Tag: Writing

Vladimir collects ceramic unicorns.

Sara Mazariegos


I both won and lost my personal book game for my birthday. I got so many new books. Ah, loopholes. If I was really serious about not getting any books for a while, I wouldn’t ask for them for my birthday. 😇

You can see my excitement about one of them in the video above. I will take it to Disney World and Guatemala, not that I foresee having much extra time to read it while on vacation. Perhaps during the flights, while I’m awake. One of my flights will land at 4 something in the morning!

I’m already feeling grateful for taking a recovery day after our trip. I’m mostly going to use it for sleeping.

As I’ve mentioned, I’m going to jump right into reading the draft of my other novel as soon as I’m back and conscious. I have so many ideas, but I’m pacing myself and being organized about them this go-around. Because “Write all the things!” leads to a mess and/or burnout.

See? I’m learning!

This trip may just fill me with further inspiration. Isn’t that always the way, for authors? Inspiration can be found everywhere.

Until next time,

“I’m thirty-seven.” “What?”

Sara Mazariegos


“Well, I can’t just call you ‘Man.'” “You could say ‘Dennis.'” “I didn’t know you were called Dennis!” “You didn’t bother to find out, did you?”


It’s my birthday! 🥳 Today, my husband and I are going to our favorite Italian restaurant and then we’re going to watch Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs. (It came out in 1937. That’s my theme this year.)

This weekend, we’re going to celebrate with friends and see the new Ghostbusters movie and do an escape room. It’s going to be a lot of fun. And then next weekend, we’re heading to Disney World!

I’m spoiled.

Currently, I’m listening to Carly Watters talking about how to get started in the publishing industry. That’s right, I know how to party.

Luis finished alpha reading my manuscript, so I have a few more tweaks to make, and then I can send it out to a few more beta readers. Then I can enter the query trenches again.

When we come back from our trip, I’m going to switch gears and work on rewriting my other novel. It’ll be a nice change of pace. I’m excited to play with those characters again and use what I’ve learned to make the story better.

I’m feeling optimistic. ✨

A humiliating kick in the crotch.

Sara Mazariegos

Writing query letters is tough, especially when you’re not sure where to find good people to critique it. Friends and family rave about it, but a random person can shut it down and make me feel like no one would want to read my novel. It would be nice to find somewhere in between those two extremes. I know it needs work, but that doesn’t mean my novel isn’t good or deserving of being published.

I’m not giving up on it.

Meanwhile, I’ve rewritten an outline for my other novel’s rewrite. Luis (husband) recommends that I write a query letter at this early stage, too, to help guide the novel. So I’m going to be having fun with that as well.

In slightly over two weeks, we’re going on our fun Disney/Guatemala trip, so it’ll be another opportunity to take a break. I just feel as though I’ve been taking a break for a while now. I’m ready to write more! But it’s good to pace myself and not stack my days with too much writing, especially when I know I won’t have enough time to write a new draft until after the beginning weeks of April.

Are all writers like this?

Let’s take the whole day off.

Sara Mazariegos


I’m the type of person who schedules things. I have a Google Calendar for my personal plans. It contains everything from what we’re having for dinner tonight to our weekend activities to the novels I want to work on. It helps keep me on track, even if I only put “Write 2K” on a date. I think it might partially be guilt if I don’t do what it says, but I’ll take it. 😅

Aside from Calendar, I also utilize Pacemaker to keep my word count on track. I plan to write a NaNoWriMo+ novel this year since I don’t have plans to travel in November. The + means it will go past November because it will be longer than 50K words (unless I fail.) I’m going to tackle an old story I didn’t truly finish back in 2010, back when NaNoWriMo was the only time of year I really sat down and wrote stories. I got the story to 50K, but then just… stopped writing it.

I’m going to finish it and make it better this year! That’s one of my plans anyway.

So, my slate for the year is finishing/revising two romance novels and finishing/revising a young adult fantasy.

I’m ambitious. But it’s good to have goals.

Inspiration Overload.

Sara Mazariegos


It figures that now that I’m taking a (brief) break from writing, I keep coming up with story ideas and plots. My brain doesn’t want to rest! It at least doesn’t know what’s good for it.

I signed up for The Shit No One Tells You About Writing‘s substack and I am full of so much knowledge and encouragement now. I’m willing myself to take my time and not rush into any more querying until my story is ready. I’m also (as I said in the video above) working on shaping two other novels. I have a lot going on with my writing, for someone who’s not writing at the moment.

I also recently started beta reading for another writer. That’s been a fun, eye-opening experience as well. I’m interested in what other people are working on and how they write, the things they struggle with, etc. It’s cathartic. 🙂

What are your sources of creative inspiration?

Crunchwrap supreme.

Sara Mazariegos


I finished my novel*!! 🎉🎉🎉

On Tuesday night, I finished writing the main story. Then I pasted in my pre-written epilogue and called it a night. Yesterday (Wednesday), I read through the epilogue, adding and tightening things and making sure it made sense with my revisions. Then I officially typed “THE END” and sat back.

