How To Revise Your Novel | Holly Lisle: Official Author Homepage

The Apple iBooks Author Issue: Small things, and large principles

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Holly

The short version: I have removed my books from sale on iBookstore because Apple has included a clause in software I don’t use and wouldn’t have used anyway a clause claiming the right to refuse publication on its platform of works created with this software (which is fine and I applaud their right) and further stating that if they reject your work you cannot sell it in the format the software created anywhere else.

THE LONG VERSION:

Here’s the clause:

B. Distribution of your Work. As a condition of this License and provided you are in compliance with its terms, your Work may be distributed as follows:

(i) if your Work is provided for free (at no charge), you may distribute the Work by any available means;
(ii) if your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions: (a) you will be required to enter into a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary) before any commercial distribution of your Work may take place; and (b) Apple may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.

And then the next paragraph is bold-faced, just so you don’t miss it:

Apple will not be responsible for any costs, expenses, damages, losses (including
without limitation lost business opportunities or lost profits) or other liabilities you may incur as a result of your use of this Apple Software, including without limitation the fact that your Work may not be selected for distribution by Apple.

Here’s the guy who found, dissected, and posted about it, along with his dissection, and it will save us a BUNCH of time if you read his article.

So what’s the problem? You’re not going to use the damn software anyway!

Nope. I’m not. But I had ten books up on the iBookstore, which I put there using iTunes Producer, which is software. I do my epub versions of most of my books in iWorks Pages, which is software. And I work on Apple computers, an iPad, and an iPhone, all of which use Apple software. OS X and iOS 5 at the moment.

And the rule of software is this: Software does not get to dictate the use of output. Period. Software does not get to tell you WHERE you can sell what you’ve created, only that you have the right to sell it (in the cases where software requires a commercial license if you are producing for profit).

Software does not get to tell you, “If you create this work on our software and we don’t want to distribute it, we own the rights to the version our software created, and if you want another version, you will have to disassemble this one, and rebuild it from scratch on other software.”

The purpose of purchasing and/or using software is to make your work easier.

It is not to have the software claim ownership of any part of what you have created with it.

There is no difference—except in number of people affected—between a company claiming ownership of the rights to something you created with its ebook publisher, and something you created with its OS.

The principle is identical.

(Apple is not claiming to own rights to your work if you work on OS X. My removal of my own work from their site is on principle, not because my own work is affected.)

And there is no number of people affected that is insignificant. The smallest minority is the individual, and minority rights protect the rights of the individual because those are the only rights there are.

So THAT is why I pulled all my books from distribution on the iBookstore, why none of my further books or any of my writing courses will be going to the iBookstore, and why I can no longer recommend the iBookstore to my students.

And this in spite of the fact that Apple makes my favorite products in the world, and I hate like hell having to do this.

And if they remove their damn clause and respect the purpose of creative software and the rights of the individual, I’ll go back.

COMMENTS have now been closed on this post. Please read the follow-up post, and if you choose, comment there.

A pic from my office: My path-to-freedom workboard

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Holly

What I have to do to retire from teaching

My office workboard, now with what is probably going to be a two-year checklist in place.

If you’ve taken any of my courses (or read some of my more detail-oriented posts, you’ll recognize me as big on goal-setting, getting a plan in place, and making sure it’s where you can see it.

So the day before yesterday, I erased all the short-term stuff off my office workboard, and put up my BIG goal, which is to retire from teaching inside of two years so I can write JUST my fiction again.

And I put up the steps on how I’ll accomplish this, in order, and with checkboxes.

I love checkboxes.

They’re physical proof of progress. Sitting there blank, they’re a reminder of a step to be taken. Checked, they’re a square on the game board you’ve now covered.

I don’t know how you organize goals, but on the MACRO level, this is how I do mine. On the micro level, I have a notebook I carry with me all the time, in which I keep lists of the small steps that help me accomplish the big steps. I’m pretty close to finishing the first of the four Self-Pub lessons. I’ll check that off on the little list, then make a check on the board when all four are finished.

How do you get from where you are to where YOU want to be?

