Making good use of time. I get an hour for lunch at my job, so I usually spend about half of it writing. It doesn’t take me a whole hour to eat a bowl of lo mien or a burrito. I’ve found I can write 500 words in about half an hour, if I focus, so it’s been working out well. Then I go home and write 500 more at some point in the evening. It’s harder to carve out the time in the evenings, because of wanting to spend time with Luis, having dinner, and doing chores. But I’ve been finding a balance so it works out.
I definitely don’t miss cramming 2,000 words into each day and making myself write on weekends. There’s no reason to overwork myself when I’m not under an actual deadline. I’m already pretty schedule-oriented, so there’s no danger of my not writing every day. (I fear it would be bad if I stopped writing every day. It’s easy to stop and so hard to get started up again. If you’ve ever opened up an old abandoned project with the intention of working on it again, you know what I mean.)
Magic Duel! We went to a magic show with Luis’s parents last weekend. The set-up is that it’s a host magician and a guest magician trying to win “Best Magician in the D.C. Area” and there’s a trophy with a fairy wand attached to it with, like, tape. It’s very silly, and they tell lots of cheesy dad jokes while doing magic tricks. His guest when we saw the show was a bubble magician. At first I thought, ehh, that’s not really magic, but it was cool and the regular magician guy was kind of annoying, so I voted for her to win. And she did.
They did a cool card trick together that involved two people from the audience. One guest picks a card and then sits on it and the other guest ‘reads his mind’ to guess the correct card. They used a plunger attached to rope on both their heads for added effect, and the plunger kept getting stuck to one of the guys’ heads, which made it extra funny and memorable. I don’t know how they did that trick so well, but Luis has a theory that they subtly nudge when asking confirmation on the color and number/suit so they guide the guesser to the right answer. Magic is nerdy cool.
Wonder Man and “superhero fatigue.” We finished watching Ironheart, which had its moments but was kind of ho-hum and overact-y, so I was hesitant to watch another Marvel series. A lot of people talk about the burnout that’s happening with so many superhero shows and movies. There’s too much and it’s hard to know where to start or what the timelines all are. Almost like bringing this massive genre of books to life in movies and TV shows is a daunting task. We’ve mostly kept up with it, but it certainly doesn’t mean we’ve liked or seen all of it. For example, we haven’t seen Aquaman or The Flash, and don’t plan on it. We’re mostly sucked into the Marvel blackhole, but some of it has still been kind of ehh.
I’m looking at you, Moon Knight and The Marvels.
However, we checked out Wonder Man because the concept of an actor vying to portray a superhero when he actually, unbeknownst to him, is a superhero is compelling stuff. Plus Sir Ben Kingsley’s on it as Trevor Slattery again. And you don’t have to know what other Marvel thing Trevor Slattery is from, though it helps. I really like it thus far. The cast is nice and small, too, which is a breath of fresh air. So many of these shows and movies have too many characters to keep track of, which I think can be another deterrent for people trying to check these things out.
Writing update. I sent Luis an excerpt of my novel the other day and he asked me which book it was from. That felt vindicating. 😊 I’ve been enjoying rewriting my story, and I remind myself, if I’m feeling stuck, that there are other drafts I can pull from. It’s not like the other drafts are badly-written, they just didn’t come together the way I wanted. They still have value.
Writing this story feels easier now, which makes sense but it’s still a relief. I’m better able to parse out the parts to keep in and let the other random stuff go. When I first wrote this novel, it didn’t really have any story structure. Things were happening, and they were cute and passionate, but there were no obstacles to keep readers wondering. I really have been chiseling the story out over these years. The plot’s become clearer and brighter ever since. And I’ve finally found a conflict that’s both relatable and strong instead of the wishy-washy ones I’ve tried in the past.
These characters are going to have to have moments where they’re not getting along or they’re avoiding each other. It’s not fun to think about, but it’s one of the rules of a romance novel.
I picked a genre with rules. That was my first mistake. 😝
Sara Mazariegos 