I was in a snow storm last night, well sort of. I was looking out the window of a high rise hotel in Reno Nevada at this beautiful snow falling on a railroad yard. It’s hard to photograph falling snow, but you can see it in the lights. Okay, the snow floating in front is WordPress snow, I’m talking about the snow in the photo, LOL!
I have a lot of writing to do, but I’m going to start tomorrow. Tonight I’m tired, so I’m going to read.
How is your Christmas/holiday shopping going? I have done a little. Next week is going to be busy.
Happy Monday. What do you have planned this week? I am working on final edits for Third Strike’s the Charm and once that’s done, I’m going back to my special project. I won’t have it completed for NaNo, but at least I wrote 30,000 words!
Do you find you have to juggle goals based on other demands or simply motivation? What about creative goals? Do you fight it if the excitement isn’t there?
I have found that if I don’t want to work on a project, it’s often okay if I don’t because everything always gets done. I prefer to be in the flow and allow my inner rhythm to guide me when I’m writing. I’m inherently goal oriented, so I’m able to work that way. Even when I had a day job, I could work on things when I felt like working on them. There’s a distinction, though. I actually enjoy some of the more tedious work, it’s the creative work that is more difficult, and I prefer to do that when I’m inspired and excited. So I would work on all the routine stuff when I wasn’t inspired and work on the really hard stuff when I was. However, just like with writing fiction, when there was a deadline, I had to push myself, and it could be very unpleasant, working all night and racing against time. I don’t work all night now, but I used to have to do that a lot when I was a technical writer. When I was a project manager at the end of that career, I didn’t have my own “deliverables” and so didn’t have to pull all-nighters.
There are times when I have to push myself to get a story done. In fact, right now, I’m floating along on a magic carpet, feeling happy and light, but I have to remind myself of the intense stress and hard work I had to go through to get Third Strike’s the Charm written and submitted on time. So many times I didn’t think I was going to pull it off. So many times I pushed myself to work every waking hour. I didn’t want to let down my critique partners, especially one of them, who had put in a huge amount of work to help me after she told me the first draft didn’t work as it was. (She was right.)
I also didn’t want to let down my husband. I told him this after I had completed the book. He said I wouldn’t have let him down and not to ever worry about that. But I probably still will worry about that too.
Wow, in writing this post, I’m realizing again that what motivates me is other people. That was true at my day job too. Not wanting to let people down is what spurs me to work extraordinarily hard. Otherwise, I float along on my magic carpet, dreaming and enjoying, until I really have to land back down there on earth and perform or somebody is going to be disappointed.
My preference is to get things done because I want to get them done and to experience mostly joy along the way. I think the key for that is not having too many external deadlines. I still have to find that balance of learning to push myself hard when the going is not easy. That is a matter of holding myself to my own deadline and not letting myself down. I look forward to learning this new ability to push myself out of choice.
What motivates you to perform at your peak?
Here are some photos from San Diego. I took this first one at the end of my photo shoot. This surfer stood here for a long time, just looking at the sunset. I love how he reveled in the moment, how he appreciated the natural beauty. This man inspired me so much more than all the people who stare at their phones, including me. (I’m trying to break that habit.)
Surfer at Scripps Pier La JollaChurch of Latter Day Saints temple in La JollaMe…dreamingUniversity City San Diego
And here is a gallery for you. PS I’m saving my best photo for my monthly newsletter, which goes out tonight. So if you’re not already signed up, just click on the link above (monthly newsletter). That will take you to the form. I’d love to have you as a subscriber. You’ll get a recipe and be entered in a giveaway each month, plus see a unique piece of art in medium resolution.
Just kidding. Although, it is true; there are 28 more shopping days before Christmas. I’m not sure about the other holidays.
I have had an evolving relationship with Christmas presents. I won’t start at childhood. Okay, I will, because these are really good memories. My dad was a high school teacher and my mother was a stay-at-home mom. We lived in the mountains near Lake Tahoe. In those days we had a lot of snow and Christmas was very joyful.
When we first moved to our house, I was three. We had a long hallway lined with cabinets and windows. My dad strung Christmas lights along the roof line outside the windows, and the snow curved over the roof creating a tunnel. Blue, red, and green flashed and danced in the glassy wall of icicles.