Oh. By the way, CD II and CD III on the right are shorthand for Cadence Drake 2: Warpaint, and Cadence Drake 3: The List of Three (working title). So my list does include the completion of two novels along with all the rest of the work on the board.

Answers to the Eleven Big ‘I’m Quitting Teaching’ Questions

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Holly

Think of this as the "I'm Quitting Teaching" FAQ

I was overwhelmed by the number of responses to my 51st birthday post and the announcement I made about quitting teaching. In those responses, I ran across ten questions that needed a response everyone could read, and I realized there was one question no one had asked, but that desperately needed an answer.

So I’ve answered these BIG questions below.

THE ANSWER TO THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION NO ONE ASKED:

What can I do as a student or graduate of one of your big courses (HTTS, HTRYN, HTWAS) do to make sure I don’t get left behind during the upcoming transitions?

Log into your account for EACH course in which you’re a student, go into your Profile on your student page, and do the following:

Make sure your e-mail address is correct and that it’s an address you check regularly,
Make sure it is exactly the same e-mail address in each course you’re taking (so you don’t get locked out of the forum)
Scroll all the way to the bottom of your profile, and make SURE you have checked the box beside Receive Critical Updates.

If you are not getting critical updates, you stand a HUGE chance of missing the announcements that will move you from the existing course platform to the new one, and if you miss the move, you’ll lose your downloads and access to the forum. I’ll give plenty of warning, but there are a huge number of students who are NOT subscribed to critical updates, who don’t visit the forum regularly, and who, having graduated, don’t visit their student pages often.

So if you’re a grad or an existing student, do this now, before you forget.

(These links are for existing students only. They are not registration pages for new students.)

If you don’t remember your login information, please create a support ticket at http://novelwritingschool.com/support and ask me to help you.

QUESTION ONE:

I’m a graduate or a current student in one or more of the following courses:

How to Think Sideways

How To Revise Your Novel

How to Write a Series (stand-alone version)

Will my lessons and extras continue to be available when you lock the course to new students, or do I need to download everything now?

All your materials will remain available, AND you’ll continue to be a full, permanent member of the Boot Camp Writers’ Community on all your course boards.

QUESTION TWO:

I’ve purchased one or more courses from Shop.HollyLisle.com. Will those continue to be available for re-download after you close the shop permanently?

No. If you have all your copies intact, burn them to a backup disk now. If your hard drive has eaten courses you’ve purchased and you need to get backups before I close the shop, log into your account at http://Shop.HollyLisle.com (the login is in the top left corner) and re-download whatever you’re missing. Burn your copies to a backup disk.

When I close the shop, ALL my smaller courses will be available on Kindle, Nook and iTunes, or as print books on Amazon.com and elsewhere. However, if you lose your existing copies, you will have to re-buy them, because my old database will not have any connection with the big platforms, and I won’t be able to issue free copies.

If you have lost your account login information, create a support ticket at: http://novelwritingschool.com/support and ask me to help you get back into your HollyShop account.

QUESTION THREE:

J.A. Konrath is just now opening his writing shop. Why are you closing yours?

Because everything that involves the exchange of money on my site ALSO involves doing customer service. I do my own because I want it done the way I want it done, I’m a perfectionist and a big pain in the ass in making sure my people (customers AND employees) are treated right, and it was my horrified experience that when I hired someone to cover some of my customer service for me, people knew they weren’t dealing with me, and regularly treated my helper like shit.

When people treat ME like shit, I politely help them get their problem solved, then request that they don’t buy anything else from me. My helper couldn’t do that. I refuse to subject anyone else to the sort of abuse my helper took on my behalf, however.

I ALSO refuse to use a third-party customer service option, though, because my own experiences as a customer with those options have been awful. So I handle all problems myself. And even though I rarely receive abusive treatment from a customer, when I do, it screws up my day.

And doing customer service, even when working with the kind and understanding folks I usually deal with, is exhausting, time-consuming, and it draws focus from my ability to create.

So I’m moving EVERYTHING that involves the exchange of money to sites that will not only collect the money for the courses I create and then send it to me, but that will do customer service on what they sell.

