Writing Life – Page 3 – Nicci Carrera

November 30, 2015November 30, 2015 Nicci Photography, Writing Life

Motivation in writing and San Diego

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.)

SONY DSC — Surfer at Scripps Pier La Jolla

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.

November 20, 2015November 20, 2015 Nicci Photography, Writing Life

Sunny days and writing with passion

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.

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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.

How was your week?

November 11, 2015November 10, 2015 Nicci Photography, Writing Life

Overcoming resistance to a task

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.

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.

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. Saratoga fire station

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 fires tation and a Pepsi truck — 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.

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.

I will be writing. 🙂

November 9, 2015November 9, 2015 Nicci Writing Life

Writing versus retirement

When I was 32, I bought a book called Cashing in on the American Dream, How to Retire at 36. Loved it. Finally a goal that motivated me to be a lot better about money. I was BAD in my 20s. There wasn’t really anything I wanted more than clothes. I lived in San Francisco and I used to say, “I don’t live for clothes…exactly…” LOL! I couldn’t retire at 36 even if I moved to a very inexpensive country, but early retirement was a dream that fostered good savings habits.

Later I bought a book called 101 Ways to Simplify Your Life. I liked all those things too. Or at least, a lot of them. Then later I bought a book called Your Money or Your Life (which I reviewed, just click on the title to find it.) That was awesome for translating time, money, and work into the minutes one has left in one’s life. I doubled-down on my early retirement dream and started tracking my spending with a spreadsheet. Uh huh, bean counter. I know. Actually a manager I had in my first job after college said I was a rare thing, a bean counter and a cheerleader. That’s how we classified the people at the nonprofit where I worked. Cheerleaders were great at fundraising and bean counters were great at administration. I did like both, and still do, but I digress.

The point is, we achieved early retirement. Not at 36! I’m not really good at moving somewhere else. I’m very emotionally bonded and attached to places, not to mention people. So it took longer because I wanted to stay here. But we did finally achieve our goal, and it was pretty early. (Some time between Cashing in on the American Dream, and 101 Ways to Simplify Your Life, I met my husband and retirement became a “we” goal.)

So three days after I achieved that dream, I took up writing again. (I had stopped writing for more than a year after a family tragedy), but three days of no work and I’m back working, this time on writing. And I sold that short story (under the name Nia Simone. It’s called The Last Straw.) Now three years later I have realized I can’t work seven days a week any more or I experience major internal conflict because I’m not enjoying the thing I worked for so hard and longed for and dreamed of…retirement! And I’m not one of those people who thinks retirement is a bad word. I don’t think being lazy is bad. I think they are both great! I want to revel in, roll in, and embrace the joy of not working, or else I start to resent writing.

Yesterday I remembered something from the work model: weekends.

I wrote a lot on Saturday, but on Sunday, I didn’t write. I had a lot of fun. I baked a cake,

Pumpkin bundt cake results, little wedge missing

made soup, cleaned the house, read a book, and did some writing related stuff but for friends, not my stuff, and it was so fun.

What do you do on the weekends? If you are retired, do you have a routine that is a little like the work week?

Here is the proof that I had fun yesterday, and a photo of the sky to show you why I didn’t go outside much.

Storm clouds — Californians are very very grateful to Alaska for sending us a storm

November 6, 2015November 6, 2015 Nicci Photography, Writing Life

Fun Friday

A friend of mine did something awesome for me yesterday. Thursday is a regular get-together for some of us who retired from or just left our former company. One of the folks, in celebration of the International Digital Awards fourth place in Contemporary Novels category earned by Love Caters All.

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.

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.

What are your plans this weekend?

November 2, 2015 Nicci California Drought, Writing Life

Chronicles of the #CaliforniaDrought 7 and National Novel Writing Month

Great news! We don’t have to drink eight glasses of water a day.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/upshot/no-you-do-not-have-to-drink-8-glasses-of-water-a-day.html?emc=edit_au_20150824&nl=afternoonupdate&nlid=18605385&abt=0002&abg=0

That should help with the drought, not to mention that water-logged feeling that drinking way more water than we really want causes, at least for me! Plus, our water is tasting like, for lack of a better word, mud.

