Social media – 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.

The title is meant to be ironic because this week has been pretty busy for me. It’s also a good song by Styx.

I said in my video that I was at ~62k words, but my goal for today is actually ~64k. I’m proud of myself for consistently hitting the mark, or at least near the mark so I’m not struggling with way too much to write per day. I’ve learned!

My little living room laptop has been such a help. There’s something about sitting with limited Internet function that really helps my mind focus on writing instead of what x friend said on social media. I’ve started playing music on my phone, though, because Little Laptop can’t handle a tab of streaming music. 😂

One thing I’ve been working through is some unseen characters in my novel. They matter to the plot, but only vaguely. Without giving too much away*, they’re people in the FMC’s friend’s lives. At first, I thought, “Should I introduce them and have a scene with them?” but I’m realizing it doesn’t matter as long as they’re mentioned. It would slow things down to introduce so-and-so’s partner who doesn’t affect the MCs’ lives much.

I might still throw them in, for some added fun, but only because I want to, not because it’s necessary.

I don’t want to be like Dickens, throwing in a million new character names in the last pages of the story. Dickens was silly. I love him, but he was.

*I’ve read so many warnings about not sharing one’s writing online if you want it to get published, because publishers want exclusivity, etc. I get it, but it’s also hard because I love sharing things.