I’m eagerly awaiting word on the next step for Third Strike’s the Charm, hoping for a contract.
I had to fill out a form, which I did. After not hearing back from my editor, I decided yesterday to be a pest and make sure she received it. No, she didn’t!
I thought I sent the form four days ago, but she never received it. (The form is for the Lobster Cove series, which is a fictional small town on the Maine coast. Many authors are writing books set in this small town, so we all have to coordinate the setting and characters. We have a reference spreadsheet that is our “bible.” When we submit a manuscript, we fill out a form identifying the shared information we’ve used, things like street names, minor characters, major buildings, land marks, weather events, newsworthy events, and the physical characteristics of the main characters. The editor who is managing this series makes sure all that information goes into the spreadsheet.)
I checked my Sent Items folder in Yahoo mail. Somehow I managed to email the form to myself! Well, I could have been waiting a very long time! I now understand that if I don’t hear back from my editor confirming that she has received an email, to follow up. At least the clock has started now, plus I also learned more about working with my editor. She said she’s always there and will always send confirmation. We had a laugh about me sending the form to myself.
Have you found that your communications are getting mixed up lately? Apparently it’s in the air, so if you don’t hear back, double check.
I have a confession to make though. If I don’t get my first round of edits until October, that would work out well for my vacation. I am in New York. I wandered around the city today. Here are a collection of photographs. I read recently about photographic voice and making one’s own stamp on pictures. I was excited about these concepts in theory, but in reality, I found myself not sure what to photograph! My friend said just shoot everything. That I can do. These were my favorite today.
Newspaper vendor outside Penn StationUS Post OfficeMy husband worked in this building many years ago.A kasha knish at 2nd Avenue Deli (now on 33rd Street)Penn StationPenn StationPenn Station
I’m still at the stage, and perhaps I will always be at the stage, when I don’t know for sure if a book will appeal to other people. I submitted Third Strike’s the Charm and crossed my fingers. The first email I received from my editor was, “It’s not like your first book. It seems like your heart wasn’t in it or you were rushed.”
I can laugh about this now, but this statement was like an arrow shot into my worst fear. One of the bits of advice to fiction writers is to figure out what is your character’s worst fear? Then do that to them. Now I was having a turn-the-camera-around experience. As a writer you are trying to figure out characters, and then suddenly you are looking at yourself.
In fact I find this happening a lot. At first when I heard the advice to understand why a character acts and feels the way he does, I thought, “Oh brother, people really aren’t like that.” I thought assigning reasons to why characters are the way they are was artificial and forced. People think, therefore we can think our way out of being affected by our experiences. Of course, that reasoning is an interesting reflection of me…but that’s a topic for another day.I started paying attention and can see not only are my characters formed by experience, but so am I.
Actually I cried when I wrote the ending scenes, and I even teared up when I started writing the synopsis! I fell in love with the hero…finally. He gave me a lot of trouble. Jason Ward is a quiet type. He took a long time to open up to me. When I finally stopped trying to force him to a plot outline, he started to whisper his truth to me, and what a secret it was. I was very moved by this character.
In addition to putting my whole heart into this book, I took some risks and wrote very differently. (I will explain my process evolution in a different post.) I was excited about my new process. When I read that statement from the editor, because I tend to doubt myself when it comes to fiction, I assumed that she had pronounced that my new process was a total failure.
I sent out an SOS to my critique partners and then sent a message to my editor explaining that while the book may be horrible, I did put my heart into it. I said if the book is really bad we need to kill it, because the most important thing is to put out a good book. Obviously, I never want to publish something bad.
My editor wrote back immediately and said, oh no, I haven’t read the whole book. I’m sure it’s publishable. It’s just the beginning. Don’t worry, a lot of authors make the mistake of thinking with a sequel that they have to rehash the whole beginning. Don’t do that. Make it stand alone. Go ahead and rewrite the beginning before I send it to the reviewers, if you want to.
