Category Archives: Big Courses

Three Weeks Of The Think Sideways Walkthrough
avatar

Posted on by
3

I forgot. I’ve just been swamped, and I forgot to post here to let folks know that I have three sampler pages from the How To Think Sideways Walkthrough available for everyone to use.

You get the complete content, including audio and downloads, for the first page of each of the following three weeks:

Week One: Break Thinking Barriers

Week Two: Create Your Sweet Spot Map

Week Three: Calling Down Lightning

I think you’ll find these help you work through areas of your writing, from what you can’t get started or keep writing, to how to figure out what to write about, to how to get story ideas when you have NO ideas.

Bracing For The Storm
avatar

Posted on by
8

I’ve been doing HTTS Walkthrough prep and setup all week.

Site set-up, lesson template setup, student set-up.

Today I did workflow setup. Because I’m doing two projects at once, and because one is nonfiction and one is fiction, and because they are inextricably locked together like Siamese twins—and because both are MASSIVE projects, either of which could sink me if I don’t plan well—I built something different.

I made organizer wallpaper for my desktop. I then set up my desktop with all my templates and files and folders either to the side, or right on the spot where I’ll need to use them. Workflow is top to bottom, and left to right.

And Saturday is my day off, dammit. Except for today.

Organizer Wallpaper for Desktop

A bit of organizational coolness against the coming storm. I’ll let you know how it works.

The Last Moon & Sun and the Think Sideways Walkthrough
avatar

Posted on by
7

More than a month after I intended to start, (due to Circumstances Beyond Our Control™), today I’m beginning The Last Moon & Sun…which is not the title of the book, but I have to call it something until I have a real title.

This is not a little project. This is…well, mammoth.

Why?

One: I haven’t written in the series since I finished Book II, The Silver Door, in June of 2008, so I’m going to have to go back and redo my research in the first two novels—but this time I have to look for different things.

Two: I have to toss all of my outlines and plans for the series—I’d carefully planned out seven tightly-woven books. Unfortunately, I have to END the series with book three. Which means I have to come up with a whole new story for the ending.

Three: By the time readers have the chance to buy this book, it will be several years since the previous one. So The Last Moon & Sun cannot be part of the linked sequential series I’d laid out.

It has to answer all the questions I asked in Books 1 and 2…but because of the time gap (caused first by me having no clue how I could end the series in one book, and then me spending all of last year with either family health problems and emergencies, or my own) I now have to REINTRODUCE the questions, so readers who didn’t know Books 1 and 2 existed will still get a complete story in The Last Moon & Sun—while at the same time making sure readers who DID read the first two books will get all the answers they were hoping for, a fresh story that blows them away, and something good to remember when they finish the final page.

What I have to do:

The book is going to need some elbow room. The first two ran about 100,000 words apiece.

I’m aiming for 150,000 words for this one to keep it within bounds, but it may go longer, if I need more than that to tell the story.

I have a huge risk going into this. I don’t have (or want) a contract. I want to be able to do this the way it needs to be done, and that means I don’t want an advance that has to be paid back hanging over my head if the publisher doesn’t like the story I come up with, or doesn’t like the length of the book and wants me to rip out half of it and remove one of the two main characters, for example (because, gee, THAT’s never happened to me before), or wants me to change the story in ways I don’t like.

I’m hoping to write something magnificent, something my editor and publisher will love. I want to absolutely blow their socks off. But if I end up with another Hawkspar situation on my hands, I want to be in the position to say, “Fine, thanks but no thanks.”

This is going to be a challenging ride. Big book, tough development cycle, compressed writing time—the sort of book that will generate a lot of learning experiences for me.

And, if you come along with me, for you.

I’m going to be adding mostly-weekly demonstrations on how I apply the techniques of How To Think Sideways to my own work to the course.

Why mostly-weekly? Because if it takes me longer than a week to work through one section of the process, I don’t want to half-ass the information I put up on that section, and I don’t want to screw up the book. So if it takes more than a week, it takes more than a week. The full lessons are already in there here, and if you get ahead of me, you can drop back to previous lessons to see what I did.

As happens with every book I write, I’ll make some discoveries on how to write better, more richly, more efficiently, more passionately, and more deeply while I’m doing this book. Anything I discover, I’ll pass on to you. Any tools I come up with, any worksheets I create for my own use, any techniques…you’ll get them as I figure them out.

I’ll make time to be on the boards to answer a few questions, to ask a few questions, and to set up some specific discussion topics.

And I’m adding one other thing. Each week that I post my own Walkthrough, I’ll also be offering a one-hour brainstorming session to one student. I’ll record that session and include it in the course so you can see not just how that week’s techniques work for me, and how they might work for you, but how another student can apply them to his or her work—getting that third perspective can be enormously helpful when you’re facing situations you hadn’t anticipated.

Any active HTTS student or course grad will be able to apply for a brainstorming session. (Once you’ve been picked for one, you can’t apply again, though.)

I’ll pick the student whose question and story problem will make what I think will be the best demonstration for that week.

The brainstorming sessions will be free.

Now here’s the thing.

I haven’t raised the price on How To Think Sideways ever. It’s been at its debut price since I opened the doors in 2008 and the first class started through with me.

I didn’t raise the price when the course I thought would take four months to present took six months, and then seven.

I didn’t raise the price when I added the How NOT To Write A Series (And Why You Don’t Want To) course as a graduation gift.

I didn’t raise the price when the private Think Sideways writing community took off and became this amazing place where dedicated writers gather to work, to brainstorm, and to send off and frequently sell what they’ve been writing.

I didn’t raise the price when I added in the core elements of Grad Novel, including a marketing forum and a lot of private development work I did on the currently-sidelined Dreaming the Dead. (The book I’m finishing after I do The Last Moon & Sun.)

But this is going to be a MAJOR upgrade, so I’m going to raise the price.

Through the end of April, you’ll still be able to get into class for $25/ month for 12 months or $47/month for six months. When you join at that price, you’re grandfathered in at that price, and as long as you don’t quit, you stay at that price all the way through to the end of the course.

May 1st, though, prices are going up.

If you’ve been wanting to take How To Think Sideways this is the last time you’ll be able to get it for the introductory price.

I hope you’ll join me on what promises to be a wild charge into the deep, dark thickets of novel writing.

  

Decided to give BOTH courses as scholarships
avatar

Posted on by
1

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.)
  3. 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.
  4. 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
avatar

Posted on by
10

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.

A Video Teaser from HOW TO WRITE A SERIES
avatar

Posted on by
65

I got the video to work. The solution: I took it off WordPress, which was eating the video player code.

Here’s The Video

This is a short excerpt from the beginning of the HOW TO WRITE A SERIES class. I hope you enjoy it.

And in case you were wondering, I drew the mindmap. :D

How To Write A Series is now live
avatar

Posted on by
2

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
avatar

Posted on by
12

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
avatar

Posted on by
3

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. :D

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
avatar

Posted on by
86

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)

      • Lesson will post on Feb. 7th, Live chat will be on Feb. 9th.

  • 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

      • Lesson will post on Feb. 21st, Live chat will be on Feb. 23rd.

  • 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.

      • Lesson will post on Feb. 28th, Q & A will be on March. 2nd.

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.