I climbed up on the shelf above the cabinets and marveled at the snow and ice tunnel and the lights, all the while knowing that each day brought me closer to Christmas. On Christmas morning our stockings, which hung on the huge mantelpiece over the fireplace, were filled with walnuts and tangerines and small gifts, like socks. We opened those first, then moved to the tree. I was the youngest, and hence the most excited about the gifts. Mom and Dad would select a gift from under the tree and give it to the recipient, and then we would all watch while he or she opened it. The morning was wonderful. Later I would call my best friend on our AT&T rotary telephone…yep!…and we would talk about what we had received.
I have a drawing I did from a photo that was taken of my older siblings on Christmas morning when they were coming out to go to the tree and open gifts. This was taken in Berkeley before we moved to the mountains.
The middle period were all the years as a single adult when I felt that buying Christmas gifts was weird and forced. I couldn’t really figure out having to buy presents for people. I always did, but at the last minute. Resistance is futile! There were nieces and nephews, and that part made sense and was fun.
Then I married my husband, and he had two kids. Christmas turned to holidays as my growing family spanned many philosophies and religions. There were more nephews. My new “kids” were teens, and they brought joy with their sweet selves. We bought them gifts, put up a tree, and they bought us gifts. Christmas was a little like my childhood again. We also had a dog, and she was a lot of fun. Blaze truly understood that she was getting a gift. Of course the kids bought her gifts too. I have some great photos from those days. Here are some drawings of Blaze. (I still miss her. She was a rescue golden retriever, if you can believe anyone would let go of a dog like this.)
I have close friends and extended family and now I have a grandchild too. Through my family and friends I have re-learned the joy of exchanging gifts. Yes it means going shopping, taking the time to bake and to make, write, and mail greeting cards, and those activities are a lot of work, but they all add up to a season of connection, a special time to express our appreciation, and, where children and pets are involved, joy.
Do you enjoy the holidays? If so, what is your favorite part? If not, how do you take care of yourself and your feelings during this period of time in our culture? Or perhaps you are in a different culture than mine and these are not holiday times yet.
Here is a little gallery of photos I’ve taken in San Diego.
Brrrr…it’s starting to get cold! But we will be warmer for Thanksgiving not only from eating too much hot food but also from being in San Diego. I hope to get out Friday morning for a photo shoot in La Jolla before my critique group meeting.
My writing pace has fallen off and my NaNo goal of 100,000 words is history. Even getting to 50,000 is highly at risk. But it’s not over ’til it’s over, you know?
I have been organizing my photos, getting them off my computer because my disk space is maxing out. In the process I have been feeling for what of past photos most excites me today. Well the answer for today, November 23 2015, is Yellowstone.
The mystical quality of Yellowstone National Park still amazes me. I have some shots I developed before and some ones I developed today.
This first batch is from my earlier work.
Upper Geyser Basin, YellowstoneLooking toward the Old Faithful Lodge
The softness in the colors and mist belies the volcanic action creating those effects!
Here is the batch I developed today using Lightroom to emphasize the mysterious quality of Yellowstone.
This week I am looking forward to seeing friends and family and taking photos in La Jolla. What are you looking forward to this week?
I really can’t get over how pretty the weather was at Lake Tahoe this week. I’ve never gone all the way to Sand Harbor, which is a long drive from where we stay, in the winter time. It’s worth the drive.
I missed talking to you on Wednesday, but I did make more progress on my new book. I read one time that at a bookstore author book signing a long time ago, when Stephen King was still a fairly new author so not well-known, the line in front of his table was really long, much longer than at the other author’s table, and the person who wrote the article had the theory that it’s because Stephen King is excited about what he’s writing. That excitement shines through.
That’s how I feel with my next book/series. Excited. Hopefully that will shine through!
Here’s the other photo…I remembered I have some nice ones from Roosevelt Island from my trip there in September. I developed this one for you. Another beautiful day to enjoy.
Queensboro Bridge seen from Roosevelt Island New York
Happy hump day! Once you are through today, it’s an easy two days before another weekend.