Last week, I kept going back and forth between thinking I could devote myself to crunchtime and finish by today or possibly have to officially finish by March 1st. Well, after miraculously writing 3,000 words on Monday, I didn’t have to worry about not being able to complete my novel draft this month.

Inspiration struck me more in this final stretch thanks to the big changes I implemented in my draft. I had a sort of epiphany as I was piecing things together and I think I’ve found a more satisfying conclusion to my story. I feel more confident about things this go-around, and I don’t think I’ll have to do another drastic rewrite. Hopefully, I won’t have to make any further big changes. 🤞

Now I find myself in this weird, “Uhhhh. What now??” stage. I’ve asked my husband Luis to be my alpha reader and let me know his thoughts. I’m giving myself two or so weeks to not read it, and then I’ll dive in and clean it up for eventual beta readers. Remember when I said writing is a process?

I may be unable to avoid revising my other novel while I wait. The good thing is each book has its own bubble, so I can by all means work on a different novel while I’m supposed to be taking a break from this one.

It will be a bit weird to work on a novel set during Fall/Winter right as Spring is springing forth, but… Such is life.

*For now. I will have to go through several rounds of edits before it’s officially ready to be queried. I definitely feel better about it now!

Too much time on my hands.

Sara Mazariegos


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.

Sweet parody.

Sara Mazariegos


The daily prompt asks what my parents did when they were my age. They already had two kids. 😬

Another asks what the title of my biography would be. That would be telling.

I’ve gotten into Schmigadoon! recently. I just started season 2, and I love it so much because it’s parodying the musicals I enjoy (Chicago, Cabaret, Sweet Charity… a lot of Cs.)

The Project For Awesome officially starts on Friday! I’ve already donated $30 because of the perks John & Hank Green announced yesterday. We’ll see if I can’t stop myself from donating more…

On the writing front, I’ve reached 54K words! 🎉 I can take today “off” from writing since I’m ahead of my word count goal already, but I will probably still write a little today because I can’t stop myself from that either.

Today is Luis’s and my twelfth dating anniversary! We’ve been together as long as our cat Boo has been alive. We will celebrate this evening by ordering some Fancy French Door Dash and listening to Parisian cafe music, like the sophisticated people we are. The last time we did that, we ended up planning a trip to Paris.

🥖,

Cinderelly, Cinderelly.

Sara Mazariegos


There’s a lot to look forward to in Saraland™ in the next few months – one of which is actually happening tomorrow! I’m going to Richmond with Luis (husband) to see Poe’s cats and learn some history. I love cats and history.

The other morning, we got up so, so early to get reservations at Cinderella’s Royal Table in Disney World when we’re there in April. We succeeded! It’ll be lunch instead of dinner, but I’m so excited anyway! By the look of things, lunch might be calmer than dinner, which is perhaps better for our purposes.

I say “like” so much when I’m excited. I didn’t realize until I watched my video back while editing.

In writing progress news, I’ve reached the wonderful 40K (halfway) point! 🎉 I’ve incorporated some of my older draft’s scenes because they’re relevant and not in need of big changes. That’s one nice thing about revising: you can go in and take the things you still want.

Since I’ve made a lot of drastic plot changes to my novel — I even changed the title! (That’ll happen more times, I bet.) — I went back into my query draft and updated it as well, to correspond with my updated plot.

My novel is definitely more focused on the romance plot now. I still think “women’s fiction” applies, too. Many contemporary romances involve women’s fiction angles, don’t they? The female lead’s point in life is very tied to everything she does. I’m drawn to novels where the female lead has some growing to do. I doubt I’m the only one.

I also feel, in my heart, that there’s a space on bookshelves for a romance inspired by Nerdfighters. I hope to provide a novel for that space.

Every old sock meets an old shoe.

Sara Mazariegos

No video today. This week has been insanely busy, for good reasons and bad.

My husband Luis’s grandfather passed away on Tuesday at the amazing age of 98 — two months shy of 99. We’re fortunate to have spent time with him in November when we visited Guatemala.

Luis’s phone has also been dramatic this week. His Pixel wouldn’t turn on, so he took it to a place to get it fixed; they kept it to “fix it”, then gave it back two days later saying they couldn’t. So he got a backup phone to have while Google works on receiving his old phone and replacing it. It’s been a lot of extra stress he doesn’t need. 😢

Meanwhile, on Sunday, we celebrated our twelfth anniversary of the day we met (our “Meetaversary.”) We went to two of the Smithsonian museums we went to on our first date and we got some pizza. Have I mentioned I love pizza? When we got home, we watched You’ve Got Mail which I hadn’t seen since it came out. I liked it a lot more than the first time, primarily because of how quaint it is nowadays. I wish they’d pointed out how slow the early Internet was!

In writing news, things have been chugging along well. I’ve been finding more magical cohesion in my plot. Things are starting to tie together and everything has some kind of payoff. So that’s good. It feels amazing. Some of it was semi-unconscious, too. I wrote things in and then realized they helped further something else I was planning.

It’s funny how it’s difficult to explain some of this writing stuff. You’ll just have to read my novel someday and see for yourself. 😉