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Nicci Photography, Uncategorized

Fall colors

We arrived in the mountains just in time to snap a few photos of autumn colors.

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I’ve signed on for a higher level of volunteer work for my Romance Writer’s of America chapter. I’ll be turning over one or two other duties to take on a board position. I think it’s healthy in volunteer organizations to have some turnover of duties. I was doing the website maintenance and it looks like another member is willing to take that on. It will be interesting to see what she does with it. Also to see if my procedures make sense. I’ll find that out soon enough. Nothing like having someone use your procedures to find out what’s unclear.

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Visiting up here in the mountains is special to me because I grew up here. I have very strong connections to place. It’s almost physical. Occasionally I’ll travel somewhere and feel I need to go back, but my strongest bonds are to the Sierra mountains around Lake Tahoe. I have friends I grew up with who feel the same — and they live here full time. It’s nice to see them  and reminisce.

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As for “work,” I’m making progress on the planning stages of the sequel to the novella that is on submission. I’ve decided to plan for one complete book rather than a trilogy as I thought. There will be an opening for further books should the first two prove popular.

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I’m planning to finish the planning…LOL…in October so I can write a fast draft of the novel during National Novel Writing Month (NaNo). Are you doing NaNo? If so, find me as a buddy if you like.

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What do you look forward to doing, enjoying or accomplishing this week?

No matter what you are planning to do, I hope you have a good week with good health.

Nicci Photography

Good morning Campbell

Happy Friday locals and happy Saturday to my faraway timezone friends. This morning I actually went out to take photos. I dreamed of doing sunset photos of San Francisco for you yesterday, but house projects kept us at home. I like downtown Campbell so much you’d think, why don’t I just move there! Well, it’s not too far, so I can enjoy it easily, and now you can too.

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I appreciate the care the town has taken for its historic district, especially  when so much building is going on to squeeze more and more stuff into the area.

I’m also impressed by the flowers. I don’t plant many flowers, but they really beautify. At least we can enjoy the effort of others!

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Have a fabulous weekend, and see you on Monday.

Nicci Writing craft, Writing Life

Inspiration and travel

I’m working out the synopses of the two books that will complete the trilogy I’m working on, and I’m super excited that Oslo Norway will figure into the plot. A couple years ago I shared a bit about our adventure there. I really loved Oslo. It was a magical place to me. This museum especially:

 

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Nobel Peace Museum, Oslo

 

This truly inspirational place figures in the beginning of the third book. So now I’m writing to that. In fact the plotting on these books is happening from the end first, a technique I haven’t used in years. I learned this from good book called You Can Write a Novel by James V. Smith, Jr. and published by Writer’s Digest. I’m really glad that the book is in my craft collection in my library. Happiness.

Anyway, I’m super excited about the new books. I was overwhelmed yesterday but today I’m on fire. My very smart hubby helped me out. Here’s a tip whether you have a great brainstorming partner (which I recommend getting) or not: if you have a problem, articulate it. Then you are able to work on that problem. What I’m trying to say is if you can state what it is that’s bugging you, a problem statement is formed, and the issue moves from hopeless and overwhelming to something workable.

Have a great week, and see you Friday!

Nicci Writing

Friday’s Post

A friend of mine reviewed my blog for me from the standpoint of marketing and suggested I talk a bit about my books. Who knew? LOL!

My new book that I just sent in to a publisher for consideration is a new direction for me. It is a romantic suspense, and what’s so cool about it (besides everything, LOL) is that it is set in an exotic locale I have visited: Monaco. Which in an odd way leads me back to my first book, Love Caters All. Okay, how? After all, Love Caters All is a “straight-up guilty pleasure” romance with a fair bit of sensuality. The new book is an action packed diamond heist set in Monaco with a PG rating (although we’ll see how it ends up by the time it is published). But the thing is I came up with that plot thinking about To Catch a Thief. I love Cary Grant. (Isn’t it great you can speak of late celebrities in the present tense because their movies live on?) I love his movies and he reminds me of my dad in many ways.

