A Life in the Day

I believe that one can never have too many writing utensils. I have dozens of pens, markers, and highlighters and am always buying more. I'm currently addicted to the Preppy Fountain Pens . I’ve used a Passion Planner for my daily bullet journal and scheduling for the past four years. I would create my own bullet journals before that. I have four kids, 2 boys, 2 girls, and my eldest son was my early birthday present when he was born. I love coffee and have finally started drinking at least one cup “puya” (no sugar, no creamer). I love Star Trek AND Star Wars, there’s never an OR to them. My dog has been with us for 20 years, he has been a part of my kids’ lives for MOST of their lives. Fall and Winter are my favorite seasons. I come ALIVE in the Fall! My great-aunt pretended to be her brother to enlist during WWII and every day I think of ways to honor her boldness. I am not athletic (nor do I want to be) so if you see me running, you better run too. Something or someone is chasin...

Dobby is a 15-year-old mouthy miniature pinscher with cataracts in his eyes, a limp from being run over by a car a decade ago and the heart of a lion... in the body of a puppy. While he barks bloody murder to get anyone to help him down off the couch, he can still jump up to the couch when he thinks no one’s watching. He sleeps a lot now but his ears still perk up at the sound of any crumb hitting the ground and while he can’t really run like he used to, he still canters like a mini stallion on his infrequent walls. He avoids the outdoors if it’s raining, refuses to eat soft foods despite not having most of his teeth and gets in your face to sniff you when he can’t see you, which is most of the time now as his eyes cloud with cataracts. But he still gets playful, crouching down, his butt and tail wagging when he’s offered a snack and prancing around my husband’s buddies while they play cards in hopes of a few table scraps. As I get older and the body aches a...

I know that I have to get better about my time management (evidenced by the fact that I’m writing this blog post instead of continuing to check off items in my daily to-do list) but I think it's important to note that a day in the life of a literary agent is long and sometimes difficult to manage. I've made posts about "my day in the life" before  but it doesn't hurt to reiterate, right? On a typical day, my work hours are 14-16 hours long and consist of so much “brain work” that I often need a nap around 4 PM. (Much like a toddler or a Golden Girl.) So, what do these 14-6 hours consist of, you ask? Email: 3-4 hours are usually spent replying to, composing and forwarding emails emails from clients (sounding a lot like “are we there yet”) emails to clients (royalty summaries, editorial letters, marketing/promo ideas, what are you working on next) emails about clients (buzz-building) emails to editors (proposals, negotiations, general “how-do-you-do” ...

If you know me at all, you know I get obsessed with things quickly and completely immerse myself in these obsessions in a way that may seem unhealthy to my psyche to non-fandom, non-geeky individuals: aka, the straights but is perfectly normal to the rest of us. In realizing this about myself, I've found that part of our self-identity and, in turn, our self-awareness lies greatly in the things we enjoy. The things we obsess over. I have a very addictive personality so I know to steer clear of things that will suck me in and keep me from accomplishing my goals but once in a while, I throw my addictive personality a bone. These are a few of my current obsessions: Cooking Shows Chopped I currently have over 80 episodes recorded and just love watching what people can make with the crazy basket ingredients. I don't know what it is about this show but I've got everyone in my family now watching the recorded episodes late at night when we're not playing tabletop games o...

It's just a little prick You know it’s coming. You know the diagnosis before you hear the words and you know it’s not going to be easy to hear but you know. How could you not? You’ve seen the signs for years now, you just didn’t want to have those fears acknowledged. You knew it the moment you finally went in for your physical (at the end of the calendar year, as if postponing it to the latter part of the year would make the diagnosis easier to hear). You knew it the moment the blood tests were ordered and you knew it as you watched your sugary blood fill the vials. Sure, it’s easy to say to yourself that it’s not going to be difficult and it’s probably going to be easier to finally shed some of the weight you’ve added on since starting one of the many “lifestyle” food changes you’ve started and stopped in the past 2 years. You’ve watched countless of celebrities, friends and family members shed the weight after their diagnoses so this is a good thing, right? You know the...

In her Mashable article: 7 Reasons You Should Unplug This Summer , Kyli Singh includes things like improved health, career and sleep among her reasons for giving your brain a tech break. In my house, we have had to implement a daily "no-tech" hour for our son who suffers from seizures. It wasn't until he pointed out how many hours I work in front of a screen that I realized how much I needed a break from the screen as well. This weekend, I vowed to spend less screen time reading and more paper time reading. Reading for pleasure is such a rarity these days for me that when I can do so without guilt, I savor every second of it. This weekend, I did a full unplug and only read on my iPad if I was in a non-wifi area. Yes, I can just turn off the WiFi on my iPad and read without distractions but I like to play Frozen Free Fall and The Sims FreePlay  on my downtime too so I tend to leave the WiFi turned on. But because I also edit manuscripts on my iPad when I really want...

