ourselves. There’s a delicate line between avoiding spoilers and knowing what we’re doing so we don’t arrive and feel lost. I love being in the know about stuff. It makes me even more excited. And I also feel dorky watching a ride-through Skyliner video, because it’s literally just a gondola on a line going from a hotel to a theme park gate. But I like to be prepared!

Planning our trips is sometimes more exciting to me than actually being there and doing the things. Sometimes, the being there and doing the things part is more stressful, but imagining doing the things is fun. Also, everything happens so quickly when we’re actually there. But in the twoish months leading up to it, I can daydream about all of the things we’ll do. At the same time, I cannot wait to be at Disney again and experience the new things and the old things we love!

Telling myself the story first. One of the more frustrating things to get in my head is that writing the first draft is me telling myself the story first. It comes out as the messiest version. It’s basically improv so far, making it up as I go along with the aid of some notes/prompts. I’m getting the thoughts and ideas written down so future me can go in and make sense of it. Then the second draft will presumably be better. And then the third draft, etc.

This is the first story I’ve written from the beginning in a long time, because the last two stories I wrote came from previously-written drafts that needed to be heavily rewritten. This time, I’m starting from scratch. And it’s scary. It’s daunting. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought, “well, this is hard. I don’t have to keep writing it.” But that is the trap! Every novel starts out in the frustrating, ‘this isn’t coming out the way I envisioned’ phase. Every author goes through this, probably with every novel they’ve published. It’s hard to imagine, and hard to feel like pushing through the self-doubt and the “grr, this needs to be better” will eventually be worth it. But I know that it will. And then I’ll have a completed novel I can be proud of.

And maybe eventually send to agents. But I’m taking the pressure off myself. For now, it’s best to focus on the enjoyment of writing and discovering things as I draft it all out.

But time makes you bolder, even children get older and I’m getting older too.

Sara Mazariegos

Titanic: The Immersive Experience: Review. On Saturday, Luis and I went to Baltimore to check out the Titanic experience I’ve seen advertised so often. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I used to have nightmares about the Titanic, when I was around ten years old. Waking up screaming that my bedroom was sinking, that kind of thing. Normal kid fears. I blame National Geographic. Anyway, despite this, I’ve always been fascinated by the Titanic, mainly how it happened and what it looked like. That doesn’t mean I’d ever want to try going down in a submersible to see it, though. I’m not insane.

The immersive exhibit is cool, with lots of screens that make you feel like you’re in the action. There’s a crow’s nest you can stand in and watch as the giant iceberg suddenly appears out of the darkness, and then you can ring the bell to alert the crew, but of course it’s too late. There’s also a hallway filling up with water. And then, the saddest part, you can sit in a lifeboat and watch as the ship sinks and the projected water around you fills up with people crying for help and dying around you.

I came away from it more sad than scared. And it’s not like a “woo, that was fun!” experience. I’m glad we did it though. Luis even got Mr. Andrews’ ticket as his passenger to ride along with, so we brought it home as a souvenir. Mr. Andrews did not survive, of course. And he was my age. Of course we came home and watched videos about different Titanic stories. Because we’re nerds.

Luis’s birthday funtimes! 🥳 For Luis’s birthday on Sunday, we went to a few places in our area for him to get his birthday rewards. He got a free burger, taco, and strawberry shortcake. Then, later in the evening, some of our friends came over and we played an escape room in a box game and got some fancy Tex Mex delivered. It was a chill, relaxing day for him, but he seemed to enjoy it.

I also took off on Tuesday and Wednesday this week to book our Disney dining reservations, so it gives us even more time together for some extra birthday stuff. Mainly getting more fun food and spending more time together. We’re probably going to see Spider-Man again this weekend and he’ll get a free popcorn and soda for it. He loves deals.

There’s no place like home for the Disney reservation days. We woke up early on Tuesday and this morning to book our dining reservations at Disney World. A perk of staying at their resorts is that you can book your dining 60 days out from your trip. I’m not a morning person, but excitement about Disney stuff is like caffeine for me… Plus we went back to sleep once we made our reservations.