Of course I wanted to! I took her advice and did that. Well, actually, I was flat out. Despite the relief of finding out her comment just pertained to the beginning, I was too close to the project. I retreated to bed with a bowl of Trader Joe’s Belgian chocolate while one of my beloved critique partners took my editor’s comments, the manuscript, and the previous version, and redid the beginning for me, using my words, but cutting and splicing. While she did that, I set the chocolate aside and had a mental health day taking photos with friends.
Note to self: get some distance. Writing a novel leaves you vulnerable and over-sensitive.
Last Friday, I was wading through email, and there was a message from my editor. “I’m going to request we go to contract. I really enjoyed it.”
Needless to say, I am ecstatic. I guess you could say the writing life is one of these:
Santa Cruz Boardwalk, wooden roller coaster
The beginning of the book was a bit mechanical, as I over-worked to show how the characters came to this point. This slowed down the pace because the scenes were about the past. The beginning has to grab the reader.
Note to self: when it comes to the beginning, CUT.
Beginnings are tough. They get rewritten a lot and can end up lacking voice.
Third Strike’s the Charm isn’t over the hump. The senior editor also has to like it, but I’m 95% sure she will. I think if the book can get through the first round, it will make it through the second.
So, like my characters, Third Strike’s the Charm and I have made it through our big black moment (BBM) and just might make it to our Happily Ever After (HEA).
Do you ever find yourself watching a movie, or reading or writing something and realize what is happening on the page or screen is also happening to you?
I wanted to be a writer since I was about eight years old. That’s when I started to keep a journal. One of the first things I wrote about in the journal was how I wanted to be an animal behaviorist. I was torn. Such a momentous decision for an eight-year-old!
Now, thanks to the Internet, we have blogging. Thanks to digital photography, we can take photos of animals and learn about them.
I love how sea lions bask in the sun. They keep their eyes closed a lot. I noticed this because I wanted a photo of this guy with his eyes open. My theory is that their eyes are meant for seeing under water where it’s relatively dark, so the bright sunlight is painful.
I notice they really like to hang out together, too. They seem sociable.
These pelicans were hunting as a pair, which also seemed sociable.
This bird was resting by herself, though.
This sea lion was the only one I saw working today.
All of the above photos were taken outside in the wild. Inside the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a glorious place, they had these birds, which were injured. They can’t survive in the wild but have found a wonderful home.
This exhibit shows animals who wait for food to come to them.
I love how animals are masters at the art of allowing what they need to be provided.
I was also pretty thrilled with the soft pastel colors of these ones, especially compared to the bold colors of the ones above.
These were very difficult to photograph in low light because they are constantly moving, sort of the opposite of the stationary creatures above.
The jelly fish are the “wow” exhibit. Actually, there’s a lot of competition for that name, but this show was truly exceptional.
Another hard working, constantly moving, yet playful animal, the sea otters were nearly impossible to photography and equally impossible not to love.
Tomorrow I head to New Jersey to visit friends in a completely different environment. I hope to do as well as these animals at enjoying camaraderie and sunshine.
May your weekend be filled with warmth and friendship.
As you know I’ve submitted a manuscript recently to my publisher. I have to wait a while to see if they say they want this book, which is a bit different from the first book. The tone is more serious because of what is going on in the characters’ lives. At first I started the book with a humorous first chapter. I was trying to make the main character a reformed party animal, but she is pretty serious. I mean, she’s getting her MBA. I have three close writing friends (we call each other critique partners) and they let me know that Cara wasn’t really what I was trying to make her be. Isn’t that strange?
Do you write stories and do you sometimes find that the characters evolve into something completely different than how you conceived of them? Although the departure from my plans resulted in a lot of work, I loved how the book came together in the end.
I’m really hoping that the publishing house (The Wild Rose Press) agrees and offers me a contract. The themes are more serious in this book, and I really like it.
The great thing is that I had a vacation scheduled for September, and the timing worked out well, at least so far. I’m actually hoping not to hear back until I’m done with my vacation! Because I had the vacation planned, I am not sitting around stressing about the book, which is great. This morning I was in Yosemite and took these photos around sunup. I won’t say sunrise because you can’t really see the sunrise in Yosemite Valley, but you can get up early and take photos of the changing light.
The whole experience was thrilling.
