On Saturday, a friend invited me to her son’s final Nordic race of the season, at Auburn Ski Club near Boreal Ridge, which is a resort on the summit of Interstate 80. Kids from all over and from all levels of fitness were competing. Families of every origin were there to cheer them on. The front runners were so fast one actually lapped the other kids! The ones who finished last inspired me the most.
Off to the races!
Have a great week!
How was your week?
I’ve had my head down working on the new book for the Harlequin call. I have had some exercise as I’m trying to make that a priority again. I’ve written one chapter and exercised three times since Monday. Small steps.
It’s funny with category romance. People look at them and say, oh that’s easy to write. But any book that looks easy to write is only because the writer is very skilled! Harlequin has very clear branding in their different lines. Readers buy them for a consistent experience. Writing to the requirements is challenging. I think I understand the requirements, but there is a matter of coming back again and again to the examples and seeing if the concept I came up with will meet them. I hope it does, but of course I also have to write a book that reflects me. There’s really no point in being someone else! I do believe the book I’m writing does that, so it is win win. I’m gaining more experience by attempting a very exacting type of book, learning more about classic romance, and writing a book that reflects my background and values, my style, or “voice.” At the end of the project, I intend to have a good book, regardless of whether the editors at Harlequin want it.
Hey, I found some more interesting angles from that forest outing. Enjoy! And happy weekend.
The planning of the new book is going well. But what you really want to see are the shots from Big Basin State Park where I went on a shoot with my photography friends Anne Sandler and Marlene from Sacramento.
The first thing we learned was the Santa Cruz Mountains have their own weather. It was sunny in Silicon Valley, but it looked like this at a look out near the park.
The photo shoot was a wonderful experience. I never felt any pressure, just support and a shared sense of awe and adventure. Plus we shared things. Anne was brilliant at finding fungi.
I discovered faces…do you see them?
To me this looked like a sea otter sticking out its tongue.
We all enjoyed the gorgeous polished redwood burls, and my friends opened my eyes to textures.
Then of course there was the attempt to capture the majesty of the trees.
That’s all for today. Have a wonderful week!
After all that, I’m setting aside my work in progress to pursue an opportunity at Harlequin. I’d like to get into Harlequin. I haven’t made a huge effort, I’ve tried a few times, but this year, I’m shooting for it, planning to compete in their So You Think You Can Write Contest in the summer. However another opportunity has come up for their Desire line. So I am setting aside yet another book that I have started to go for this. It requires three chapters and a synopsis by the end of March. Here goes!
Meantime I have some nice new images to share with you. I had not realized how beautiful the coast near me actually is. If it weren’t for photography, I’d be stuck inside all the time and not realizing how totally gorgeous northern California is. Thank goodness for this art form. I went with a very dear friend who is a brilliant artist. Cherryl is also a whole lot of fun and very encouraging.
Here is the loot that I collected, plus a photo my friend took of me. Enjoy!
I plan to go to a romance reading lunch this weekend, and then hopefully get together with one of my writing friends to discuss outlining. Woo hoo! (LOL) Whereas some people love going to sporting events, these are the kinds of activities that thrill me.
What are you plans this weekend?
So I’ve been working all week on the plot for the last of the Cruz sisters’ trilogy. The third one has a mystery plot. It’s a lot of fun, but requires a lot of thinking, and my concentration seems way off. I flit around the project, every time the thinking gets hard, I jump to the internet. I have to keep reminding myself to go back to the work. I don’t know why this is.
Well one of the things about creative writing is that you spend a lot of time with your own mind and discover things about it. I was not happy with this jumping thing. Seems like I need to concentrate and fill in the plot one thing at a time, but I don’t know what to put in all the slots.
This post is sprinkled with unrelated photos, but their very lack of relatedness, relates, because this is the kind of thing I’ve been doing all week, think a little, then do something else.
I would read the outline and the guidelines for the classic mystery. Get stuck. Jump to something else. This behavior seemed very unproductive, and I was getting frustrated with myself for not sticking to the plan and concentrating.
Did I share this info graphic with you? This is actually for the book I worked on during NaNo, but which I have set aside to work on the last of the Cruz sisters.
Yes, that novel is very outdoorsy, and there are horses.
So here’s what happened when it seemed all I was doing was thinking sideways. Solutions came. I filled these into the outline. It’s sort of like translating vertical motion to circular and therefore useful motion the way a car translates the piston motion to the wheel motion.
What are your plans for the weekend? I hope you will be having fun.
We are on a ROLL!
From the Reno National Weather Service Facebook page:
As of January 20th: “California’s Lake Oroville reservoir has risen nearly 26 feet in the past 12 days”
“Shasta Lake came up 22 feet on pace to hit 90 percent or higher by Memorial Day.” https://www.instagram.com/p/BA-SoxbiaUL/
We’re sti
ll conserving water from hand washing, warming up the hot water and cooling off the cold. We then pour this water in the toilet tank after a flush. This practice has been building up my right arm muscles and probably core muscles too, as I lift and pour a bucket that sometimes has five gallons of water!
I spent all day yesterday working on images. Here are two that I did.
The third one is in my newsletter (which you can sign up for on my website if you want updates about my books, recipes, and giveaways).
What are your goals this week?
Oh my gosh, it’s working. Um, that’s why I missed yesterday’s scheduled blog post, sorry about that. I’m so excited by the ideas that are coming to me as I’m planning and writing the last of the Cruz Sisters Trilogy (as I’m now calling it). I talked about the recent twists and turns in my creative journey here:
The Writing Life, generating creativity
and here:
Report on generating creativity
Check these ideas out if you want to try some new stuff. Not that anyone has time. I’ve been making the time because I am really enjoying going deep and doing research, too.