Well my first book was inspired by a Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn movie, one of my favorites, Philadelphia Story. Now, when you read it, you’ll say in what way is this possibly like Philadelphia Story? And those of you who have read it, right? Love Caters All is set in Maine,

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whereas Philadelphia Story is set in, you got it, Pennsylvania. Different plot, different characters, different setting. But what I was going for was banter. I loved the banter in that movie, and that’s what I wanted. I wanted the book to be as light as a souffle, for the conflict to hinge on nothing more serious than shoes.

Here are some shots of Monaco, also by way of Morgue File, a great resource.

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This castle plays a huge role in my new book

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Most of the new book takes place at night.
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Early dawn by the harbor, the characters have some exciting scenes here

I hope you have a great weekend. I’m happy to report in California, we are getting rain!

 

 

Nicci High Sierra, Travel

Lake Tahoe

We had a chance to try kayaking on Lake Tahoe. We didn’t get too far before the wind that was forecasted came up. Boy, the waves were pretty big, at least from the perspective of a kayak, but our guide told us how to deal with them, and I had a lot of fun paddling into them.

Unfortunately we weren’t allowed back out on the water after lunch because the Coast Guard was sending kayakers to shore. But this is something I want to take up. I really like it. It’s kind of low tech. You put on a life vest, climb in a boat, and paddle. There’s a technique for paddling that I didn’t know the last two times I did it, and that really helped me keep from getting tired really fast. I had to concentrate to do it, but that’s a  good thing.

I didn’t take the camera with me, a very fortunate thing since a wave sloshed over my boat. I took some shots at the beach after the tour, and here they are.

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Tahoe Vista
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Sand Canyon
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Dredger
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Bananas? No, boats.

 

Nicci Photography

New York memories

Happy Friday.

I haven’t been out to shoot, so I thought I’d revisit some old photos. I have been thinking about New York a lot…maybe because it’s been a year since we were last there.  With a feeling of nostalgia as I went through the photos, I found myself skipping over all the shots of buildings and selecting these images to play around with. They evoke good memories of the feelings of New York. I hope you enjoy this bit of New York flavor.

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Carousel “Granny’s Folly”
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Grand Central Market
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Mount Vernon Hotel
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Mural
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Subway Mural

Have a nice weekend!

Nicci Photography

Mt. Shasta from the car

These were opportunistic shots. We didn’t stop once, road warriors on a mission. But some of them turned out. This is coming up Interstate 5. I scraped the bugs off the windshield in post processing.

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Not Mount Shasta, but still a pretty cool volcano cone.
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This is Mt. Shasta
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Shasta

We don’t have clear skies in California in the summer any more. There were 2000 or so fires burning when I looked last, which was pretty soon after this episode.

Right after driving past Shasta, we saw heavy smoke, then we drove into it. It was horrible, it seemed like a pretty good rendition of Hell.

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This smoke came into our car. It wasn’t until the drive back that we figured out that we have to put the fan on high, not level two, level four. Then it kept up with the smoke that crept into the car. On the way up we both had stinging eyes and developed some respiratory trouble.

But that’s nothing compared to the people living in Weed. Two hundred homes burned, a church, a new resource center and a school. Oh, and the main employer, a mill. One story was a couple coming back from somewhere, they see all this smoke, then they see cars driving the opposite direction covered with fire retardant. Terrible, and scary evacuating…the traffic jammed!

The fire had happened a few days before, well it was still ongoing, but the interstate was open again. I kept thinking, they would close this road if it wasn’t safe, right? Because we couldn’t see much. It was a weird feeling driving along at the whim of whatever was happening out there, but nothing like when the fire burned through the town and down to the freeway. Neighbors were pounding on apartment doors to get people out of there.

Miraculously, no one died. Whew.

I hope you have a safe happy week wherever you are.