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Migraines and Vertigo Redux

Holly — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:01:49 +0000

I started having headaches about halfway through last week.

On Friday, they turned into migraines and icepick migraines.

On Saturday, the vertigo returned, and the headaches stayed.

I got a few hundred words written on Saturday and again on Sunday on WARPAINT, but did not do anything online.

I’m working on LESSON 23 of the Self-Pub Expansion of HTTS today, and again, am working through migraines and vertigo.

I’ll answer the additional story and writing questions from the party as quickly as I’m able, but it won’t be today.

I apologize for the delay. I had a wonderful time at the party. Thank you again for coming.

Cadence Drake and the Darkness

Holly — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:00:59 +0000

Cady and Warpaint

I’d originally set Cadence Drake: Warpaint (my current work in progress) three years after the events in Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood. I did this because I wanted to get back to Cady’s story after she’d beaten the darkness from the first book, after she had found her way back to being a whole human being again.

But over the weekend, I realized that in doing this, I was missing the big picture and a huge, powerful story—the story of how Cady reclaimed her soul.

So on Saturday and Sunday, I put aside everything I’d already done with the draft I’d been working on. I’ll save that draft as a possible later book in the series.

And I redrafted a new, forty-scene outline for Warpaint the way it needs to be told: Cady the Weapon of Vengeance goes to war against hell and wins her way back to being Cady the Human.

I know I’m on the right track this time. How do I know?

Because this is the Cadence Drake book I’m terrified to write.

People who don’t write novels generally can’t imagine why writing one might be terrifying. I’ll explain. My process includes living inside my character’s head while I’m writing. Cadence Drake is the person I would be if I were her—to borrow a description from Lawrence Block—and to write her honestly, I have to slip inside her skin and live through everything she goes through. And I have not given Cady an easy life.

But there’s more to this, because Cady is also the character I created who ended up fighting through an alternative version of personal darkness I was facing when I wrote her. I didn’t want to go back to the place where I left her, and I didn’t want to look too closely at why I didn’t.

It turns out I hadn’t fully answered for myself the questions I’d left her with—questions about how and why you choose to live; about how you pick your fights; about how you decide in a world in which darkness is falling and where no good answer is easy, what is right and what is wrong. It would have been much simpler and less painful to have just blown by those questions with a quick “Three years later…”

Only I hit a point in the draft I was writing where I had to look at Cady’s questions anyway, and ask myself how she’d come through that hell, and what price she’d paid to win back her soul, and how she’d stepped out of the darkness.

And…no good answer is easy. The good answer doesn’t scream “Here I am!” at you. The good answer whispers, “You’re going to have to fight to find me and earn me.”

This weekend, in brief form, I fought, and found in the good answer the true story of Warpaint.

This is the story I have to tell.

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

Holly — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:17:08 +0000

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.

Interview with Stephanie Osborn, author of The Case Of The Displaced Detective (science fiction)

Holly — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:00:55 +0000

The Case of the Displaced Detective: Book 1

In a single sentence of thirty words or less, describe your main story, hero, conflict, and why my readers will love your book.
Physicist Dr. Skye Chadwick discovers an alternate reality wherein Sherlock Holmes is destined to die at Reichenbach and rescues him, but can Holmes thrive – even survive – in our modern world?

What is the core of this story, your passion for writing it, the reason you wrote THIS book and not something else?
This is a fish-out-of-water story. I wanted to take one of the most brilliant men in literature and place him in a situation where he had only two choices – lose his mind, or man up and adapt.

Grow.

Learn.

I’ve been a “Holmesian” since childhood, so he was the logical choice. And once the “plot-bunny” bit, I couldn’t NOT write it. 215,000 words spilled out of me in two months. Which is why it’s a two-volume: The Arrival, and At Speed. The Arrival is an “origin story,” with foreshadowings of a spy ring after the project that brought Holmes here, and by its end we go full bore into the mystery, which unwinds fully in At Speed.

The Case of the Displaced Detective: Book 2

Which character do you most love, and why?

I adore Holmes, always have, always will. He’s so brilliant, and so very human, at the same time. I wish he WAS real.

What was the most difficult part of writing this book, and why?
Keeping Holmes true to himself as Doyle created him, hands down. Holmes’ character and quirks are fixed. And here I was, putting him in a situation that would stretch his very reason to its limits – imagine being jerked from your own world, leaving everything and everyone you have ever known and loved behind, and transmitted 150 years into the future! And yet I still had to maintain the essential Holmes.

If you were to pick a quote from the book to represent you, your writing, and what readers should expect from you, what would it be?
“Everyone please stand behind the yellow line until the doors open. No food, drink, flash photography, or video cameras are permitted. Once aboard the ride, please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times until we come to a full and complete stop. Otherwise, they’re apt to end up in another universe somewhere without ya, and wouldn’t that fry your noggin?”
—Skye Chadwick, The Case of the Displaced Detective: The Arrival

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

http://www.sff.net/people/steph-osborn/DDTheArrival.html

http://www.sff.net/people/steph-osborn/DDAtSpeed.html

HTTS Students: Writers’ Self-Promotion Lesson now LIVE

Holly — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 01:45:18 +0000

Lesson 13A is now live on your student page (if you are already to Lesson 13 or higher).