I was rereading A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young the other night. I’ve been implementing his techniques, in my own way, and seeing results. In rereading, I ran across this quote in the beginning.
An idea, I thought, has some of that mysterious quality which romance lends to tales of the sudden appearance of islands in the South Seas. …to ancient mariners…there would suddenly appear a lovely atoll above the surface of the waters. An air of magic hung about it. … And so it is, I thought, with Ideas. … They appear just as suddenly above the surface of the mind; and with that same air of magic. … But the scientist knows that the South Sea atoll is the work of countless, unseen coral builders, working below the surface of the sea. And so I asked myself: “Is an idea; too, like this? Is it only, the final result of a long series of unseen idea-building processes which go on beneath ‘the surface’ of the conscious mind?
I had this experience today, this sudden appearance of an idea. The sequel to Love Caters All and Third Strike’s the Charm is coming together magically, exactly as James Webb Young said it would. I recognized in the process an amalgamation of two other novels I’ve written and a novella. Also a couple months of hard work on developing massive character analysis sheets and applying them to the new story are paying off as are the combined former careers of my husband and me.
I’ve done a little art work for you today. Here you go, an image from Bodie California, a ghost town.
I’m off to take a peek at what’s going on in your worlds now. Have a good week, and see you again Friday.
El Nino has been a benefactor this year, and I am reveling in the snow. Here are some photos from the last few days.
This is an abstract, an idea I picked up from taking photos with Anne Sandler at Slow Shutter Speed. I had fun with it. These are icicles.
The sun disappears early at this time of year and makes this lovely glow from the behind the mountain on its way out.
The sun makes its appearance behind the opposite mountain the next day.
I appreciate that the sun sets and also rises and that snow blankets our mountains this year.
Happy Friday, and have a great weekend!
It’s sort of still Monday…well, it is still Monday in Hawaii, or will be for 7 more minutes as of this writing. I had a very busy day today, and I don’t have any new photos for you, so I didn’t think I’d get my post done. But I wanted to try. I booted my computer just now and scanned my work email. In it was the cover art for Third Strike’s the Charm! Perfect for a blog post.
I was so nervous about opening it. I gave the artist a lot of direction. I wanted it to fit the book into books of similar types. I wanted it to be flirty. I wanted a beach. I wanted a big guy. I sent her a lot of art from the stock source the publisher uses, but I never found the right hair for the woman. The heroine is Latina. The hero is an athlete, a major-league pitcher. Of course he’s handsome; it’s a romance. Well, the artist found the perfect couple. It’s weird because Cara has cool undertones to her skin. I did not specify that to the artist. I’m not crazy or a diva. (I don’t think.) But wow, the cover gal has it.
I’m totally over the moon about this. Enough talk, here it is.
I’m working on the galleys now. I proofread by reading backwards one sentence at a time. That took me 6 days. Now I’m reading it forwards. That goes a lot faster! I can only fix typos now. But I am requesting a few slightly longer changes here and there. For the longer changes, I counted out letters so that the replacement words won’t change the layout. I really wanted to add a thought, and I wrote it out several ways until I could get the number of characters to fit in the space. That’s an interesting way to write! LOL I hope the editor lets me make those few changes even though they are not just typos.
I also read the manuscript backwards during the second edit and that time I made a lot of changes. It’s okay to make changes at that point (as long as your editor approves.) It was so revealing to read it that way that I have written it into my process. I’m always going to read the book backwards now when I’m editing, actually before I submit to an editor in the first place.
I love polishing. It’s my favorite part.
Getting the cover, when it’s just what I want, is also very fun.
Have a great week. Tomorrow I plan to go outside and get some photos for Friday’s post.
It has been raining in California. Is the drought over?
El Nino is coming through, delivering the hoped-for rain. The trees are gulping up life-giving water.
Tennis games are on hold.
Mud puddles abound.
The hills are green.
But is the drought over?
Folsom Lake in the Sacramento Valley gained 28.5 feet in one month. It is up to 25% capacity. (http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Water-starved-Folsom-Lake-is-finally-starting-to-6738359.php) That’s very good news, but…25%? We need more, but no flooding or landslides please.
Ground water is starting to rise in the Sacramento valley, too. But Tim O’Halloran, general manager of Yolo County’s Flood Control and Water Conservation District, says
“…while the recent rains have helped, many more storms are needed to make a dent in California’s four-year drought.”
(http://www.kcra.com/news/groundwater-supply-needs-more-rain-despite-recent-storms/37303478).
The rain is helping, though!
Los Angeles County captured 3.2 billion gallons during this week’s storms as of Thursday afternoon…
San Diego collected about 800 million gallons this week at nine reservoirs as of Thursday morning, city spokesman Kurt Kidman said.
http://news.yahoo.com/rain-pummels-california-see-way-fight-drought-070830101.html
Near and very dear to this heart is Lake Tahoe. I couldn’t find how much it has risen from the recent snowfall. Perhaps it has to melt back into water before the lake will really rise. However in doing a quick search, I found an interesting site with this interesting information. There is only one outlet from Lake Tahoe, the Truckee River dam. The extreme for the period of record (which goes way back) shows 1997 as a high point:
EXTREMES FOR PERIOD OF RECORD.–Maximum discharge, 2,690 ft3/s, Jan. 2, 1997,
gage height, 9.59 ft; no flow for parts of many years.
2015 was one of those no-flow years as shown in this post I did in August, Walking in the Truckee River. So 2,690 ft3/sec to 0. What a wild ride.
Nicci Carrera 