I was nervous we wouldn’t be able to book the super popular restaurants like Be Our Guest and Space 220, but we got them fairly easily! I think being in the know about how to do the reservation process and planning ahead really helps, so you’re not left with whatever’s still available. All of the Disney restaurants are great, of course, but it’ll be fun to have some of these experiences we’ve been wanting to try. Plus Be Our Guest, which we’ve done before but it’s really nice.

All this nostalgia is making me nostalgic. My current novel is inspired by some of my experiences in college, so I’ve been a bit wistful for my friends I made back then. I looked through my old email to try to find context for some things, to try to get the details as accurate as possible, and then I was sitting there, staring into space as I tried to remember some of these events that had been tucked away in the back of my mind for decades.

Some themes of my next novel are memory and keeping in touch with people, and the evaporation of some social websites on which we used to rely to keep in touch. It’s also set a little in the future, so it’s going to be interesting to see how much has changed in the social media landscape by then. It is sad to go through my Facebook and see all the people who are no longer there. It’s not like I have everyone’s phone number.

Like I said: wistful.

Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run there’s still time to change the road you’re on.

Sara Mazariegos

Still processing the end of Hacks. I was excited to watch the final episode of Hacks last Friday, but it was surprisingly sad. I should’ve seen it coming—there were hints—but I didn’t think they were going to go that route. The final season felt like it went by entirely too quickly. I enjoyed it much more than the final season of Mrs. Maisel, that’s for sure. They could easily make a spin-off series about Jimmy and Kayla, though I’m not sure what the main plot would be.

I’m going to miss that show. I miss it already.

We’re going to pivot to watching Andor on Fridays now. We’ve tried starting it several times, and we haven’t gotten into it, but Jessica Williams convinced me to give it another chance. Diego Luna is awfully cute. The actor, not the soccer player.

Speaking of Diego Luna and soccer… Luis and I have been watching the World Cup whenever we get a chance. We predominately cheer for Argentina and Spain, but I also like Netherlands and Morocco. On Friday this week, since it’s a holiday, we’re going to watch the US vs. Australia at a sports bar with his family. We’re also going to try to convince my dad to let us watch the second half of the game on the 4th of July, but we’ll see about that.

So far, it’s been pretty unpredictable, with a lot of games unexpectedly ending in 1-1. The usual “underdogs” are doing well this go-around. It makes it more exciting to watch than if the big European teams just dominate like always. And how about that US vs. Paraguay game? I did not expect them to win 4-1. I don’t hugely support the US team, but it’d be nice to see them do well, especially since they didn’t even make it in back in 2018. This year, Poland didn’t make the cut. I wish all countries could participate (except for like Russia because they don’t play fair,) but then it’d go on for five months.

Three Ds: Dentist and Disclosure Day. On Saturday, we went to the dentist. I always get anxious about it, but my teeth are still going strong. I do in fact have a tooth under my last baby tooth, but the dentist is going to leave it alone as long as it’s not bothering me. I also need to get a night guard. Apparently I grind my teeth in my sleep, but I’ve never noticed any pain or anything. I’m mostly going to pretend I have braces when I have it in, because I never had braces. (I don’t want braces.) Just have to get over the anxiety that I won’t be able to swallow while it’s in, and then it should be fine!

We also saw Disclosure Day on Saturday. I really liked it. I’m glad I didn’t know too much going in, because it would’ve killed a lot of the fun mystery. Emily Blunt is so good in it. I wonder if she’ll be nominated for awards for it. How often does sci-fi win Oscars? I also adore Colman Domingo, who seems to be in so many great things lately.

The Fox and the Hound isn’t a great date movie. My original short movie pick was A Hard Day’s Night, but Luis deemed it too long because it’s an hour and a half, and that’s normal movie length. His short movie choice was Duck Soup which is only like an hour long. So I chose The Fox and the Hound, which we haven’t watched together yet. It’s an hour and twenty-three minutes. I can’t help it that most animated movies are also normal movie-length!