I need to finish up my edits by tomorrow and send them back. They’ve been hard for me to do I think because I took such a long vacation.
Yesterday morning was beautiful, so I went out to take photos for an hour. I think this was my favorite.
A mighty oak
I did some exploring, just looking for good shots. Clouds hung over the hills so I went that way. I drove into the hills a bit and tried to capture them, but it wasn’t until I was back in the downtown area that I managed to get a bit.
Clouds over Saratoga
I then spent all morning processing and looking at the photos, then took a nap. Yikes, I was really fighting getting to my desk and working. I reminded myself that when I worked, I often had days that weren’t that productive, especially after vacation, and it all worked out okay. I ended up getting several hours of work done, I just did it in the evening instead of during the day.
I think part of the resistance is that I’m writing a new book, and I’m really excited about it. That’s what I want to work on. But like a job, there are things you have to do that you may not feel like doing at the moment. I’m glad I did finally get rolling today. I realized I was dealing with a patch that I thought really needed to be better, and it took a lot of thinking. After all, this is going to be published, so I have to think about every word that’s on that page. Getting published is exciting but also…well, you want every word to please the reader. You can’t guarantee that of course, but the words better please you.
Saratoga fire station and a Pepsi truck
I’m through that and things are going pretty smoothly. I have about thirteen pages left to edit and a couple paragraphs I need to add.
Fire house railingHistoric Saratoga California
Do you find it hard to be self-disciplined sometimes? I think some people are a lot better at it than others. I can be very good at it, then I can be terrible. What I did this time was work on something else that was a lower priority. I knew my deadline project wasn’t at risk, so even though it is the most important, I went ahead and completed another smaller project yesterday. That felt great.
Do you have tricks for getting yourself productive again if you don’t feel like working on something specific?
Well, I hope you have a productive day and have plans for a nice weekend.
Celebration cake for Love Caters All’s final in the International Digital Awards
The cake is so funny, and so sweet, I am really blown away by his thoughtfulness.
Another funny thing that happened is that he sent me a photo of the cake and I thought it was a quote/image…you know how people put words on images and post them in Facebook and Twitter? That’s what I thought it was! I thought, how clever! But it was a REAL cake! It is odd how welded to the Internet I’ve become that the idea of getting together in person and having a real cake to celebrate has become foreign whereas doctoring photos and interacting online is now the norm.
Have you ever had a friend do something totally thoughtful for you, or have you done something really nice for a friend that brought them a big smile?
Speaking of doctoring images, I did, with these. I’ve been going through photos on my desktop, deleting unwanted ones, and moving the others off to an external hard drive. In the process, I’ve found some old favorites to play with. Here are your Brides of Europe photos.
Bride in Paris FranceBride in Saint Petersburg Russia
I really thank my lucky stars for my friends and family who support me and love me even if I don’t do anything, but I really want to make everyone happy by writing a super entertaining book. My new work in progress has the potential to be that, I think, so I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month, which is one giant permission slip to write a book in a month. (First draft.) On Saturday I’m going to a “write-in,” a gathering of writers in a friend’s home where we will do sprints, report our word count, and cheer each other on.
Yesterday was a bit odd. We kept trying to leave for a hike in our favorite park but kept encountering problems, including a flat tire. We finally made it about 2 hours after our initial attempt only to find that part of our usual route was blocked due to a mountain-lion sighting.
We spent a good deal of time at the warning sign, studying our own map, to see where we could go instead. Finally we sorted that out and off we went.
On the way a pair of joggers passed us, then a single female jogger. Later, she turned back and asked to hike with us. Turns out she knew what happened because on Sunday she overheard a ranger talking on a radio saying the mountain lion had finished eating the deer and was looking at people. LOL! I don’t know, that just struck me as funny. I figured his eyes registered movement, and he was probably looking out for who might come and steal his prey. But can you imagine overhearing that conversation? “Well, he’s finished the deer and is now looking at people.”
Honestly, I don’t know why anyone would hike alone here. There are posted warnings about mountain lions. I was seriously paying attention to the trees today. They like to pounce from above.
