Category Archives: Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood

Ready to start writing Cady 2
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Cady 2 is ready to write

Cady 2 is ready to write

I outline my novels on index cards. I go over the process a little in one of my site workshops, and a LOT in How to Think Sideways, but my process is about as seat-of-the-pants as it’s possible to get while still having an idea where you want to end up.

And as of this morning, I have the working outline for Cady 2: The Book In Need Of A Title, ready to go.

I’m releasing Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood as Cadence Drake 1: Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood, and book two was going to be Cadence Drake 2: Invisible Warrior, but as I outlined the book, that title died the ugly death of irrelevance.

The title at the top of the index card in the picture, by the way, is the card title.  I let my muse scribble on the cards first, writing out titles for scenes I have not yet imagined.  Then I write a scene Sentence.  And that’s it.  Once I have all my scene titles and most of my scene Sentences, I’m ready to write.

Now I’m there.  So next week, I start writing CD2.

 

 

Discussing “Fun…With Teeth”
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Fun...With Teeth

Fun...With Teeth

Back when I first got published, I signed a lot of my books with a little extra exuberance—I drew a toothy smiley face and wrote in under it the words “Fun…With Teeth.”

Which was how I saw my fiction—I always wanted my readers to laugh, but I wanted some real edge in there, too.

Because, let’s face it. Sometimes I want to scare your socks of.

As the wear and tear of publishing (and some pretty hard times in my life) began to get to me, I lost some of that exuberance. All of my books have funny places in them, but with some of them, you have to wade through a whole lot of darkness to find it.

But when I decided to walk away from the meat grinder that is professional publishing, to deal directly with my readers, and to publish my own work, something strange happened. It was as if someone switched on a light inside me.

I was digging through my early works, the ones for which rights have reverted to me, and I discovered how funny some of those early books were.

I’d forgotten. From cats with hands who liked to play with matches to winged horses with bad brakes to a Miata-driving, beer-swilling dragon to infesting the entire state of North Carolina with the denizens from Hell (to the serious detriment of Hell), I had a lot more fun back then.

I want to find my way back to that.

I’d like to have you share a part of my return to laughter. In my case, laughter with really big, sharp, pointy teeth.

In the next couple of months, as I start getting my reverted novels converted into digital and print versions and moved onto platforms like Kindle and iBooks and Nook, I’m going to put together a little private membership site especially for the folks who like my fiction. You’ll have a bulletin board there where you can talk to each other, and tell me what characters you’ve missed and who you want to read about next, as well as a place where I’ll post some snippets of work in progress, cover images, and news about each book as I release it.

I don’t know what else I’ll put in there. But it’ll be free, and I’ll make sure to include some nice surprises from time to time.

Here’s the place to ask questions, offer your wish list, comment on my radical career change…

I’m glad you’re here.

My Birthday Bash: Presents for You
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Yeah, my birthday is almost here, and I decided this year to celebrate by giving presents to other people. And not just on my actual birthday, either. I’m giving away presents every day next week, plus a couple of presents starting today.

So what are your presents?

Total value of my birthday presents?

Absolute lowest value—$1720.33
Absolute highest value—$1987.43

But it’s more than that, really.

  • Because today five people will win. ($79.95 minimum, $159.75 max in presents)
     
  • Friday four people will win. ($103.60 minimum, $167.80 max in presents)
     
  • Saturday three people will win. ($107.55 minimum, $179.85 max in presents)
     
  • Sunday, two people will win. ($91.60 minimum, $123.60 max in presents)
     
  • Monday, two people will win. ($211.40 minimum, $243.50 max in presents)
     
  • Tuesday, two people will win. ($303.28 in presents)
     

    AND…
     

  • Wednesday two people will win. ($564 minimum, $600 max in presents)
     

So the minimum total in presents I’m giving away for my birthday is…

$2518.87

And the maximum total in presents I’m giving away for my birthday is…

$2993.22

But that’s not all. EVERYONE who enters will receive one gift on Monday, October 13th.

The total value of my birthday bash giveaway including those gifts should be well over $5000. Could be a lot more. I’ll let you know once the confetti settles. :D

RULES

Who can enter?

Anyone but my immediate family.

And…

You could win twice, if you enter early. Here’s how:

Anyone who wins an e-book gift cannot win any further e-book presents, but will be re-entered for one of the full scholarships.

What if you win and you’re already a student in the Think Sideways course? Then I’ll refund the tuition you’ve paid to this point, and you are in free for the rest of the course.

Will I refund you for e-books you win but already own? No. Therein lies a madness of paperwork I will not even consider. HOWEVER… I’ll be very happy to send any prizes you win (INCLUDING a full scholarship if you want to be that generous) to someone you choose. If you win and this is an issue for you, contact me.

So…

How do you enter?

Follow me on Twitter. Here’s my page: http://twitter.com/hollylisle

It’s free, it’s easy, and I’m already discovering that Twitter is a lot of fun.

If you’re already following me, you’re already entered. If you’re already a Twitter member, go to my page and click Follow and you’re entered. If you’re not already a member, it’s free and it only takes a minute to join. Then return to my page click Follow. The Follow button is right under my picture on the top left corner.

I’ll print off the complete list of my Twitter followers every day, and do a random drawing from those pages, PLUS the pages from every day’s pages before. Yes, this means that if you start following me today, you’ll get one new entry in the drawing every single day. Yes, this will improve your chances of winning, at least a little. I have no way of figuring odds. I have no idea how many people will enter. Today, right this minute, you’re odds would be about 5:32. I expect they’ll get a bit steeper over the next few days.