Even better news, it poured rain for five and a half hours here this morning. Poured. And it’s snowing in the Sierras. I hope the lake level starts to rise.

Here is the photo I sent in for Leanne Cole’s Monochrome Madness challenge this week. The subject is clouds. This is a cloudy day in Squaw Valley, which is near Lake Tahoe. I took this photo in August 2014, and just made it monochrome for the challenge.

Mountains in cloud — Squaw Valley California

The National Weather Service had a long video about the effects of El Nino, and the conclusion was inconclusive. Apparently, the warm waters off the US western coast do not guarantee a lot of precipitation, BUT, things are looking very positive with this storm. Maybe the “storm door” has opened? We received about .75 inch of rain. I think 17 is California’s normal average. With the drought it has been down around 5, so that gives you some perspective.

I can’t complain about the rain stopping right when I had to venture outside today to meet writing friends for a birthday lunch and writing session. Lucky me!

It’s National Novel Writing Month. If you are a writer, sign up. It’s awesome. For example, here’s something from the Inspiration tab:

Writing stories is hard work. Don’t let your friends or family tell you any different. From the outside, it looks like sporadic tapping on the keyboard, distracted sips of coffee, and long stares out the window. But inside, you’re wrestling demons.

Gene Luen Yang, an author and artist whose graphic novels include American Born Chinese, Boxers & Saints, and The Shadow Hero.

This is the first time I’ve officially done NaNo, signed up and everything, yet two times I’ve written 50k in November with my co-author, John Holland. (We have written a middle-grade fantasy novel and a sci-fi novel together.) So why not just sign up already? This year I did it. It’s not hard at all to sign up and figure it out, and you can have buddies. It’s fun.

Do you have any major goals that you are working on this month?

October 21, 2015October 21, 2015 Nicci Writing Life

Overcoming career limiting behavior, #amwriting

It’s Wednesday. That means I owe you a blog post! Well I am hot on the heels of a new story idea and it’s big, really big. I’m so excited. So I’m going to repost a blog post where I was featured. The series is Authors Bare All on Casi McLean’s website, and I reveal more behind-the-scenes stuff about the writer’s life, but what I found really interesting were the responses of other authors.

http://casimclean.com/authors-bare-all/nicci-carrera-featured-author/

Along the same lines, in terms of tips, my new metrics tool has been helping me learn what the majority of you like, so I plan to do more tips from the project management treasure trove. I’ll cover metrics for writers in my next PM post.

Speaking of which, I received a recruitment email for a consulting job in my former field, the first offer since early retirement that has interested me, so I stated outrageous requirements. If they want to meet my demands, I might do a short-term project to make some money to support this writing habit. But it is unlikely, unless they are really desperate. If it happens I’ll just work a little. Don’t worry, I’ll still blog, take photos, write, and, most importantly of all, talk to you.

Here are some of my favorite recent photos for your enjoyment.

Happy Hump Day.

October 14, 2015 Nicci Writing Life

The dependency chain and the next step in my publishing process

Check it off! I received the executed contract, which triggered the blurb and cover information tasks. I did those yesterday, and now the edits begin. I still have time to work on other things because the editor has to do her editing, then I’ll have to do everything she tells me to do, LOL.

Dependency chain

A dependency chain shows tasks that depend on something else before they can start. Sometimes the dependencies march along in single file, like in the case of writing a book, which is wonderful. Sometimes they are a lot more complex, like when I was a project manager for documentation for a large software integration project. With writing, the promo phase is going to be more complex than the book-creation part, but not as complex as my former day job.

Up at the top of the chart, where the projects lie, are things that will be checked off. I don’t check off the operations or I’d be making new sheets of paper every day. If you have not yet run screaming from this series, you may remember for operations I had daily, monthly and as-needed columns containing check boxes next to the tasks. I don’t actually check those off for operations, just the projects. That way the paper only will need to be changed once in a while. Projects last a while, so I’ll probably only have to change the paper every two or three months.

It is hump day. How is your week going?

Here is a photo of someone who knows how to enjoy life.

Person watching the sunset in Monterey California — Enjoy life

And one of my favorites from my photography day in San Francisco.

Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco — Palace of Fine Arts

I was in downtown Campbell for lunch today and took another picture of the water tower. I liked the sky today. In our part of the world, the weather is having a hard time realizing it is supposed to be fall. It’s so warm, it might as well be summer. Having a few clouds is unusual for summer, though, so I took it as a sign that the seasons might change soon.

Are you planning to do anything fun this weekend?

October 9, 2015October 10, 2015 Nicci Writing Life

Overcoming work overwhelm

Do you have the problem of feeling overwhelmed? I think one cause of that feeling is when the stack of stuff we have to do is too big for our minds. The average stack of things we can keep track of in our heads is about seven. We can make lists. Those work really well. But what about when a project has a deadline, and you have to focus on it to the exclusion of almost everything else?

In a way having to focus on just one project is a relief. You know what you have to do every day when you get up: work on that project and go as fast as you can. Ignore everything that can be neglected.

Then the project is done and you feel a rush of relief. Almost immediately, though, all the little stuff rushes in. Part of what makes projects satisfying is you have that sense of completion, whereas with day-to-day stuff, you’ve worked hard, but you have no sense of completion.

It’s crazy-making.

Putting everything on To Do lists is good, but have you ever had that sense that you’re missing the big picture or something important?

I decided to put what I have to do on a big piece of butcher block paper.

SONY DSC

Note: Mr. Sketch are scented pens, which are key!

One of the basic things I learned as a project manager was the difference between projects and operations. Projects have a beginning, middle, and end. Operations are ongoing activities you need to do for the business. I found remembering the difference between projects and operations to be a huge help.

In the midst of a project, you still need to keep those operations going. When you finish a project you need to see all the other ones that are waiting (and going cold). Or, if you have time to work on multiple projects at once, when you finish working on one during the day, you can glance at your list of projects and quickly get back on task with the highest priority one.

On my butcher block paper, all projects are in one color at the top of my paper. The operational stuff is in another color at the bottom. Every morning I walk into that room and look through it all then plan my day.

I think this technique will help me not forget projects or stop doing the day-to-day stuff that keeps things going. I will report back and let you know how it is working.

I am excited about this big-picture technique because I am tired of doing well for a while, then having to focus on a critical project or going on vacation and then losing track of all my good daily habits and forgetting smaller unfinished projects.

Do you feel overwhelmed? How do you keep track of all the things you have to do? Does the idea of separating out projects from operations make things easier to plan?

Now for some fun. I’m really good at making time for that! I am thinking of sending one of these monochrome photos in for Leanne Cole’s Monochrome Madness. These were the four I processed. I think with the Monochrome challenge, it’s okay to use a single color. Someone did it last week and it was amazing. I just tried it on a photo from Paris. Anyway, which of these do you think I should submit, if any?

Diagram of projects and maintenance — New York

October 7, 2015October 7, 2015 Nicci Photography, Writing Life

Writing life, the next level

My critique partner shared this story with me: http://www.theplayerstribune.com/matt-duffy-giants-dad-photo-gallery/ This is a baseball story and a very inspiring one. Also, for photography fans, it’s a gorgeously photographed chronicle. From birth to the major leagues, Dad (Tom Duffy) photographed his son (San Francisco Giants, Matt Duffy) playing baseball. He said:

To see a big league stadium with 40,000 fans there supporting him was both surreal and incredible. You see, while he was growing up through the game of baseball, Matt and I never once discussed making it to the big leagues. We continually kept our eyes on a much smaller prize: getting to the next level.

Emphasis mine. I love the thought of not focusing on the big time but just on what’s next for you. It made me ask myself what is the next level for me? That is an exciting thing to focus on compared to trying to imagine a big dream that just feels overwhelming. I have a little announcement to make. I just now received the contract from The Wild Rose Press for Third Strike’s the Charm. Talk about the next level; this book really is that for me.

I went out to take pictures early the other day and had a lot of fun but was disappointed when I looked at the results. They weren’t interesting. My husband helped me analyze why, look at other photos that are interesting, and create a plan for going back and shooting the same place again. I’m happier with the results.

In addition to writing, I’m focusing on learning and getting to the next level of amateur photography, and that’s what’s exciting. With photography I really don’t have goals, other than to take interesting and exciting photos for my blog. With writing I do have dreams, of course I do, and when I make sure that dream is writing increasingly good books, the journey is a joy.