We watched it on the 14th, which is our special date. It’s so sad. The animals are cute and everything, but the tone of it is so dark and cold. Tod and Copper basically have one fun day together, and then they’re not really friends for the rest of the movie. Also, aside from “The Best of Friends,” the songs in it aren’t very good. They’re mostly spoken rather than sung. And it’s weird because Pearl Bailey was a great singer. I used to be obsessed with that movie when I was a kid, but it was purely because the animals were cute. Now that I’m older, I see all the flaws.

My writing brain is getting antsy. Last week, I wrote a query letter draft for my new story, since I’m thinking about it. Other writers have said it’s a good idea to write the query letter before writing the story, so the most important beats are there before it’s even been written. I have the general idea down, so sharing what my novel is about is fairly easy and concise. Then I’ll get into the weeds with it when I’m actually writing it.

The novel I’m currently reading (the ARC one I can’t tell you about until July 7th) had something happen in the plot that aligns with something I’m planning in my novel, which gave me a boost! I feel like the outline I have for this new story is great. I just have to make the actual execution of it as good as possible.

Two more weeks, and then I’ll be writing again!

Time to stand up and steal the show.

Sara Mazariegos

Days off. It’s funny how vacation is so needed and restful and fun, but then going back to work feels like this insurmountable burden. I guess “funny” isn’t the right word. But I’ve noticed every time there’s a holiday or a vacation from work, coming back feels like such a big deal. It doesn’t help that the system is currently down at my office and one of my monitors decided to die. That just adds to the feeling of needing a break from my break before I feel like I can work again. 😅

Elio and the loss of originality. During our long holiday weekend, Luis and I watched several movies. We watched Dreamworks’ Sinbad which was… all right. We also watched Get On Up starring Chadwick Boseman. That was quite good. And sad, since we lost him so young. He was really talented. But the main movie I wanted to write about here is Elio. I wanted to see Elio when it was in theaters, but our theater did not really give us a chance. It came out at a time when several other big movies came out, but still… Disney movies are usually out longer. I’m glad we finally saw it, and it got Luis and me thinking about how none of the action hero in space movies have been successful. Even Lightyear did poorly, and people love Buzz Lightyear.

For what it’s worth, I think Elio is very cute. The aliens are all designed uniquely, and it has little nods to other sci-fi movies like E.T. and Terminator 2. I don’t understand why people didn’t go see it, unless theaters everywhere didn’t show it for long enough. But it seems like original movies are falling by the wayside at Disney, and it’s so sad. I hope we can see Hoppers in theaters and it won’t suffer the same fate as Elio. Streaming is nice, but it’s not the same.

Limping to the end of Seeing Other People. This sounds more serious than it is. It’s taken me longer than anticipated but I’m slowly finishing up reading Seeing Other People by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I’m not really feeling this one. It’s got moments, but it’s been a slog. Do you ever read a book and the words start to just roll through your brain like you’re not actually retaining any of them? I feel like that’s been happening to me with this book. It’s not holding my attention, and the plot bums me out. In the relationship part, it seems like they suddenly liked each other and I missed something. I guess not every book is for me, unfortunately even the ghost ones with pun titles.

Feedback and getting back into the writing groove. I edited my It’s A Wonderful Life-inspired novel with my dad’s notes and I’m feeling pretty good about it. We had dinner with my parents on Saturday and Mom gave me some notes as well, so I’m going to be pondering some more. Nothing major though, which is awesome. Hopefully this can be the year I actually send out query letters for it, but we shall see.

I’m going to be starting up work on the major rewrite of my Nerdfighters-inspired novel soon. As it approaches, I’m getting nervous. I haven’t taken such a long break from writing in a while. I think it was a good refresh for my brain, but I hope I haven’t lost my groove. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, though, so it’s not as if I’ll be going in with no plan. Luis read my outline and said it was good, too, so I’m also not going into it with a lot of garbled ideas. (We’ve all done that before, right?)

And before you think, “But Sara, your stories are inspired by other stories. They don’t sound very original either,” I’ll remind you that they’re inspired by, they’re not the exact same stories of anything else. It’s not even the exact story of how Luis and I met anymore. That was at least six drafts ago. C’mon.

Until next time, stay safe out there.