Look for it in the lesson links at the top of your student page, right next to 13. It will be either 13A or Thirteen-A, depending on the class you’re taking.

This is an enormous lesson which many exercises; by the time you’ve completed it, you will have a full, working self-promotional system in place.

But anticipate that getting through it all will take you several weeks.

http://howtothinksideways.com/members/login.php

At the top of the page, find 13A.

Click the link, and download at least the lesson and the resources list.

The other two are adjuncts primarily for students who will be getting images compressed via Kindle, etc, but I wanted them to be available to you as well.

Also, the community boards for building your IBBN (part four of the lesson) are live, and you can start
using them as soon as you get to that part of the lesson.

All the self-promotion resource boards are here:
http://howtothinksideways.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=242

Read instructions carefully BEFORE you post.

Go get ‘em! And write with joy.

Holly

Needed: One TALYSMANA traitor—talent, sense of humor, and backstabbing dagger required

Holly — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:52:10 +0000

Wanted for Hire: One Evil Traitor, sense of humor and own dagger a must.

The revision of TALYSMANA is, has been, and will continue to be a bitch on wheels.

The problem I ran into 95% of the way through the first draft was the realization that my ending could not happen with the existing beginning. Like several other novels I’ve written, I stopped writing when I figured that out, so the first draft had no ending.

I left out something critical, only I couldn’t figure out what.

I was hoping it was something simple to fix, like a plot point.

It was, in fact, a whole entire character. This I discovered via a spiffy nightmare that tipped me in the direction of “This is what your story needs.”

Which means I’m going to have to create another character from the very start of the book (or perhaps turn one of the existing characters into the traitor).

I also realized (same spiffy nightmare) that I got half of my villain wrong. The part set in TalysMana is good. The part set in the What Is, however, is utterly wrong. Police would have been on him in three seconds. So that, too, is going to take heavy rewriting.

And oh, hell, not via nightmare but though the real-life pain of reading the manuscript, I’ve discovered the Kettan I’ve read through so far is whiny and weak, and both missed the opportunities in her past, and failed to utilize her present. There are sections where she’s okay, but overall, I loathe her. The revised Ketten will be someone I can stand to be in the same room with.

Will Grey is good, though. I like him. Emerald is good. And Fred is awesome…but he’s based on my daughter’s basset hound, who is also awesome. Fred will come through this revision unscathed.

This is not going to be any quick, easy revision, though. This is going to be a Book Is Wrecked revision. My notebook is filling up already.

Look what UPS just brought

Holly — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:31:11 +0000

Have to do the proofs, but the reality of getting these live is getting closer.

Production Covers and NEW Afterwords: Arhel Trilogy, and Sympathy for the Devil

Holly — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:28:14 +0000

First, I’ve decided to write a new afterword for every one of my books I reprint. One of the things I did last week. I had a lot of fun writing them, and got to talk about the experience of writing them, and then working with them again years later.

I also got the entire Arhel Trilogy finished in CreateSpace (awaiting proofs), along with the third version of Sympathy for the Devil.

ALL the covers underwent some major morphing—I discovered that borders don’t work for CreateSpace, and as a result, was forced to completely rethink my whole Arhel Trilogy design, to the serious benefit of the books.

Take a look at the new covers. The Arhel covers are complete overhauls. They have some of the same elements, but a much livelier feel.

The Sympathy for the Devil cover has a blue sky, courtesy of the “no borders” issue, and again, I think benefits from it.

All images are clickable so you can see the larger version.

The NEW Fire in the Mist

The NEW Bones of the Past

The NEW Mind of the Magic

The NEW Sympathy for the Devil

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

Holly — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:44:53 +0000

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.

Now writing: How To Invent and Use Your EXCLUSIVE Self-Publishing Genre

Holly — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:11:10 +0000

Lesson 7 (and a peek at the HTTS Kindle Cover Art)

I’m now writing the first of the special Self-Publishing lessons for HTTS. It’ll be Lesson 7 in the public course (Kindle-Nook-iTunes if possible-print). And Lesson 6B in the Legacy course, because I’m a complete wuss and I don’t want to have to totally rebuild the entire course across 12 variations every time I add one of these four new lessons.

This lesson is about how to keep yourself out of the genre box of only writing one character, one series, and one kind of story for your entire career (unless, hey, that’s what you want to do, in which case, have fun with that). How, instead, to write every book you’re passionate about, love madly, dream and breathe and hunger for, no matter what each of those books is about, where it fits in any marketer’s Big List Of Crappy, Confining Genres—and how to still bring most of your readers along with you.

You can’t bring them all. But even if you write one character, one series, and one kind of story, you aren’t going to keep every reader you get.

So if you’re hungry to write everything you can imagine, I’m writing the walkthrough now on how you can keep your core readers as you leap from genre to genre, story to story, and universe to universe.

And you don’t have to change your name every time you change your genre.

I’m excited about this lesson. I paid big-time to learn it, but the price was worth it. I hope to have it done and available in Legacy HTTS by the end of this week.