Tag: Writing

Like a drunk, but not.

Sara Mazariegos

Wow, a lot has happened in the past week.

I joined the Dear Hank and John Patreon livestream on Wednesday and they announced that tickets were on sale for John Green’s new book tour, for Everything is Tuberculosis! As soon as I got home, Luis and I got tickets. I’m so excited! It feels a little odd to be excited since I’m sure it’s going to also be sad and frustrating to learn about, but I’m still excited to see him again and hear his latest work. We haven’t seen John in person since 2017, when he gave us a lime green Kitchenaid mixer as a wedding present. Something like that’s not going to happen again, but it will still be a great show.

John and Hank Green led to Luis and me meeting, so I couldn’t pass up the chance to see John again. Hopefully Hank will come to D.C. again someday, too.

Many places in Los Angeles have been burned in wildfires, which is scary and sad, and nerve-wracking because we’re going to be there in a little over a month. I’ve donated to redcross.org to help. Los Angeles has been on my mind a lot over the past week.

And then there’s this whole thing with Neil Gaiman. *Deep Sigh*

In writing news, I finished listening to my novel (as read by a phone app!) Luis listened along with me, and he told me he really likes it, though he’s a bit biased. 😏 Now the goal is to read it through and make edits. Thankfully, I didn’t find anything glaring that needs to change, plotwise, so that’s a relief. Restructuring and rewriting really did the trick.

I’m currently reading How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang and I really like it. I’ve noticed that she repeats the descriptor “Victorian” all the time, which is amusing because it escaped edits and read-throughs for her. It makes me think about what words or phrases I might’ve overused. I’ll focus on fixing things like that this first go-around of editing.

Victorianly,

Every night’s another reason why I left it all.

Sara Mazariegos

I started having my computer read my It’s A Wonderful Life-inspired novel out loud, so I can hear how it sounds and find typos/repetition/things like that. It’s exciting to hear my story come to life, even if the voice sounds like a computer lady, because it is.

I’m trying not to make changes at the moment, though I did go in and fix the typos/repetition that I found, because those are easy fixes that don’t need to pass into the next draft. I want the next draft to be ready for the bigger changes. Hopefully I won’t have too many, since this isn’t the first time I’ve written this story. 😅

Meanwhile, ideas for my next story keep falling into my brain. I got one idea for a plot and it just sort of snowballed from there. I have an outline file to store everything for now, since I’m focusing on polishing the other story first.

Just when I’d started to wonder if I’d ever have another idea for a story…

This one is about shyness and past selves. It’s inspired by going through all of my old emails, and some of the nearly-but-not-wholly-forgotten heartaches that lurked within. I won’t say more than that for now, since I’m only at the beginning of thinking about it. Just reading the old emails has been A Lot.

On a lighter note: Luis made fun of me for laughing at something I’d written in my novel. I didn’t remember it, and the computer lady voice made it extra amusing. Imagine Jimmy Stewart’s words coming out of a female robot.

I ran to your heart to be near.

Sara Mazariegos

Happy New Year!

I must admit, I’m still in a bit of a holiday stupor, not helped by the fact that I’m back at work on a Thursday. Is everyone feeling a bit confused about what day it is and what we’re supposed to be doing?

My calendars are up and my work planner has been updated with the holidays and vacation days I’ve solidified thus far. I just have to get to February 14th without pulling my hair out and I’ll be fine.

We had a nice holiday break together. It was nice just to be together and relax. We went to the National Zoo on New Year’s Eve (Zoo Year’s) and then had an impromptu dinner at a Turkish place because the Thai place we’d booked wasn’t open for when we made our reservation. Thanks, automated reservation services (in this case, Google.) The Turkish place was more memorable than the Thai place probably would’ve been anyway, though.

For Christmas, I received a few books. One of my light resolutions this year is that I will only read books I currently own as of 1/1/2025. I have a library book, so I can read that, obviously. Books on my Amazon Fire also count. I’m excited to go through my bookshelves and actually read the books there instead of finding books elsewhere all the time.

