Time – Sara Mazariegos

It may just be because I’ve been thrown a few curveballs lately, but time has been going by weirdly for me this year. I both can’t believe we’re already in the middle of May, and I’m also surprised the year is going slowly. It feels like we went to Disneyland last year, but it was only three months ago! Hopefully things will feel more normal soon, now that things have settled. *knocks on wood*

All of the movie remakes annoy me, generally, but I feel like the only person who’s not awed by the new-old Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon. The animation of Stitch and Toothless is cute, but that’s because they’re just CGI versions of the already cute, animated originals. Why bother making these remakes? The originals are better. Just show your kids the originals.

Also, they did Pleakley dirty.

It amuses me that Google red-underlines Pleakley and I get shocked by it. It’s a made up name, self.

“That’s not a real name… in Iceland. But here it’s a good name!”

Sometimes I think about how many franchises there are. There are too many for any one person to be interested in all of them. But at the same time, there are quite a few I’m not into and it feels like everyone else is. Like Bridgerton. Or The Fast & The Furious. I have no problem with people liking them, but I have zero interest. It feels, to me, a little bit like how everyone has their own lives and you don’t really see how they are or what they’re doing, but you know they’re out there living them anyway.

There are exceptions. Obviously I’m not interested in Harry Potter anymore, and it gives me the ick when I see people who are. I was also never one of those people who made HP my life, though. But that’s a different issue. Vin Diesel’s not a transphobe, that I know of. He just makes movies I don’t care about.

My writing is going well, and I’m having a lot of fun with it. I realized I’ve been setting a lot of self-imposed deadlines which made things more stressful than they need to be, especially since I don’t have an agent or a publisher waiting for a draft or anything like that (yet.) I edit one novel about half an hour each day, and I write another novel for a half hour each day while I’m at work. It allows me to devote some time to each of them every day without feeling pressure to write for hours and have it done by a specific time. My goal is to get my It’s A Wonderful Life-inspired novel ready for beta readers by next month. But we’ll see. I’m going easy on myself.

I started getting some further inspiration for another rewrite project, so I’m planning to work on the plot development for that as well. I’ll probably actually start writing that new draft the beginning of next year.

Loosey-goosey is my new mantra.

This has been a weird year. I’m repeatedly struck, when I look at my calendar, at how bonkersly* everything has gone down so far. Things started out normally, but then April happened and kind of torpedoed things.

I can’t believe we’re nearing the end of September already. When my husband and I bought tickets to see Electric Light Orchestra (next week!) we were in a different circumstantial place, in many ways. One in which going to a concert after work on a Wednesday was totally fine.

Now, with Luis’s job restructuring, Wednesdays are busy days for him. I’m sure it will be fine, but it’s strange to think how quickly things can change. Makes planning for the future difficult, but it’s so necessary. As I’ve said, having things to look forward to really helps keep me going.

My boss is out this week, so I’ve had a fairly easier-going time. That doesn’t mean it’s been easier for me to get writing done, though. I have a “funny” mental block sometimes when I’m at work. I feel guilty for writing even though I have the free time in which to do so. I’ve just got too good of a gosh-darn work ethic, I suppose.

I’ve been having a difficult time reaching my target word counts lately. I think I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed with all of the plans we have coming up, and it’s a busy time of year in general. I haven’t had to move the goalposts yet, but I fear I may end up writing this current story longer than I initially intended. I’m not going to stop writing it; I’m going to give myself the grace to finish it in my own time.

Two of my family members died this year, within a few months of each other. And one of my friends died. It’s only natural that I’d be feeling a little mentally drained, right?

I keep telling myself I’m making excuses. But sometimes excuses are valid, aren’t they?

*I know it’s not a word, but you know what it means, don’t you?

Tag: Time

Oh, Superman, where are you now when everything’s gone wrong somehow?

Where the f did Monday go?