It’s worth it to me to have my students get my courses from platforms that are dedicated to making everything work right on every sale, every time—and I’m willing to pay the 30-ish% fee to sell on those sites to have that happen.

If J.A. Konrath is doing his own customer service, I wish him luck—it’s going to bite his writing time. If he’s hired a friend or fan to do it for him, I wish his helper luck—many customers will not treat his helper with the kindness or respect they’d use in dealing with him personally. If he’s farming customer service out to some third-party customer service solution, I wish his customers luck. I have found NO happy solution to customer service, but third-party is the worst solution.

QUESTION FOUR:

(The four-week version of) How to Write a Series is the bonus gift for How To Revise Your Novel. Will Revise Your Novel students be able to get the upgrades to the full, stand-alone version of How to Write A Series? Or is there a discount for HTRYN students to move to the full version?

The four-week version is a solid course in its own right, and a good freebie for How To Revise Your Novel. But ONLY students of the full stand-alone version will receive the updates and the extended version.

There’s a discount for both HTRYN and HTTS students and grads. I’m not sure if I have it posted in the HTRYN course yet (I thought I did), but if I don’t, I’ll make sure to make the discount for upgrading to the stand-alone version available in the next couple of weeks.

QUESTION FIVE:

I’ve been saving money for one of your big courses, but I haven’t saved up enough yet.

If I can’t join the course before you close the doors, is that course just gone forever?

NO! ALL of my courses will continue to be available somewhere and in some form.

(When I said I’m not abandoning my students, I include FUTURE students in that statement.)

A LOT of folks missed this.

How To Think Sideways, How To Revise Your Novel, and How To Write A Series are going to be available for Kindle, Nook, iPad (if I can work out some problematic linking issues) and where possible, as print versions.

Let me go into a bit more detail on this:

If you don’t have a Kindle, you can get the free Kindle app for your computer and get your lessons that way.
If you don’t have a computer, you can get the Kindle app for your iPhone or Android phone, and get the lessons THAT way.
If you just hate Amazon, you can get the NOOK app, and get your lessons THAT way.
And at least for How to Think Sideways and How to Revise Your Novel, you’ll be able to buy lessons in print, though because of paper and printing, these will be more expensive than the e-versions. (And because the courses run about 250,000 words, and 150,000 words respectively, not including handouts, you’re committing to some serious shelf space.)
How to Write A Series, because of its format, may only be available as individual lesson DVDs.

Each lesson will be available separately, (meaning that students can buy them as you can afford them and take them at your own pace) and will include both:

A link for free worksheet and handout downloads, and…
A sign-up link for the Boot Camp Writers’ Community for either a small monthly fee, or a one-time permanent membership.

QUESTION SIX:

Will you be finishing any of the other courses you’ve discussed or surveyed for or said you’d like to create?

No. I’ve had hundreds of course ideas. They’re scattered across my hard drive like a giant guilty conscience, and I’ll be deleting the ideas as I trip over them.

I want my fiction. I want clarity, and breathing room, and to pursue the stories that are scattered in bits and pieces across my hard drive like a garden full of flowers waiting to bloom.

I’ll refine my existing courses and transfer them to the big platforms. I’ll finish Create A World Clinic because only about seven zillion people have asked me to, and it really is SUCH a cool series of techniques.

And that’s it.

Me. Novels. Short story collections. A couple of truly weird fiction ideas agents and editors kept shooting down that I’ll now do. That’s my future.

QUESTION SEVEN:

Has Cadence [Drake] ever done anything like this [complete priority shift]?

I laughed when I read this…but then realization slammed me across the nose.

In what is currently Chapter Four of the first draft of Cadence Drake 2: Warpaint, written a few days BEFORE I made this decision, Cady does exactly this.

Exactly.

And now I’m giving my Muse, my subconscious mind, a fishy eye and muttering, “Okay, so when did you know I was going to make this change, you sneaky bastid?”

QUESTION EIGHT:

When is How to Write a Series available? And is it really that much different from How to Think Sideways?

Okay. Let me just do the existing course rundown here.