As far as writing, I’ve still been taking a break from my It’s A Wonderful Life novel. I give myself at least the recommended two weeks between writing and reading the complete draft. I’m going to read it next week, and I hopefully won’t cringe too much. I’m excited to keep working on it and sprucing it up until it’s ready to query.

In the meantime, of course I’ve thought up another novel idea. I’m always thinking of something.

“I’m shaking the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I’m gonna see the world!”

Sara Mazariegos

I finished writing my novel’s second draft on Monday! 🎉 It was much easier to write this time, largely because I retooled my outline and gave myself enough time to really think it through before writing it all out. We watched It’s A Wonderful Life again on the 14th, and it inspired my final push to the end. My novel is very different, but it’s influenced by that movie, sort of like how Planes, Trains, and All The Feels by Livy Hart is clearly inspired by Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. It gave me the initial “Hey! I want to do that!” inspiration.

I can’t remember if I’ve shared this story here, but my parents have watched It’s A Wonderful Life every Christmas Eve my entire life. It’s as much a Christmas tradition for me as putting up a decorated tree or opening presents. I still watch it every holiday season, though not on Christmas Eve since that’s become the evening we spend with Luis’s family.

When I was around seven years old, I noticed I couldn’t hear in my right ear. I remember being on the phone with my grandpa and I couldn’t hear him if I switched which ear the phone was up against. I remember thinking, “Huh, that’s weird. I wonder if everyone’s ears are like that.” (I was young.)

I voiced my concern a few years later, because my friends were playing Telephone at a party — another telephone! — and I couldn’t hear the messages being whispered into my right ear. In moments of panic, I just made things up and passed those messages along instead. My friends kept being like, “Where did the message get messed up??” and looking at me. Now, I was a strange and silly child, but in this instance I wasn’t trying to deviate! I was embarrassed about not being able to hear. Looking back, I know I could’ve just turned my head and insisted on using the ear that hears, but at the time it felt like it would break the rules…

When I told my family, they thought I was pretending to be George Bailey because I’d seen that movie every year and I had a penchant for pretending to be my favorite characters.

Now, that’s one thing, but when I was in school, for the hearing test they used to give us with the headphones and the hand raising if you hear the tone on one side or the other, I used to wait until there was a pause and the tester was looking at me expectantly, and then I’d dutifully raise my right hand. “Oh yeah, I definitely heard that…” [Not.]

It wasn’t until I was fifteen that I finally stopped faking and honestly took that test. My parents were told I should go see an ear, nose, and throat doctor. I did more hearing tests. My right cochlea doesn’t work. Records were checked. Apparently, I’ve been deaf in that ear since I was two years old, after a bad fever and ear infection.

So I love George Bailey because I identify with him. Sure, I didn’t save anyone from a frozen lake, but I have the same hearing loss! One thing I noticed this year is that George situates himself at the table with his father on his bad side. I’d never do that! I always make sure the people I’m most trying to hear are on my “good side.” That’s to say nothing of the balance issues he probably should display, etc.

Maybe that’s why he trips at the dance.

Anyway, I finished my writing draft. This is the nifty chart. I’m going to take a break from it for at least two weeks. How handy that the holidays are at the same time. 😄


I hope you have happy holidays and a happy, joyous New Year! Try not to stress too much about the future. That’s probably my resolution.


P.S. The “George Bailey” character in my novel doesn’t have hearing loss. That would be too similar to the original. I gave him something else of mine: he has car anxiety.

“Remember the night we broke the windows in this old house? This is what I wished for.”

Sara Mazariegos

When I was in seventh grade, at the start of middle school, I decided I wanted a nickname. The trouble was that I didn’t really have a nickname, so I tried to test one out by only telling one of my classes — Intro to Foreign Languages — to call me Shelly. I didn’t count on one of my classmates in that class being in one of my other classes… She approached me and said something like, “You told us to call you Shelly in one class, but you don’t go by that name in this class.”

