Tag: Marvel

Do you think time would pass me by?

Sara Mazariegos

After-work drinks. On Friday, we went out for drinks and dinner with some of Luis’s friends from high school. It was nice to meet up in the city and go out instead of doing the usual routine, although I did end up quite tired when it was over. We stayed up until one in the morning! What are we, college kids?! We did spend a lot of time with his friends talking about high school people and experiences. I felt so old. 😆

And then, when Luis took the train to Wheaton with me, the scary elevator didn’t seem so scary, and I don’t really remember the bus ride. It was much nicer to have him with me. Only 20 more days of this longer commute for me! Can you tell I’m looking forward to things going back to normal?

Spider-Man summation. Luis and I saw Spider-Man: Brand New Day on Saturday. The theater was more packed than I’ve seen it in a long, long time. We had to sit in the second row, and my shoulders are still sore from looking up the whole time, but it was worth it. It brought back memories of seeing Spider-Man 2 starring Tobey McGuire with my sister, and us having to crane our necks the whole time/not be sick when he was webbing through NYC. I think Brand New Day is the best Marvel movie in a long time. I’m already looking forward to seeing it again. Preferably a little further back in the seating rows.

I don’t want to spoil it for you, so I won’t go into detail. Just know that it surpassed my expectations. I think Tom Holland is the best Spider-Man in the movies. He’s the right mix of jokester and dork. And he’s so agile! It’s funny how the Barbenheimer this summer is two Tom Holland movies. I enjoyed both of them, and one of them is clearly going to win a bunch of awards, but man if I don’t enjoy a fun Marvel movie.

Dumb & Dumber all these years later. On Sunday, we watched Dumb & Dumber. I don’t think I’d seen it since I was a kid, and Luis hadn’t seen it before. There were quite a few things that I remembered. They were somehow lodged in my subconscious. “I like it a lot.” It’s a pretty cute movie, which is funny because the Farrelly brothers are known for being ‘gross out.’ It’s not actually even that gross by today’s standards. I think, after watching The Boys, nothing is that gross.

I loved Jim Carrey when I was a kid, and he is super cute in D&D. It also aged better than Ace Ventura, so that’s a plus. I’ve never seen the sequel, but I have a feeling it might not be worth it… Not everything needs a sequel.

Disney planning is part of the fun! Luis and I are going to Disney World and Universal in October. It feels like forever ago that I mentioned it, because he booked our Disney tickets and hotels as a Christmas present. It’s finally getting close enough that we can start cementing plans for things like which parks we’re going to each day, which restaurants we’re booking {hopefully}, and how we’re getting around. I’m so excited to be staying at Disney resorts the whole time this time, so we can go into the parks early each day, and make use of the close walk to Magic Kingdom, and then use the handy Skyliner and buses the rest of the time. The Skyliner is a ride in itself and, yes, I’m a little scared to ride it. We may ride it once and then decide we prefer the bus. Heh. Heeehh. But if we’re riding the Tower of Terror, the Skyliner should be a piece of cake.

I watched a lot of videos on YouTube recently in preparation. There are even videos that show you exactly how to walk from one specific hotel to the transportation, so we don’t have to get there and try to guess the right way. Theme park YouTubers can be kind of irritating sometimes, but I really like the ones that are just trying to be helpful for people. The logistics can be a real nightmare if you’re not prepared, especially nowadays with all the new technology and available options. I just have to be careful not to watch too many videos, or else I get frustrated that I’m not already able to just do the things!

I guess I’m a ‘plantser.’ I’ve known this for a while, but it’s not like I think about it a lot. I make outlines for my novels, but they tend to be loose. A few sentences per chapter. I fill in the details and scenes as I go, with only a general idea of what I want each chapter to have in it. I guess I initially try to imagine the big picture of the story, and then as I actually sit down to write it, I hone in on the scenes and characters in more detail. At least in the first draft. And then the first draft kind of becomes a long outline for the later, better drafts.

As I’m writing my latest novel, there are many things I know I’m going to need to change. Somehow, knowing it needs work makes me feel better about it. It feels like growth to me, not expecting it to come out perfectly at first and not putting so much pressure on myself to get it well-written and finished within a set time frame. I even fully intend to finish it and leave it alone for months before reading it.

I’m working harder at taking my time.

There’s so little time for us to try to rhyme.

Sara Mazariegos

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. 😝