Category Archives: TalysMana

TalysMana: Hunting Demons By Smell
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15

HAH! I love this world.

Finally grabbed the chance to sit and write again, and the story raced onto the page. I had to put on the brakes because I still have to work on Lesson 10 of HTRYN tonight, but wow. The time I’ve had when I could only think about this really paid off.

Kettan is on the warpath, in her own unique way, determined to save her creatures and her world from her ex-boyfriend’s onslaught.

The magic system is landing on the page the way I’d hoped it would, and I’m getting some cool conflicts.

And hunting demons by smell? It’s critical. Think of that moment when you smell something and remember it, and for just an instant you’re six years old again, and back in the place where you first smelled it, and where that scent imprinted itself on your memory.

Imagine the worst memory you’ve ever had, and smelling something that took you back to THAT moment…

551 words before I slammed on the brakes. I’m so excited.

How’s your stuff coming?

Write a book with me…pretty soon
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10

I’ve been sick since last Thursday, and I spent the entire day today catching up on the HTRYN customer service e-mails that accumulated over the weekend. Got the course closed until late this year, got the main page set up so you can get a sneak peek inside the community, (just a tiny part of it, but still…) and I THINK I got everyone who needed help getting into class answered.

But. No writing tonight.

I feel like roadkill, and having JUST finished customer service, I’m going back to bed.

However, I have high hopes for words on TalysMana tomorrow.

Meanwhile, how YOU doin?

Why I’m MIA this week, too.
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42

Two weeks of vacation. Followed by the official launch of How To Revise Your Novel, because in my infinite wisdom (NOT!), I decided months ago that the week after two full weeks of wild course-writing mixed with tons of holiday family stuff would be the perfect time to launch a new course. (Insanity doesn’t run in my family. I think I’m breaking new ground here.)

I close the doors on HTRYN Saturday 9th at noon EST, though, so NEXT week I’ll only be writing lessons, and I’ll be able to get back to TalysMana, which has been my casualty for these three weeks by virtue of being the work nobody is paying me to have done on schedule.

This is your WABWM thread until I get back next Monday. By then, maybe I’ll have had more than four hours of sleep on any given night, and you’ll have recovered from the holidays, and we can get back to writing fiction. :D

In the meantime, you’re in my thoughts. And I’ll be back soon.

How do you make your life what you want it to be?
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31

So I DID get over 600 words done on TalysMana done Sunday night. Posted the chapter, which will go out on schedule.

I’m not doing fiction tonight, because the holidays ate my deadlines alive, and I’m pedalling insanely trying to catch back up.

But I wanted to tell you this, which relates to my New Year’s Resolution, and which I want to make available to everyone:

Here’s how you turn your dreams into reality.

  • Decide that what you want is valuable because YOU value it, and because it matters to you.
     
     
  • Figure out WHY it matters to you. If it matters to you because someone else told you it’s important, it matters to THEM. If you feel guilty because you aren’t doing it, the reason you aren’t doing it is because it doesn’t matter to you. Walk away. You can break you life on thing you don’t care about because you think you should care about them.
     
     

    What you want, what you love, what you want to build your life into, what you want to leave behind when when you’re dead and gone…These are what you build. If you look at some action you could take and you don’t care about the work and the inevitable failures that you are going to have to get through before you can even hope to succeed—you’re going to do it, create it, build it anyway because it’s what you love—you’re on the right track.
     
     

  • Figure out the steps you’ll have to take, the changes you will have to make, and the price you will have to pay to create your dream in the real world.
     
     
    Cut out TV? Probably. Spend time teaching yourself everything you can about how others successfully accomplished what you hope to accomplish? Certainly. Sleep a little less? Maybe.
     
     
  • Take action KNOWING that you will fail initially, and do everything you can to learn from each mistake so that you shorten the cycles of failure, and determine that you will commit to action—even when that action results in failure—until you succeed.
     
     
  • Commit to improving on your successes, and learning how to do what you do well even better, so that success becomes easier and more certain over time.
     
     
  • As you master each dream and make it a reality, add a new dream.
     
     

These are the steps I’ve taken in my own life.

I hope the help you find the joy and fulfillment in your own life they have given to mine.

Spinners & Storians
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19

I’m definitely in the middle of the story. I could feel it today while I was writing—the frustration of trying to move the pace forward without doing a huge infodump, the need to get critical concepts onto the page in an entertaining fashion.

I’m not sure I succeeded, but I got 648 words of something down, and I did manage to leave the story with a nice little surprise from Fred—something I’d intended for two scenes back, and then ended up having to cut.