I’ll announce the winners at around noon my time every day. On Twitter. :D (Except today, when I’ll announce at around two, because I am SO behind schedule.)

And I’ll do a final listing of everyone who won here after it’s all over. Probably on Tuesday the 14th. Finally, EVERYONE who’s following me on Twitter will get a link to one gift on that day.

So. Does that count as a cool way to celebrate a birthday?

Cady gets an ad campaign
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imageshl-htcb-lots-180×360-ac.jpg It occurred to me today that, in the almost-year I’ve had an affiliate program, I never did an ad for Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood.

So today I created an HTCB campaign. Still working on the other ads, haven’t uploaded any of them to the affiliate program just yet, but I think this does the story justice.

Moderately Grand Reopening Sale
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Yesterday through the 30th, everything in the e-book shop is 10% off, to celebrate the fact that we’re up and running again.

Clinic Week Sale
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Holly Lisle’s Create a Culture ClinicI’ve put all three Clinic books on sale from today through Friday, each one $2.00 off.

Character ClinicWhy? For karma. I’m struggling on the Ruby Key revisions, and the last time I put books on sale, the bad karma cleared. The line-for-scene is crawling, and most of the cards so far are red or orange. Not good. My stress level is rising, my confidence is falling.

Language ClinicI’d had some serious, bad stuff going on for a while the last time I put books on sale (also for karma), and everything got better. It may be New-Agey, it may seem crackpot. No matter. It worked last time, so I’m trying it again.

ADDED LATER:

Hunting the Corrigan’s BloodAlso put Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood on sale for a flat $3.00 (57% off). It’s not a clinic, but….

Anyway, I hope the discounts are a good thing for some of you, and provide good content and a useful service.

Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood, Second Edition
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Hunting the Corrigan's BloodI know that the previous price on the print version of Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood was too high for a lot of readers to afford. It was considerably higher than I wanted to price it, too.

Through judicious use of reformatting and a one-point drop in body type size, I’ve manage to cut nearly 100 pages from the print edition of Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood without cutting a word of the story. Doing this, and taking a royalty cut, has allowed me to drop the print price to $11.95.

I can’t cut the font size anymore without affecting readability. I’ve already reformatted everything that required space. So I priced out doing it as a mass-market paperback edition, but that would have been significantly more expensive than a trade edition. Because the type size I’m now using is the size in most mass-market paperbacks, decreasing the page size increases the number of pages needed—in this case by a lot. With so many more pages necessary to print the book, the price on a mass-market paperback would have ended up around $14. So I can either have a trade paperback that costs less than most trade paperbacks, or a mass market that costs a whole lot more.

I hope this reformat moves the book into the reach of those of you who wanted it in print but couldn’t afford it before.

Create A Character Clinic Goes Gold
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Both Create A Character Clinic and Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood are now available in print versions at the OneMoreWord Bookstore on Lulu.com.

The second version of CCC landed on my doorstep Saturday afternoon, and it came out just right. I was overjoyed that it turned out so well…and incredibly relieved that it turned out at all. Getting this book into print has been a real challenge.

On a personal note, I haven’t felt like myself since late last year (something you may have noticed from the tenor of this weblog). While I wrote most of this off to a whole lot of years of overwork and (since about December) the depression that sometimes affects me, I discovered not too long ago that the horrible headaches and the constant exhaustion are primarily being caused by high blood pressure. I’ve reverted to a vegan diet, and the blood pressure has already started to come down. I still don’t feel like myself. But I am starting to feel better.

Oh. And the e-book store is down for maintenance. If you’re hoping to buy any of the cool books we have up on the site, please keep checking.

And HAH! Again …
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Hunting the Corrigan's BloodGot Lulu to work with Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood. Click the cover thumnail to see how the final wrap-around cover turned out. Have my copy on order now, and I’m excited about the way the book looks like it’s going to turn out. I have to thank JM Edwards, who did the copyedit for the print version and the e-book version that I’ll be uploading to the shop as soon as I can shrink the file sufficiently. (Adobe Acrobat and I are still not seeing eye to eye.)

But with the capability of producing print books, Cady II is back on the table. Though I’ve decided that I really want to go back and pick up where I left off with her, so I’ll be starting from scratch on the story. The ten-years-later one will have to wait.

This has been, for me, a pretty good couple of writing days so far. I’m also working on one manuscript edit for one of the folks who bought crits, and doing work on the Language Clinic (really need to update the WIP graph on that).

And Robin sent THE RUBY KEY out to editors at five separate publishers, each publisher so cool that I’m afraid to even mention any names here, lest I jinx myself. So I won’t. But… oh, wow. Typing with your fingers crossed is a bitch, but I’m managing.

Yesterday and Today
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Got the series worldbuilding and proposal out the door yesterday; I’m really happy with it. Won’t know anything until the middle of next week at the earliest, because my editor is going to be out of town, but she acknowledged receipt and told me she’d take a look as soon as she could. That’s good enough.

I’m pulling the next Cady novel from production. Its future, based on interest in HTCB, is nonexistent. Instead, I’ll start in on the next worldbuilding novel.

Will be putting up a HAWKSPAR Edit bar, too. Have to have that finished by August.