So, Shelly never really caught on.

It’s funny how I don’t remember the girl’s name. I remember her as Spoilsport. 😝

Growing up, I always wanted a nickname. My name is so short that I don’t really need one. I invented all my own nicknames. Other ones are Sar Bear, Sar Bear Extraordinaire, SBE (all the same, and all used by a specific friend group but 100% invented by me.) I also got one friend to call me Pizza for like a year. And Luis just reminded me about the time when I was twelve and told a friend’s visiting friend (from England!) that my nickname was Gadget. I was big into Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers at the time. This friend’s friend went along with it because he’d just met me and had no reason to question me. My friend called me out on it right away. Curses! I still think it would be so awesome to be called Gadget.

But Sara, stop trying to make “Gadget” a thing. It’s not a thing.

Speaking of nostalgia, I finally started clearing out my emails in my main inbox. I had nearly a million (I know!) so it’s, uh, past time for this. I went all the way back to my oldest emails in 2009 and I’ve been working my way through, only keeping emails I want to keep for sentimental purposes. I’ll probably eventually still delete many of the literary roleplaying game ones, but for now, they can stay.

I found the Facebook notification from when Luis added me, back in January 2012. 🥲 And his messages on a dating site (after we met in person, at a Nerdfighter gathering!) Those will all definitely be kept in my virtual shoebox.

I don’t know why I’ve been so nostalgic lately. It might have something to do with the fact that the future is looking more scary…

Anyway, in writing news, I got to 74,000 words yesterday. It’s going so well, it’s almost boring to blog about, haha! Everything’s falling into place, unlike last time I attempted writing this novel. I’ve deviated slightly from my outline, but only because other ideas came to me that move the story forward in a better way. I’m looking forward to being done (tentatively on Monday!) And then I can read the thing, after a Christmas/New Years break.

Do you hang onto anything because of nostalgia? At least emails don’t take up space in my house, though I only have so much space in my inbox.

Nostalgically yours,

“Georgie, don’t you ever get tired of just reading about things?”

Sara Mazariegos

I got into work on Monday after a nice, relaxing four-day weekend and my cousin Alex texted to tell me he was able to get Luis and me tickets to Universal Studios Hollywood for when we plan to be there! Fancy!

I also looked at my calendar and decided to take two extra days off the week of Christmas. I would have only worked on Monday and Friday that week, and that’s just silly. Those two plans started out my week with positive vibes.

We had a nice Thanksgiving time. I even managed not to eat too much, and I discovered I no longer hate green beans. Luis is always teasing me about my hatred of vegetables, but it’s not like I never eat them. I’m just picky about the ones I want to eat.

Now we’ve kicked over into Christmastime thoughts. We’re going to host Christmas Eve at our house, for the Guatemalan tradition of opening presents at midnight. It’s going to be cute to see the cats’ reaction to people being in our house with food and wrapping paper. Leo might be all over everyone. We’re not going to set off fireworks, though. That’s illegal in Maryland. Then, the next morning, we go over to my parents’ house for more Christmas festivities. My parents book us a hotel room so we can stay for the night and not have to rush back home late on Christmas. It’s fun how these traditions have kind of just taken shape over the last few years.

Thinking about the holidays is helpful while writing my novel. As it’s inspired by It’s A Wonderful Life, it takes place during the holidays. I reached 60,000 words yesterday, with help from my old draft. I used as much of an old chapter* as I could, tweaking it here and there to make it fit this new draft. I’m a fan of doing that. Maybe I’m a rare breed of writer who actually enjoys revising?

* And it’s an important chapter!

“Oh, why don’t you stop annoying people?”

Sara Mazariegos

First of all, a photo of Boo Radley so you know who she is since I’ve been talking about her so much. This is not a recent photo. She doesn’t want to be seen with her cone on. She’s embarrassed about it. But she’s hanging in there.