I’ll know more about how much I like what I got tomorrow when I come back to it.

Meanwhile, it did feel good to get back to fiction, even if the early going was choppy.

So. How about you and your words?

Words. No Words. But back to work.
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13

So. I’m back.

Got 2299 words on a worksheet, and another thousand or so on the revision of a lesson, both for HTRYN, but no words on TalysMana. Instead, the rest of my time went into doing my customer service e-mails from the last couple days.

I’m caught up on everything that doesn’t require a long reply. Still have a few of those to do.

So I got lots and lots of words, and no words at all.

But I’m back, I’m now caught up, and tomorrow I head into the dark places with Kettan, where she discovers that not even heroes can survive if they just live on sunshine and butterflies.

Getting close to the New Year, I’ve done the better part of another draft of my New Year’s Resolution…

It’s complex. I’m struggling to get it right.

How have you been, and how’s your story coming? I’ve missed you.

A Question about the TalysMana Theme
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11

Got an e-mail today from a TalysMana reader disturbed by the turn the plot was taking, and afraid that I’m heading toward “people who create bright, happy stories and worlds are good, and people who create dark, scary worlds are bad.”

She’d never read any of my work, so as a creator of some really dark novels, (including, by all indications, some sections of this one) I’ll give her a pass on thinking that.

But no—this is not a story in which only the creators of fluffy-bunny-and-unicorn worlds are the good guys, and writers like me, who explore both the dark and the bright sides of humanity are villains.

I’m not going to bluntly state the theme—I’ll let you read on and figure it out on your own—but rest assured I have not suddenly recanted my entire body of work or my own personal philosophy.

With that said, I have worked all day on How to Revise Your Novel, (and completed the Lesson 4 Demo in time for students to get it when Lesson 4 goes live next week, so YAY there).

And did some facilitating for Becky as she gets the first batch of Talysmana Viewers ready to go out.

But no words of fiction today.

So. How’s your writing going?

Finished ‘Interlude: Nate The Lesser Evil’
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21

Got 452 words, got the scene finished, and it’s posted to the mailing list.

This went well, but it also went dark on me. I managed to scare myself a bit, and the new character in the scene, who came about because of some serious Sweet Spot mapping, is giving me nightmares. I have discovered how he thinks.

I’ll get back to Kettan next week.

This has not been a great week for me fiction-wise. Lesson 7 of HTRYN is just plain eating me alive. It’s ground I have not covered in any form or format before, so with every single section, I’m having to dissect how and why I do things the way I do them for the first time.

I love this process of analysis and demonstration. It’s the deadline behind it that’s making me nuts.

Anyway. That was my writing day.

How was yours?

I GOT MY RESOLUTION!
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16

All caps… Yes. I’m shouting.

You know I wanted to come up with some magnificent challenge for myself to pledge as my New Year’s Resolution, to have going in some beginning fashion before I turn 50 in October of next year.

And I was standing in the shower just minutes ago, and thinking about TalysMana and Becky’s NOW-limited-to-50-EVER TalysMana Viewer, and about Rebel Tales and what I want to accomplish with that, and about all my novels, and about my How To Write A Novel And Build A Career Course, and about the novel revision course, and about FM, which I started and then ran for years, and about the Clinics, and the other smaller projects I’ve done.

And about the 33 Mistakes Books, and why I produced those.

And my thoughts turned to themes. The theme at the heart of TalysMana. The theme of my life. How everything I’ve done has been related, how it’s all been pointing toward something.

There was this ‘click’ in the back of my mind. A moment of clarity. An understanding of what comes next, and why it matters, and how to do it.

This is the biggest thing I’ve ever imagined, the biggest dream I’ve ever had.

I’ll have an interesting post for you on New Year’s Day.

Watch this space.

The First TalysMana Artifact Is Now On Sale
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12

Becky writes:

The first piece of Official TalysMana Jewelry is now available – The
Taylsmana Viewer. This is the original piece that Kettan receives in the
mysterious package at the very beginning of the novel. This is what sets
Kettan’s story in motion.

I had 30 that I could get shipped and in the mail for Christmas. The
first one has sold, leaving 29 left. I will keep a running tally on the
Etsy page for those interested in purchase. Since this is an open – or in
other words ‘unlimited’ – piece it will be available again after the
holidays.

Once I am out of the 30 ready-to-ship I will create a place to pre-order
pieces. When purchasing a pre-order please remember it will take about 5
days to create and ship your TalysMana Viewer.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36786424