All three courses, How to Think Sideways, How to Revise Your Novel, and How to Write a Series, are stand-alone courses.

Each covers its own subject matter, its own techniques, and its own objectives.

How to Think Sideways is my course on how to have the ideas, use them, and create the stories from them that will allow you to write novels (or screenplays, or short stories, or whatever form of fiction floats your boat) for the rest of your life.

How to Revise Your Novel is my course on how to get the book you want from whatever wreck your first draft turned into in ONE revision, and make it the book you dreamed it would be, so you can move on to writing your next book.

And How to Write A Series is how to create the characters and the stories that will allow you to write exactly the series you envision, in exactly the number of books you desire, and have each book be stronger and more compelling than the one before it—and how to end it how you want it and still thrill your readers.

There’s some unavoidable crossover in a couple of very basic writing techniques, but the main course subject matter does not overlap.

My rule on courses has always been that no one will ever by a course from me, buy another course, and find that he or she has just paid for the same damn information, written in different words. I’ve bought those recycled crap courses from other people, they pissed me off, and I swore I would never treat people that way.

That goes for my little courses as well as my big ones. If you want the details on how to create a character, for example, the ONLY place you’ll find those details is in Create A Character Clinic.

And finally, ALL my courses except for the upcoming Create A World Clinic are already available.

QUESTION NINE:

Will all the writing stuff on your website still be available?

Of course! Do you know how many years I’ve been adding to that stuff? There are articles in the writing section that were actually print articles I did for the little writers’ group newsletter I used to send out back when I was still in Schrodinger’s Petshop, before anyone but scientists had even heard of the internet. 1989-1990…somewhere around there.

I’ll still add the occasional writing article to the site as I feel like it. I know me, and sooner or later I’ll have something new to say about writing, and I won’t be able to keep it to myself.

The writing newsletter now has 52 articles in it. One full year of once-a-week tips. It will remain a free resource on the site, and again, if I get froggy, I may add to it. Even if I don’t add new tips, if you stay on it, I’ll make sure to send you links to any new articles I write.

QUESTION TEN:

You’re not still using Word, are you?!?!

Oh, God, no! Not for years. I use Scrivener and Pages, and I have Open Office on my computers but have to confess OO is really only there so when I’m talking to the Windows crowd, I can offer something that I know works.

I just checked, and discovered that I don’t actually have any Microsoft stuff on my computers anymore. Lot of Adobe, lot of indie stuff.

Not sure when the last of Microsoft went away, but I think it’s kind of telling that I didn’t notice is was gone until today.

WHAT DID I MISS?

These were the ten big questions I found, plus the one nobody asked. But over the next few days, I’ll check in here as I can and answer as much of what I missed as I can.

And thank you, thank you, thank you.

I had tears in my eyes reading your responses to my 51st birthday post. I have always maintained that it has been my privilege to hang out with the best people on the internet, and that was proven again with your replies to my post.

But now, ONWARD!

We’re going to have some fun, and we’re going to create wonderful things. Today, tomorrow, for the rest of our lives.

Decided to give BOTH courses as scholarships

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Holly

Quick note:

I’ve decided I’ll give anyone who buys Jeff Walker’s product creation and launch course through my link scholarships for BOTH the How To Think Sideways novel-writing course, and the How To Revise Your Novel course.

If you buy through my link, you get Think Sideways AND Revise Your Novel.

The course goes live at 2 P.M. EST today.
(But you can still sign up now and get the “We’re live” notice directly from Jeff. It’ll still count.)

To get both courses:

Purchase Jeff’s course through my link. You’ll get a sales receipt, I’ll have that sales receipt number, and that’s how you’ll validate your scholarships.
You have to graduate Walker’s course—you can’t drop out and request a refund. If you do, you’ll lose both scholarships. (Though of course you’ll still be able to save and use any lessons you received before you quit.)
If you already have either of my courses (or both of them), you can designate ONE person who can either take the one you aren’t going to use yourself, or designate that person to take BOTH of them.
You cannot split your scholarships between TWO other people.

I explained more about why I’m offering scholarships, and more about Jeff’s course and why I recommend it in the Full-Ride Scholarships post.