My teenagers are home for the summer so that means my house is a mess, my fridge is empty and the piles of laundry are threatening to consume us. It also means I get to hear things like, "there's nothing to do" and "I'm bored, Mom!" Really? You're bored? Well, if you didn't stay up playing video games until 2 AM then woke at 2 PM to stare at the ceiling (which could use some dusting, just sayin') and actually did your chores on time, picked up a book, went outside (and take out the garbage while you're at it), you wouldn't be bored, son! In the course of one day, I get more done than any of my teenagers (or husband) and I don't know if it's because I'm just a can't-sit-on-my-ass-all-day kind of person or if it's because they are! Either way, I know I've shared my workday with you before but today was all kinds of special in its ability to pack a whole lot of work in a short period of time. Behold, my day...

My dog-eared copy I dog-eared a paperback. Let me explain why this is a big deal (at least for me). I don't buy paperbacks much anymore. Ever since I got my first iPad a few years ago, I haven't really felt the need to spend $8.99 on a paperback when the ebook is available for $2.99 and I can read it or a dozen others on my iPad without having to carry them all. But, for Christmas, my daughter gave me The Perks of Being a Wallflower to read since she knows I loved the movie and wanted to read the book. I don't' have a lot of time to read for pleasure like I used to but today, I decided to pick it up and keep it as bathroom literature. Don't look at me like that! It's a place of honor for me as I spend the most quiet of times on the can these days and the previous book to hold such an esteemed honor was Michio Kaku's The Physics of the Future . I didn't dog-ear that one. I just kept a bookmark in it but I also co-read it on my Kindle app...

Spent a good portion of the past two days watching documentaries I've had sitting in my Netflix Instant Queue for months (ok, some close to a year... don't judge me) while working on a million things at once. If you've followed this blog at all you know I can't just sit still and often have several things going on at once . Such was the case with the documentary watching. Most of it was watched on my iPad while I helped kids with their homework and housework. (Love being able to lay the iPad down beside me while folding laundry!) The problem with watching so many documentaries back-to-back is that you start to feel like you're starring in your own documentary and find yourself providing commentary for every day tasks. "While brushing her teeth, Saritza checks her to-do list on her iPad prioritizing items before consuming her first cup of coffee." I even had background music playing from my iTunes library on my iPad. The funny thing is I used to do ...

Christmas Music Traditions When I think back on my childhood, the memories are coupled with music. In fact, most of the time, I can remember "eras" in my life when a song plays on the radio or someone sends me a song to hear. I was born and raised in Ponce, Puerto Rico where music is as much a part of your life as coffee with buttered bread. Music is such an integral part of life on the island that it's odd to drive through any neighborhood and not hear music. Women sing while sweeping the sidewalks. Men whistle and sing as they push their carts to the market. Children sing songs as they play games on the playground. Grandparents sing while rocking on the porch or just pull out their guitars and start playing. Music is part of every festive event and a HUGE part of the Christmas celebration. In Puerto Rico, the holidays start the day after Accion de Gracias , Thanksgiving Day and end on Dia de Reyes , Three Kings' Day (or Epiphany). We celebrate with food, family ...

So much going that I've barely had a chance to breathe, add to it a pesky cold threatening to take over the little oxygen I have left and an A/C unit that chooses the few 80-degree days we have left in Orlando to freeze up on me and you've got the makings of a typical "Life in the Day" of this ePub Agent! What do you do all day?   Working a full-time job as well being a wife and mother usually takes up most of my time. Why would I add more stress and heartache to an already packed daily schedule by doing agent work? Because there's no greater feeling than seeing an acceptance and contract offer in my email for one of my clients or getting a cover mock-up for a manuscript I've spent six months trying to sell... or receiving a royalty statement for a book I fell in love with BEFORE the editor made it even better and seeing how great the sales are for that author. The past two weeks have been full of these experiences. It's been exhausting though and even a...

I have always had a passion for the written word. It didn't matter where I happened to be, if there was a book, a newspaper, a magazine, a cereal box, I was going to read it. As I got older, I found myself editing restaurant menus, newsletters, my parents' work memos... anything with text, line spacing and graphics. But it was during a school field trip to the Harcourt Brace & Jovanovich building in Orlando, Florida, that I really fell in love with the industry. Watching and learning how textbooks were made and seeing people working in offices that smelled of printer ink, glue and wax with that slight hint of stale coffee in the air pretty much did me in. When I got home I told my mother that I would one day work in the HBJ building. In college, I pursued a mass communication degree and was the editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. Learning to edit, design and manage a weekly periodical prepared me for the work that was to come... a call from Harcourt School Publis...