This is Stoneman Bridge, which is right near Curry Village, where we stayed.
I have to say that some of these woodsy shots were the most enjoyable, just standing in the woods being in nature.
You’ll notice smoke in some of these photos. There was a sign at the entrance to Yosemite saying there was a controlled lightning fire and not to report it.
I thought the smoke was interesting to photograph.
While I was taking this photo there was a squirrel making a racket in one of the trees across the stream. I think he was fighting for territory against a blue jay or something. Things would fall out of the tree and fall in the water. I never saw the animals, but it was fun to be part of their world for a moment.
This is a picture I took of my lens cap. I thought it came out kind of well.
Coming home tonight and working on these photos, especially choosing my favorites, was a lot of fun and a great way to end a very nurturing day.
I’d love to know if you write, whether fiction or nonfiction, and if you have had the experience of the work going in a different direction than you expected it to go?
Between the sky and the lake, I drank in the color blue today.
Sand Harbor, Lake Tahoe
Sand Harbor also has these fabulous rocks and then the shrubbery and trees. Add black, white, and green to the color scheme, and that’s Sand Harbor, my favorite place at the lake.
Sand Harbor
Sand Habor also has these pale greens in the water as well, over white sand. The water clarity makes you want to swim in the water.
Sand Harbor
The way I took the photos makes it seem as though we had the place to ourselves when in reality, lots and lots of people were celebrating Labor Day by getting into that clear water. I won’t shatter the illusion created by carefully squeezing the people out of the frame via the magic of zoom combined with a bit of waiting and some luck.
I’m looking forward to going back to Sand Harbor in the winter. Now that my interest leans toward photography rather than swimming, winter would be a better time to visit Sand Harbor. It’s interesting how an photography can take you to the same places but with a different emphasis.
After the beach, we drove over Mount Rose Highway, hoping for a vista point. Fortunately, there’s a nice scenic overlook where you can pull over and see above the trees for an aerial view of the lake.
Lake Tahoe from the Scenic Overlook on Mount Rose Highway, Nevada
We met some other tourists there. Funny how everyone asks my Australian friend to take their photo for them instead of asking me. People must have a sense of who is the professional photographer and who is the amateur! Good for them, I say!
Today we rode the aerial tram to the top of the mountain in Squaw Valley. This is a different tram than the one I rode growing up. It’s smaller and doesn’t swing as much when it goes over the towers, which is great. I guess they thought it was time to stop sending people sprawling. I never saw that happen, but it must have sometimes.
The top of the tram is called High Camp.
There were a lot of people because today it’s Labor Day weekend. People were walking along the trails enjoying the amazing views and somewhat hazy mountain air.
We saw a few variety of bees on the wildflowers.
Here is one shot of Lake Tahoe I took from High Camp. Tomorrow we’ll take some close ups of Lake Tahoe.
I’m having a blast with my Australian photographer friend who is visiting, so even though I like tomato and she likes tomahto, we’re definitely calling the calling off off. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m quoting this song.)
Not only is my husband a foodie and a great cook, he’s passionate about growing food. His garden suffered this year from our being a little too tight with watering because of the drought restrictions. It’s tricky to get that drip watering to come out just right. We think the veggie garden needed a bit more. While we didn’t get the bumper crop that we had last year, we did get enough to can some tomatoes to be enjoyed this winter.
You have to look closely at the jar on the right, but if you do, you can see the bubbles rising. That jar just came out of the pressure cooker. It was hot! I needed to set it on a pot holder.
Tonight we are going to enjoy some zucchini. Again, not the usual bumper crop, but the plant has come back to life and delivered a couple nice squash. Eggplant thrived this year, so we’ll have plenty of those tonight.
I know Saturday isn’t one of my blogging days, but I might be doing more posts over the next month as I’m on an extended photography and travel blitz with my friend. We’ll consider Monday, Wednesday, Friday the minimum I’ll blog. There will be a lot of extra credit because I’m excited to share photos with you as I process them.
