Here’s the link to the print version of the Create A Language Clinic.
And one to the print storefront, in case you want to browse.
The print version is a ringbound workbook, the same as the character and language clinics. Very happy to finally have it finished, and I hope those of you who prefer print books to e-books find it useful.
I’m almost done with the first draft of The Ruby Key. Due to the fact that I left out a lot of important and exciting things in the middle portion of the story (because I write very, very tight in first draft and almost always have to expand in revision) I’m going to end up wrapping the first draft at around 55K, and then going back and adding in. The story might go a bit longer than that, but my editor, Lisa, assured me that organic writing and running long was okay with her, so long as I didn’t go over 100K. Since I’m pretty sure I can do what I need in 65K, I think I’m good to go on this one.
But that’s not all I’ve been doing. C—The Secret Project is
back in my life. I cannot leave it alone, which tells me that I shouldn’t try. I’ll give you the first two paragraphs; maybe those will tell you why this story is still eating at me after years of playing with it. (Maybe not. If not, then I concede the possibility of insane obsession. Otherwise, I’m holding out for sane obsession.)
Down the red clay road, dirt bone-dry and hard beneath her feet, with dust kicking up behind the heels of her cowboy boots, Kay strode with purpose. Blood on her palms, tears on her face. In her pocket, two wedding rings, a silver pin, an old harmonica. In her right hand, a shovel.
She’d left her purse in the car she’d abandoned a mile back. All her ID was in it: credit cards, driver’s license, birth certificate, a load of things she was leaving behind. This was the last shot, last time, last gasp, last hope. And how much hope was it really, hoping to be reborn but being ready to die, too, if that was the way things went?
I’m slowly putting together the paperback workbook version of Worldbuilding 2: Culture Clinic.
And I’m outlining WB3: Build-A-World Clinic.
Add in homeschooling the kidlet, and I’ve been a shadow of my former self online. But beneath the silence, a lot is going on.
Oh. And the business-related stress that had be tied up in knots for a couple of weeks? Resolved, all good, and there is a reason you want the very best agent you can get—and a reason I am grateful every day to have the best agent there is: You the writer are one lone, insignificant flyspeck in the universe of megacorp publishing—the industry that eats its young—and when you’re making deals with the giants, you want a master duellist negotiating for you.
ADDED LATER: Forgot the Sympathy for the Devil screenplay. Doing that for the film school kid, who’s finished film school, is casting for her second short, and to whom I promised a screenplay. I figure one from one of her favorites of my books would be good. At the moment, I’m notecarding that, which means lots of words but no visible progress.
Right now the book is available—the description is short and the free preview isn’t loaded. I’ll do all the catalog work on Monday. But I know people are waiting for the book, and if you’re one of those people, you can get your copy now.
Thank you for all the encouragement and enthusiasm. Let me know what you think.
Thanks to the comments, suggestions, questions, and edits of Heather and Christian, the two beta-testers for the Create A Culture Clinic (both of whom nailed their deadlines—thank you both!), I’m now deep in the final revision before publishing the e-book.
Quick comments from the beta-testers:
Heather:
This is absolutely fabulous. I write present-day, and had always sort of assumed I didn’t need to worry about “that culture stuff”. The detailed questions hit every aspect of life I could imagine, and a bunch I couldn’t, and I already see tons of ways to incorporate culture into my writing.
My head is spinning. This is definitely a resource that I will use again and again. I am doing final edits (using SOMEBODY’S “One pass revision” process) on two novels at the moment, and I want to redo both of them to make their cultures more rich. (I shall not, though. What I’ll do is use the clinic on my NEXT novel.
Christian:
While I didn’t initially feel a connection to the subject matter, I found that it really helped me to get over an issue I’ve been having with my current novel project in which I have created a supernatural culture that I hadn’t fleshed out completely. Using a modified version of your clinic, I was able to do some slight reworkings in the storyline and solve the issues! Yay!
Will make the book available as soon as humanly possible.
HeatherCW and onesikmonkee, providing they can get edits and comments back to me by WEDNESDAY evening, win the roles of Culture Clinic guinea pigs.
If either of them can’t, I’ll do a second run through the entries, and struggle to choose again.
These were very tough choices, and there were a lot of folks who will still be in the running.
And thank you again, everyone, for your wonderful entries, which DID make me feel better.
I’d very much like to have two volunteers to give Holly Lisle’s Create A Character Clinic a test run, take it apart, see where instructions are unclear, and find typos and spellos (though I’m doing those, too, but I suck at copyediting). Your test drive should involve actually creating a working culture notebook and a culture to put in it. NOT a complete culture. Just a three-or-four items per section culture. I figure this should take, at most, about five hours of your time (if you don’t let yourself get sucked in). Trying to do the whole book from start to finish would take about a year, I guess.
The book is designed to be read in any order (after you’ve read the instructions in Section One), and permits broad, deep, and mixed development of a culture.
If you would like to volunteer as a Culture Clinic test driver, please post why you’d like to do it here. I’m kind of down, so the funniest two entries (that also demonstrate the sort of spelling and punctuation characteristics that good copyeditors should have) will get PDF copies of the rough version, and will also receive recognition in the acknowledgments, and free final copies in PDF form when the book is done.
I’ll make my selections on Monday, Nov. 6th.
Both thank you, and good luck.
My bud sent me a book on bookbinding some time ago, and I picked up one on handmade books. Things have to float around in my subconscious for a while before I figure out what to do with them, and these books were like that.
I don’t know if it was the fever, or just a connection of strange dreams and good timing, but I had this amazing idea while I was sickest—to take the moonroading background I’ve been working up in my head (for The Ruby Key and the MOON & SUN series) and do it as a painted journal written by the cat for the girl who’s the hero of the series. Ang the Cat’s Secret Guide to Moonroading. I don’t know if it’s anything Scholastic will be interested in, but if it isn’t, I can always do it as an e-book and a full-color art book on Lulu.
Today I’m doing the copyedit for Night Echoes, and it’s been one of those days. I’m not completely better yet (though Thera-flu, Cold-Eze, and other things have helped a lot), but deadlines know no mercy. The cat is purring on my shoulder as I write this, though, and I remind myself that I could as easily be at work in a hospital where everyone else is sick, too, and nobody can take sick time because then there’d be no nurses at all, and I am deeply grateful to be doing copyedits on the couch, wrapped in a blanket and sipping hot tea.
Should have this done today, should be doing copyedits on the Create a Character Clinic tomorrow. And then getting ready to give the kid some fun on Halloween.
Hope you’re doing well, and thank you for the good wishes. I appreciate them.
Wednesdays suck in general. Today, mine is worse than usual, so I decided to do something good to offset all the bad karma.