Finally, here is my link if you’re interested:

http://hollylisle.net/courses/Jeff-live

Full-Ride Scholarships for Think Sidways and Revise Your Novel

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Holly

I have recommended Jeff Walker in the past for writers who need to know how to self-promote and how to create income to pay for their writing—he taught me, and changed my life in doing so.

He has a new class coming up.

But the price can be steep (depending on who you are). When I bought it, I had to do so on the payment plan, and we had to divert money from other things so I could do that. It was the best investment I ever made, but making it was still tough.

I think the course is so important—if you actually use it—that if you take it, and buy through my link, and stay in class, I’ll furnish you with a full scholarship to either of my flagship courses: How To Think Sideways, or How To Revise Your Novel.

Writers who do this will that way get both the knowledge to write (or if you’ve already written, to revise) your work into the best stories you can tell—and you’ll know how to promote it. And a WHOLE lot more.

Even if you don’t take the course, you can get an amazing amount of information free from Jeff simply for signing up for the free videos, blueprints, case studies, and other things he’s giving away.

This is my link. Go sign up, see what he’s offering.

There’s no commitment and he won’t spam you. Jeff Walker is my personal exemplar of integrity on the internet.

NOTICE: Jeff asked me this year to be an affiliate. I accepted. Why? Because this course changed my life; made it possible for me to stop cringing when the phone rang because my publisher was six months overdue paying me and the credit card companies were calling; put me in control of my writing career.

My rule for recommending courses is this: I only recommend things I have paid full price for, that I have used myself, and that I have had success with greater than the price I paid for the course. I make no exceptions no this rule.

Use this link to investigate his course, and, if you purchase and stay, to get a scholarship to either of my two big courses.

How To Write A Series is now live

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Holly

This is later than I’d planned—this week held a couple
of difficult surprises.

But I worked through the weekend, and the first part of the stand-alone version of How To Write A Series is now available.

If you don’t know the 192 types of series, or when to use them…
If you want to avoid breaking your series by skipping critical limitations…
If you need to know how to design a skeleton world before you start writing…
If you are unfamiliar with the Rule Of Significance and why your series lives and dies by it…
And much, much more…

You can now start the four-week intensive course, and be working on your first lesson in about five minutes.

Please remember that by joining now you’ll be part of the first class to go through, and I’m creating the course just ahead of you as you’re taking it, so things like transcripts and low bandwidth downloads will take a few days to show up.

Anything that’s still in the works is marked PENDING.

The How To Write A Series Course is here:
http://novelwritingschool.com/courses

I hope you enjoy this course as much as I’m enjoying creating it.

Cheerfully,
Holly

P.S. If you’re a How To Revise student, you’ll receive the course as a free graduation gift.

If you’d rather take How To Write A Series when you graduate
from How To Revise Your Novel, and you’re not already a
student, you can sign up here:

http://howtoreviseyournovel.com

P.P.S. If you’ve already graduated from HTRYN, you can start
the course now. Look in Bonus-1 on your student page.

Here’s your login link:

http://howtoreviseyournovel.com/login.php

Update, and moving on

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Holly

I want to thank everyone who e-mailed me or posted here offering condolences on the closing of Rebel Tales. And I’d like to reassure folks who were concerned that my closing Rebel Tales meant Kirsten Anderson/Kate Ferreri/whateverthehell-her-name-really-is had somehow “won” that they need not worry. She hasn’t won anything.

At the point where I discovered I had created something that could be badly misused, by discovering someone who had already misused it, I had two choices. I could pretend it could never happen again, or I could face the truth that if it had happened once, it WOULD happen again.

Yes, closing Rebel Tales is a huge loss for me in many ways, both financially and in terms of losing something I loved. It is a heartbreaking blow for the editors I actually did choose and for the writers they chose— though as I write this, there is a possibility some good may still come from this for them, anyway.

But if I decided to preserve my investment rather than my integrity, I wouldn’t be worth much as a human being.

I made the human choice. The moral choice. Not the dollars-and-cents choice. I closed Rebel Tales because it was the right thing to do.