I’ve learned some about composing pictures during a photo shoot and after, in Lightroom. I’ve bitten the bullet and subscribed to Adobe’s Creative Cloud, having learned that Lightroom is very good for someone like me who doesn’t have much time to devote to processing pictures. (I took a Photoshop class, which I loved, but haven’t had time to practice much.)
One of the things I am learning from my new and old photographer friends is how fun and nurturing this hobby is. I am finding that it is a great way to help me reduce the stress from writing. Yes, writing causes me stress. I know that sounds weird, that my passion would cause stress, but sometimes it does.
Photography, by contrast, is pure joy. I’m so excited to realize it’s good for me and to embrace the hobby. I’ve always taken zillions of photos, as you know, but what will be new is taking the time to play with developing photos, to learn more, to go out on photo shoots, and to meet up with other photographers.
Thankfully, I already have a blog where I can post my photos. I really appreciate your time and interest in taking a look. Thank you, and enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Yesterday I had a great time enjoying photography and being outdoors with other photographers. I don’t consider myself a photographer. I resist this idea a lot. But I took two or three amazing photos over the last two days, and now I think I’m going to open my camera manual and try to sort out a few more things.
The shots that amazed me and a few loyal friends were night and twilight shots. I learned a couple things about how to do those.
Monterey California
Okay, what thrilled me about the above photo was the smoky effect on the water. That was a lot of fun to take the photo and then see it on my camera’s display screen.
I was also startled to discover that I could do this:
The Bay Bridge, San Francisco
(I’m working on my watermark, sorry it’s so intense.) Turns out that my camera can do quite a lot. I think I need to upgrade the memory card, though, because it takes a really long time for the camera to process the long-exposure photos. I can see it getting kind of old to have to wait a couple minutes for each of these night photos to write to the card. There are a couple of minor things I need to purchase to help me with my next baby steps into photography.
Moving along to the sea lions, which is what this post was really supposed to be about.
Sea lion in Santa Cruz stretching
I thought he was so sweet. Tourists can peer at these sea lions sleeping on the rafters through square viewing portals built into the Santa Cruz pier. And the best part is getting to write pier and peer in the same sentence.
Buddies or spouses? Sea lions of Santa Cruz.
Not really, the best part was getting to enjoy seeing wild animals being themselves and enjoying life.
I really enjoyed watching this one lolling in the beautiful green sea and sunshine.
Sea lion in the water
May you enjoy your weekend like a sea lion, hanging with your loved ones, sleeping, and absorbing some sunshine.
The air was a bit smoky around Lake Tahoe and around the San Francisco bay area because of all the forest fires in California this summer.
When I was a child, forests called to me. Fortunately I grew up near Lake Tahoe and was allowed to hike all day alone with my dog, so I could fulfill this powerful urge.
My parents would drive to New Jersey every summer for grandparent visits, and whenever we reached Pennsylvania, my nose would be pressed to the window staring at the forest. I longed to be able to wander in the mysterious shadows, but I could see it would be difficult to move between the trunks. The trees grow much more densely there than in Tahoe National Forest, as thick as broccoli bunches, thick enough you could build a house on top of them.
To this day, feeling the soil beneath my sneakers, listening to wildlife, and soaking up the quiet presence of trees, is comforting and satisfying.
The way light falls in the forest draws the eye, particularly when there is something reflective, like water or tree trunks rubbed white by time.
Rancho San Antonio, Cupertino, California
As much as thick forests attracted me as a child, as an adult, I like the more scattered forests of the high Sierra. The separation among the trees happens I think because of the rugged climate and also perhaps because not many things can grow in a pine-needle carpet.
Tahoe National Forest
Walking through a stretch of forest like the last photo gives a satisfying crunch as your sneakers come down on the twigs…but nowadays, I stick more to the trails.
Perhaps my spirit is not as drawn to mystery any more. The cost of becoming an adult, I suppose. But at least I can still enjoy walking in the woods.
My husband took these photos while I was writing in Washington. I think this park is quite beautiful. Next year I have to go myself!
Nisqually Glacier, well what used to be a glacier. All that rock is leftover from where it used to be. The bit of white rivulets at the top is all that’s left.
Here is the peak of Mount Rainier peeking through the clouds.
Nicci Carrera 