On Monday, they removed some of her stitches from her ear and tail. They will see her again in two weeks (with her brother Leo who already had a checkup appointment scheduled) to remove the rest. She hates going to the vet, but the medication that sedates her really helps her relax. (She still swiped at the vet once, to let her know she was done with her.)

Daily writing prompt
If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?
View all responses


I’ve thought about this before, though it’s not sleep I would skip. I love sleeping. If I didn’t need to be at work for eight hours, I’d have more time to write, which would make me happy. I’d mostly write, but I’m sure I’d end up watching Internet videos. I wish I had more balance, so I could work but also write.

Thanksgiving is coming up on Thursday (and Friday if you go to two separate meals like Luis and I do.) People always talk about the awkward conversations or the big arguments that happen on Thanksgiving when families get together. Fortunately for us, we don’t have a lot of family members who disagree with us and pick fights. Our extended families don’t come over for Thanksgiving, which means things aren’t as stressful too. I can’t imagine having everyone in my family over for the holidays. A lot of people like it, I guess, but… No thanks. I’ve rarely done that.

I have vague memories from when I was little of spending Christmas in Tacoma, Washington, with my extended family there. Grandma accidentally bumped the tree, and it almost landed on my head. I know this from stories I’ve been told.

Having the holidays with the family we usually see is nicer and easier, so it doesn’t feel like such a performance. Better to see the extended family at other times, when we can focus more on seeing them and less on making a bunch of food or decorating. Then again, a lot of the time we’ve seen them has been at weddings…

For my writing update, I reached 50,000 Words! 🎉

I enjoyed writing the scene I wrote yesterday. It helped me easily get to this milestone. Hopefully, the rest of the writing will go as well as writing the first portion. It’s currently 56% finished, according to Pacemaker.

After today (overall goal: 52,000 words) I will have a mini break for Thanksgiving and then I’ll jump right back in.

I plan to fill myself with sweet potatoes, as I do every year.

“Do you know how long it takes a working man to save five thousand dollars?”

Sara Mazariegos

Caring for pets is expensive, but worth it in the long run. Boo had her first follow-up appointment on Monday, and it was funny because it was speedy and she was sedated, so she was so calm and sleepy. Her incisions are healing nicely, and she can get her stitches out next Monday.

We probably should’ve been sedating her for appointments the whole time. 😅

Her biopsy results are inconclusive, so we’re going to monitor her for changes and see what happens. We don’t want/need to put her through any unnecessary surgeries if she’s just got inflammation from allergies. She’s already been through a lot. We don’t want to make her miserable. The good news is that the vet didn’t sound concerned. They didn’t find anything bad.

I bit the bullet and ordered a copy of House of Leaves from Bookshop.org so I don’t have to keep returning it to the library, waiting for my hold to come in, and getting it again. It’s too complex of a story. Even if I don’t lose my place, I have to go back and read what was happening to know what was going on where I left off. Luis always recommends these smarty-pants books to me*. I’m excited to own it, so I can stare at the pages for hours like a mega nerd.

If you’re unfamiliar, and you probably are because it’s a very strange book, House of Leaves is written in a very all-over-the-place way. There are footnotes that lead in all kinds of directions, including going back pages instead of forward. Sometimes, they’re vertical, too. It’s easy to get lost in. This is why a slow reader like me can’t just get it from the library and have any hope of reading it in three weeks! I really like it, though. It’s inventive.

My writing is going well. I’m currently resting at a little over 37,000 words – I will write more tonight. I wrote less last night because the vet called. I’m still feeling much better about this draft. I’m getting the story out and then I can go back in and polish it instead of having to rewrite it extensively. I feel like I’ve improved, which is a great feeling. ☺️

I got us tickets to see Wicked this weekend. I’ve never read the book or seen/heard the musical, so I’m excited to see what it’s all about. I’ve seen/heard two of the songs, so that’s the knowledge I have going in. I own the book but it’s on my massive shelf of to-be-read books. Apparently, the book is very different from the musical and a lot of people don’t like it. It’s curious how that happens… How a disliked/controversial book begets an adaptation people love. Gregory Maguire seems happy with it.