I spent yesterday in a sick-to-my-stomach blue funk. I shed my tears. I’m done with that.

Now I’m moving on.

I still have fallout to deal with in terms of working to prevent Kirsten Anderson/ Kate Ferreri from profiting from her actions.

But I have a couple of promised courses to deliver, and a book to write, and deadlines to meet. I hope to be able to put the stand-alone version of How To Write Your Series on sale tomorrow.

My final word on this?

Life kicks you. So what? If it doesn’t kill you, you stand up and get back to living.

Bonus pages up in How To Revise Your Novel

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Holly

The course isn’t up. The course isn’t done.

But if you want to take an early peek (and if you’re a Revise Your Novel student and have already reached Lesson 23/Bonus 1 in the course) you can also see the test movie I have up.

Just log in, click on the Bonus 1 page, and scroll to the link on the bottom.

It uses a tiny segment of the actual course, but a pretty cool one.

Monday I’ll open the doors for new students on NovelWritingSchool.com. Monday, I’ll also post real lesson as they’re completed in the How To Revise Your Novel classroom.

TRANSCRIPTS WILL NOT BE READY!

As with my other big courses, the first students through will be able to download transcripts, worksheets, mindmaps, videos, and so on as I complete them, but because I’m creating the course as you’re taking it, everything arrives piecemeal.

Courses, classes, and novel for 2011

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Holly

So…I’ve been MIA for a bit more than two months.

I’m back now, and ready to get down to the cool stuff, but before I get to that, here’s where I’ve been, and why:

After losing just about six months last year to constant migraines, vertigo, and there for a while the dread that I was going to drop dead any minute, I took time off from all my work except for answering customer service e-mails. I was off from December 17th to January 10th. Which is why there were no writing diary posts, no regular e-mails, and nothing else from me.

During that time, I didn’t have a single migraine, I only had one regular headache, and I had no vertigo. And I thought, cool. Rest fixed it. I’m all better.

Within two days of getting back to work, I was having migraines again. Every day. My second week back to work, the vertigo came back. Granted, I was doing taxes, dealing with a massive software glitch on one of my sites and world’s worst customer service, and updating websites, and it was frustrating, exhausting, and—except for spiffing up the sites, which was fun—it sucked.

But it had to be done, so I gritted my teeth and did it.

It demonstrated something I’d started to suspect when my vacation cured the migraines and vertigo, though. I can’t prove causation, but I have a strong enough correlation to think the migraines and the vertigo are both work-and-stress induced.

But a girl’s gotta eat. And if you wanna eat—at least in the world of the self-employed—you gotta work.

Enough background. Move to what’s cool.

I put together my schedule for the year, and did everything I could to make it sane, livable, cool, and fun for myself, while allowing me to fulfill promises I made last year before my life went south on me. My main objective in this is to create wonderful things while not living in daily pain—but I hope what I have planned will be fun for you, too.

So here’s my 2011.

January.

Educational, but already gone, eaten alive by income tax prep and upgrading websites. Taxes are done, websites not so much. Such is life.

February.

Starting today, actually. I’m doing the new stand-alone course How To Write A Series (which will also be the free graduation bonus for How To Revise Your Novel students who complete the course).

Week 1: Fundamentals
- The 192 different types of series (yes, really—there are 192, and you’ll learn to identify every single one
- How to make sense of them
- How to choose the series type that’s right for you
- Designing your series (It’s going to be a busy week)
Week 2: Writing Your First Book
- Presenting your characters
- Establishing your world
- Using your limitations
- Controlling your story
- Bringing in your ending
~~Lesson will post on Feb. 14th, Live chat will be on Feb. 16th.~~
Week 3: Maintaining Your Series
- Tracking and connecting your stories
- Developing and using timelines and other series tools
- Planning and writing follow-up novels
- Designing a bullet-proof exit strategy
Live discussion: Q & A
- If you’ve taken the course as I’m creating it, you can buy one of a limited number of tickets to attend the live session after Lesson 4 with me where I’ll answer questions on your series and brainstorm with you, or…
- You can send your questions to me beforehand at a special e-mail address, and I’ll answer the best of them during the same live session.
- Either way, every student will have access to the video and transcript of the Week 4 Q & A, which I’ll post to your student page as quickly as possible after the live session.

