I have beta testers going through a free plot-outline course (a major upgrade on the current version done via e-mail on THIS site). We’re finding bugs and getting them out of the way now. Once we get the bugs out, this will go live for EVERYONE, well before November. Probably next week. I’ll post here with a link when it does.

I’ll have some of the simpler existing courses ready for you in November, and will gradually build out until all of my courses and existing freebies are transferred to the new school—and then I’ll start adding new courses.

The reason? Site maintenance on a bunch of different platforms and at a bunch of different domains has become too much for me to handle. So Holly Lisle’s Novel-Writing School will free me up to concentrate on course building, NOT web work.

Handouts and other things that will be included will have to wait until next week, along with the fourth video, which I ran out of time on today.

I applied some sideways thinking, and reshot the video from scratch this morning. Shooting took around 23 minutes. (I talked a bit more this time). Post production took…about 30 minutes.

And I am uploading Section I right now, so that it will be available TODAY to all Think Sideways grads, and to all current Think Sideways students who are on Lesson 5 or higher. (If you’re just starting, you’ll get “How To Motivate Yourself” when you reach Lesson 5, and will receive each of the four segments weekly that month, because they do require work on your part, and Month 2 of Think Sideways is not exactly a cakewalk.

The section of the course available today will have the handouts, and a watchable version of the course (the student theater version). It won’t include the transcript (I hire someone else to do that, and still have to get the mp3 to her), and it won’t include the downloadable video (I still have to do a reformat of that smaller than 85 MB that will still be readable at full screen on your computer. Breaking the section up into multiple downloads is first on my list.)

But my new process should VASTLY increase the speed with which I can put the rest of the thing together without decreasing the quality.

And the whole thing will still be available in the shop either the end of this month or the beginning of next, once I get it all packaged nicely.

I was forced into a couple of those meetings while I was in nursing, and I could only look at the fool on the podium and think, “We are up to our elbows in other people’s blood, risking our lives to save strangers because this matters to us, and you think standing and sitting in unison is going to turn us into a team? We KNOW why we’re here. Do you?”

This is the motivation model I’m STILL fighting as I work my way through developing the Motivation module for The Writing Craft.

Odds are pretty good that you already know the Motivation-by-Morons drill. “There is no ‘I’ in ‘team’” … “all for one and one for all” … Rah! Rah! Frickin’ Rah!

That rah-rah crap can bite me.

Motivation comes from inside of you. And I’m still trying to get everything I know about the subject down to a manageable length—but I guess I’d better say right now that Motivation is not going to be a perky, useless pep talk where I blow smoke up your shorts and tell you that all you have to do to get motivated is to pin a Photoshopped picture of yourself holding a bound copy of your NYT bestseller in front of your computer.

This in a complete course. And like the rest of my courses, it will demand that you learn things about yourself you didn’t know, that you expend real effort into uncovering your motivators, and that you actually use the techniques I include.

I paid a helluva price for my motivation. (The story behind that price is part of the graduate bonus for Think Sideways.) My hope is that the course will show you how to get the same fire in your belly for far less cost.

At this point, it looks like it’ll be another week before first draft hits Think Sideways, and about a month before the finished version is available in the shop. I’ve been working hard, and working steadily. There’s just an awful lot to cover.

I may not be able to. Sheesh.

But.

Fiction. If you’re writing this weekend, how did your day go?

Following that, I’ll do the Pacing and Plot module.

The votes were surprising.

HOWEVER… the comments were far more telling—I got bunches on all three polls, and discovered that what I was looking at as one BIG course in fact addresses three separate groups of writers:

• absolute beginners, who know they want to write but who don’t know how to start or how to keep going once they’ve started;
• intermediate writers who have written for some time, but who may not have finished anything (or anything they love);
• and advanced writers, who are already writing and finishing work, but who are looking for ways to refine their techniques, become more publishable, or simply write books they like better.

And I discovered that I’ll be reconfiguring the course to create separate Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced modules (which will save a LOT of those “dropped” modules, and let me do some of the modules I was most excited about). I won’t be doing them in linear order (all Beginner modules, then all Intermediate modules, then all Advanced modules)—rather, I’ll be doing them based on votes, student comments, and general enthusiasm/need for particular modules.

Here are direct links to all three of the first follow-up polls. If you haven’t already voted on them, you can do so here:

• I need this planned module first
• I need these “maybe” modules
• I want to save this “dropped” module

What I really need to know now, though, is this—which are you: Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced writer? (You do not have to have published to be advanced. You do need to have completed at least one novel or nonfiction book or several short stories.)

Please leave any comments that will help me tailor the course to what you need.

So you can download the PDF and take a look, or open it directly and read it here.

871 people voted. I’m still analyzing all the comments, but for the courses I was already planning, a lot did not make the cut, and some are debatable.

You can take a look at the votes per module (based on the question) and see if there’s anything that’s in there that you personally really wanted.

Your comments are welcome.

THE PDF FILE (Right-Click to open without downloading).
Writing_Craft_Votes_And_Courses

Holly Lisle's THE WRITING CRAFT: Dialogue -- Episode 1: Dialogue and Subtext

Have tested everything, it all works, and you can check it out now.

This is the first time I’ve done a pure video course (though naturally it includes worksheet and transcript as well), and I’m delighted with the way it’s coming together.

Each episode stands alone, and you’ll be able to buy only the ones that interest you, or eventually, whole sets.

Future episodes in this 8-part series will be out as close to monthly as I can make them—but I am deep in novel now, and reserve the right to focus on Dreaming The Dead as necessary to do it right.

I hope you’ll find Dialogue and Subtextenlightening, helpful, and fun.

And I hope you have a great weekend. Back Monday.