I’m sure he’s happy to have found an audience.


* He got me to read Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, and more Alan Moore than just Watchmen.

“Gives me a chance to tell you what I really think of your wife.”

Sara Mazariegos

This year just keeps getting tougher. Our cat Boo went to the vet on Monday for a dental cleaning and a biopsy on a mass that comes and goes on her ear. We found out she has an ear infection, so she was sent home with pain medication (she got lovely stitches on her ear) and ear drops. She was so loopy and lovey, which was cute if concerning. Her new best friend was the animatronic skeleton we got this year for Halloween. She kept sitting on the floor in front of him and gazing up at him, rubbing her face against his feet and licking his pants.

She also spent most of the night growling at our other cat because she was closed in our room for safety and he waited outside the door. He usually sleeps with us on the bed. He’s so confused.

Fun times!

I hope the results from the biopsy are good. I’m hoping it’s just skin allergies we can treat more intensely. We have to take her to the vet again on the next two Mondays to check that she’s improving and see the next options.

As if I don’t have enough to worry about. 😓

I can’t believe it’s almost the holidays. I say that every year, but, every year, they creep up on me. This year has been rough, so I’m ready for a new one. Not that I think the next four years are going to be great… I mostly can hope they might be okay? I hope they can at least be okay.

Writingwise, my It’s A Wonderful Life-inspired story is going well. I keep hitting my writing goals for the day, which is more than I could say for the last story I was working on. I think I was ready to think about this one. If all goes well, I’ll be at 30K words by Friday.

My voice is finally back to normal(ish.) I’m still a little coughy, but some of that is because I’m allergic to Fall leaves (I’m pretty sure.) Let’s hope I don’t get sick again like that for a long time. Or never. Never would be better.

“Say, brainless, don’t you know where coconuts come from?”

Sara Mazariegos

Welp.

There’s not much to say. The election yesterday has shown that there are too many misguided, uncaring people in America. I’m doing my best to keep taking deep breaths and focusing on my own life, the things I can control. And yes, I will vote again in two years. We have to keep going. We have to keep fighting.

My illness last week turned into laryngitis this week, so on top of everything else, I haven’t been able to talk much for the past few days. I finally got a bit of my voice back last night, but it’s raspy. I’m pretending I sound like Maya Hawke (Anxiety) so I feel better about it. Her voice is cute; my voice isn’t supposed to sound like that.

I’m resting my voice as much as possible. I put up a sign at work to let my coworkers know I can’t speak right now. So far, everyone’s been nice about it. I’m glad I don’t have a job that requires talking. I’d have difficulty with a job like that anyway, though.

Luis and I are watching this silly reality show called Claim to Fame — it features celebrities’ family members in a house and everyone’s objective is to guess who everyone else is related to. The hosts are Kevin Jonas (from The Jonas Brothers) and Franklin Jonas (a Jonas Brother.) Like all reality shows, it’s cheesy, but the mystery-solving aspect is fun.

I’m now convinced reality shows are as popular as they are because they’re comfort television. They don’t involve as much emotional attachment as scripted shows do. I’m not attached to any of these celebrity relatives*. That’d be kind of embarrassing.

As far as the writing’s going… It’s going pretty well so far. Speaking of comfort, my It’s A Wonderful Life story is comforting to me. It’s uplifting and warm and fuzzy, much like the film. That’s my goal, at least. So far, I think I’m tackling this draft better than the last one. It’s funny because no one else read my first draft, but I knew it needed retooling. Usually, I’d at least let Luis read it, but I didn’t want to waste his time when I knew it was going to be overhauled. I’m proud of myself for having the sense to just say, “You know what, this needs to be redone entirely. I’m going to take a break and try again.”

Last November was not a good time to try to write it, but this November might give me way more motivation. It’s certainly looking that way.

Ha. Heh. Haaaa. 😞


* Except for Pepper. She’s my favorite and I hope she wins, but she probably won’t.