IMPORTANT: The How To Write A Series course has ONLY one live Q&A at the very end of the course.

The HTTS Walkthough has weekly live chats. I wrote this post sometime after 1 a.m. this morning, I had been working since eight in the morning, and I got the details of the two courses mixed up. I apologize for the error.

The stand-alone price for the four-week course will be $97, and will include mindmap, lessons, videos of techniques I use while prepping to write Book III of the Moon & Sun series (with transcripts), step-by-step instructions, my own proven system for keeping a series tight and not letting quality degrade with subsequent books, series worksheets, the course completion Q & A, and more.

If you receive the course as your graduation gift for completing How To Revise Your Novel, it is, of course, free.

March

Starting March 7th, I’ll begin creating content for the first month of the long-awaited, long-delayed How To Think Sideways Walkthrough. There’s been a lot of speculation about the Walkthrough. So here’s what it it, and how it will work.

I have to get the third book of the Moon & Sun series done this year. The kids who want to read it have waited too long already. So for the walkthrough, I’m going week by week through my own Think Sideways process, building Book III while I document what I’m doing and why. Documentation will take the form of notes, screen shots, new Technique videos (with transcripts), and pdf mini-lessons where I think they’ll add value and give you something new and useful. (I learn something with every book I write. I don’t know what I’ll learn this time, but when I learn it, so will you.)

Each week I’ll also offer a VERY space-limited, first-come, first-serve video session where I’ll take questions from students about problems they’re having with that week’s lesson in relation to their current project, and I’ll use a whiteboard to brainstorm directions they can take with problems that are stalling their stories. There will be an additional charge for the live session. ALL students will receive these videos (plus MP3s and PDF transcripts) as part of their course, as quickly as I can upload each. (TRANSCRIPTS TAKE LONGER. I have to pay someone to do them, and the person I hire has to do each one by hand.)

Either way, you’ll learn how to troubleshoot problems with your story by seeing it done live, and hearing the back-and-forth discussion between the students in the live session and me.

Current students, students who join How To Think Sideways before March 1st, and course grads will all receive the walkthrough at no extra charge. The price of How To Think Sideways will go up on March 11th, when I upload the first new material, to reflect the added content. All students who join the course on March 11th or later will pay the new price.

April – September

The HTTS walkthrough, writing Moon & Sun Book 3, revising Book III, and sending it off to my agent.

October

Start the loooong-delayed Holly Lisle’s Create A World Clinic.

November

Finish Create A World Clinic and make it available through Novel-Writing School, and via Kindle, iBook, and Nook.

December

Off. I’m going to need it.

January 2012

Tax prep. Oh goodie.

…After that…

I’ll surprise you. I have some things already on the calendar. But it’s not full, so I’ll surprise me, too.

But THAT’S NOT ALL…

Because Rebel Tales now has full editors who have their full season guidelines posted, we’re now open for story submissions in a BIG way. Writers, I’ve made resources easier to find, and have made the query desk one clink from any page on the main site.

WE WANT STORIES!

Join us in our quest to create a great new serialzine while bringing back the midlist, and to create writers who are making a living from their writing while writing great stories.

Ask questions here, let me know what you think.

I’m not dead. I’m doing taxes.

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Holly

Pretty much the same thing, right?

I have news, I have course announcements, and I have other things—but those all have to wait until the tax stuff is done.

I’ll try to post all the good stuff here on February 1st.

Until then, I’m singing

Eleven months out of the year
It’s fun to be self-employed
And when I am done with my taxes
I’m going to be overjoyed.

Give back,
Give back,
Give back my money to me-e-e,
Give back,
Give back,
Oh, give back my money to me.

Sung to the tune “My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean…”

Feh. I’ll see you February 1st. Before then, if I (hah!) get done early. But this is like shovelling out the Agean stables, so don’t hold your breath.

Feel free to add extra verses to my song. Misery shared may not be halved, but at least we can get a laugh out of it.