All three of us went up a new path together. Well, since I was looking at all the trees for lions, I saw these and had to stop to take a photo:
Oak trees on the hill, photographer ceases to be a useful lookout as she takes a photo
Another hiker passed us, so our friend ditched us and went with her. She caught on quickly that once I took out that camera, we were going to move even more slowly. I kept my camera out and continued snapping…and looking for lions. We caught up to the two hikers at a fork in the path, which was very fortunate because the other hiker was familiar with the route and saved us taking the wrong path.
We followed the switchbacks down the side of the ridge, spotting this beautiful deer. Really, deer were everywhere. Why would a lion bother with a person? Sometimes they do, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_cougar_attacks_in_North_America Don’t hike, bike, or even cross-country ski alone, and don’t let your kids play alone in the yard, walk alone on the road, or ride his or her trike alone, even in the burbs.
Oh, but these deer…so sweet.
Doe eating
I wanted to take the doe home and keep her as a pet and keep her safe from the mountain lion. I realized this was a ridiculous thought, but it did cross my mind when she looked at me with those huge sweet eyes and then went back to nibbling leaves with her black velvety muzzle.
As we descended through the trees we found our views out to the bay were better on this side of the park.
View of San Francisco Bay
My husband told me to use my 28 – 200 mm lens outdoors instead of the smaller one. I’m so glad because I wouldn’t have had access to all these shots, and it was beautiful out in the forest.
Red berry bushAn oak in the sunlightA bit of water in a creek from recent rain
Our delays let us meet up with that woman who was very afraid of the lion but who wanted to get in her whole workout. She was able to tell us exactly what had happened with the lion, and her connection with the other hiker helped us avoid going the wrong way and having too long of a hike. It’s lovely when we go with the flow and cooperate with each other, don’t you think?
Have you ever had a delay that you felt protected you or served you or someone else?
Happy Friday!! Thank you to everyone who joined my newsletter, liked my Facebook page, and voted on my Monochrome Madness photos.
It seems like all-of-a-sudden I’m super busy. The truth is I know how I became so busy. I procrastinated…after all I didn’t have to go out and take photos of Lake Tahoe, but then again, I sort of did…know what I mean?
The pressure is self-imposed and comes from trying to clear the decks for National Novel Writing Month, which starts on Sunday. I (hopefully) will be writing the first draft of a new novel called…drum roll…Work in Progress! 😉 In terms of clearing the decks, so far it seems that the faster I go the further behind I get, which was not part of my project planning!
Today I thought I would share with you a few photos from an amazing place. You may have seen these before, but in a way they’re different because I processed them in Lightroom, which is new software for me.
I will start this off with a question for you as a prompt; remember comments get you into my giveaway contest (details below). Is there any place in the world you dream of visiting? Have you been there? Do you plan to go?
For me this place was Easter Island which must have been the earliest place I’ve ever dreamed of seeing. I learned about it in grade school and when I saw those giant stone heads and learned of the mystery surrounding how they were moved from the rock quarries on the mountainside down to the various shoreline positions, I thought it was the most mystical place on the planet. I was lucky enough to get to visit Easter Island in 2012.
Here are some photos of those famous statues. They are in a gallery for you. If you would like to see larger images, just click on one of the photos and you can scroll through.
By the way you can always view travel photos on my Travel page, which has a button at the top of this blog and is also here. They are grouped by place in alphabetical order.
Now for the Halloween hop with Melissa Snark. The giveaways on the main site are:
(1) $100 Amazon or B&N Gift Card or
(1) $50 Amazon or B&N Gift Card or
(1) $50 Amazon or B&N Gift Card or
(1) $50 Amazon or B&N Gift Card
Comment here on Nicci Carrera Romance to be entered for: a copy of Love Caters All, a copy of Left of the Rising Sun, or a copy of Dynamic Range, Leanne Cole’s photography magazine. (You can see this in the side bar on her blog.)
I’m trying to decide which of these monochrome photos is best. What do you think?
Sand Harbor Lake TahoeSand Harbor, Lake TahoeSand Harbor Lake Tahoe
And now for some color. These are also from Sand Harbor, one of my favorite places in the world.
Nicci Carrera 