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Writing Neep

What My New Year’s Resolution Means For You

by Holly Lisle on January 1, 2010 · 27 comments

in Big Courses, Books, How To Revise Your Novel, How To Think Sideways, NONFICTION, ON SPEC, Rebel Tales, Writing Life, Writing Neep

The path that brought me to this moment started exactly 25 years ago today, when in my diary I wrote, “Before I turn 25, I want to write a book.”

25 years later, I’ve written 33 novels (plus one I did anonymously as work for hire), am working on a couple more, and intend to keep writing novels as long as I live.

I’ve also written 100,000+ words on writing on my website (a very fat nonfiction book), five Writing Clinics (“Scenes” is also a clinic) with a sixth, “World” in progress, one massive course on writing/creativity/career creation, and I’m working on the second massive course, “How To Revise Your Novel.” I’ve done some smaller writing projects, too, both fiction and nonfiction.

I built and ran the free writing community Forward Motion for years. Have a much smaller writing community growing now inside the ThinkSideways/HTRYN course umbrella.

So that writing thing turned out pretty well.

But in ten months I’ll be 50. And I have a resolution.

Before I turn fifty, I want to show people how to FIND their dreams, how to dream BETTER dreams, and how to turn those dreams into reality.

This is a resolution that, like “write a book”, entails much more than anyone can hope to accomplish in ten months, and I know that. I’ve been writing with intent to sell since I was about 23, and I still love the work. “Write a book” became a lifetime calling for me.

It’s also a resolution that, in many ways, I’ve been working toward my whole life. Some of the ways I hope to accomplish this are already in place—the writing courses and the writing community and my website help writers who already have their dream in place figure out how to make their dreams real.

But my daughter wants to create handcrafted jewelry. My father-in-law is a public-school science teacher looking for a different way to teach science. I have one son who wants to make movies, and another who currently wants to build robots.

I have friends who want to leave jobs they hate, but aren’t sure what they could do instead. I know hundreds of writers who are looking for a new way to break into publishing and get paid for their work.

And I know people who have no better dream than just to get through the day. And so do you.

Over the past three years, I’ve been quietly investing in training and education, learning how to create businesses, how to create products, how to reach the people who want those products. Most of my life, I’ve been learning to teach. I’m studying professional publishing.

And I have projects that have been pending while I work on other things, or on hold because they’re in software development. I offered an e-mail course for a while called Money To Write. I’ll be bringing that back with some serious bells and whistles—it will focus on letting writers create businesses that will free them from day jobs so they can write.

Margaret is making good progress writing the software we call “the seller piece,” the engine that will allow me to PAY writers for the Rebel Tales serialzine, and PAY product creators with the Money to Write program. When that’s done, we’ll get Rebel Tales and Money To Write going.

But it all starts with DREAMS

Our reality, both good and bad, begins as someone’s dream, someone’s vision, someone’s abstract idea that “this could be different.”

Some dreams are magnificent, some are terrible.

Grocery stores and skyscrapers, cars and computers, paintings and literature, music and movies, roads and silverware and dishwashers and clothes and shoes and agriculture and every other form of creation and production all started as someone’s dream.

Nursing and medicine, education and food service, telephones and the Internet all began as someone’s dream.

So did the genocides of Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Adolf Hitler, and other monsters. So does every murder, every molestation, every enslavement. Drug cartels, prostitution rings, and street gangs all arise from someone’s dream, too.

We live in the reality created by the people who act on their dreams, whether good or bad.

There is no way to force people to dream better dreams, to want better things. “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” (Alfred in “The Dark Knight).

There is no way to dream for others—anyone whose dream is to “make your life better” is imposing a his dream on you. And what is better for him will not be better for you.

You can only dream for yourself, you can only change yourself.

But you can provide the example of your own life, the tools and the teaching, the means, and the direction, to others who also want to dream better dreams, make them real, and in the process, live better lives.

This, then, is my dream. My resolution. To be the person who does that. To create ways to help you, if you choose to use them, live the life you dream.

Happy New Year.

May 2010 be your best year yet.

{ 27 comments }

I GOT MY RESOLUTION!

by Holly Lisle on December 15, 2009 · 16 comments

in Articles on Writing, Big Courses, Books, How To Revise Your Novel, How To Think Sideways, NONFICTION, ON SPEC, Rebel Tales, TalysMana, Writing Life, Writing Neep

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.

{ 16 comments }

Sweet-Spot Mapping TalysMana

by Holly Lisle on November 13, 2009 · 19 comments

in Books, ON SPEC, TalysMana, Write A Book With Me, Writing Neep

My writing today hasn’t yet resulted in keeper words, but I’m zeroing in on what I want to have in the story.

And frankly, I’ve hit the tone I want, too. I want to do something with the same mix of humor and seriousness I did early in my career, with books like Sympathy for the Devil and Minerva Wakes.

I don’t have my Sentence yet, and without that I can’t get out the index cards and start doing Sentences Lite. But my ideas are taking shape.

Lots of words, then… but no words.

How about you?

{ 19 comments }

Introducing TalysMana

by Holly Lisle on November 11, 2009 · 33 comments

in Big Courses, Books, How To Revise Your Novel, ON SPEC, Personal, TalysMana, Write A Book With Me, Writing Neep

So I’ve discovered something interesting.

Writing a complex 300,000-word novel while writing a complex, massive novel revision course is turning my brain into mush.

This is not fun. Sort of hurts, actually.

So in the shower this morning, I was kicking around the issue—put the question to myself of how to define the problem, got my definition in about ten seconds. “You have too many critical balls in the air.”

Brainstormed the solution, that took about 20 seconds.

For the duration of writing How To Revise Your Novel, I need something simpler—a single-thread fantasy, something intended to be short (I’m thinking 50,000 words), something lighter, something that isn’t a centuries-spanning epic, and most importantly, something that doesn’t have a huge amount of performance pressure attached.

So THEN I started playing around with what I could do instead for my Write A Book With Me novel.

That took longer.

But by the time I got out of the shower, I had this VERY cool idea. A multimedia collaboration with my daughter. She does handmade jewelry, and she’s really good. And in the shower, I’d had these images of fantasy artifacts and fantasy jewelry with magical properties, and a contemporary crossover story of an artist who discovers that within every human being lies a second world, as real as this one, incredibly beautiful, but deadly dangerous, only reachable by a few.

And I got the title. TalysMana.

So I pitched the idea to my daughter—”you design real pieces of jewelry based on the story I write. I’ll send the story to you a chapter at a time as I write it, when you have a few limited-edition pieces of the jewelry done, you send out the chapter via e-mail with a link to the artifact or jewelry related to that chapter. We’ll both autograph the pieces. When we’re done, I’ll put together a little signed, numbered, limited print edition of the book with all the pieces you created as full-color illustrations, and we’ll both sign that, too.”

She loved it. We’ve never gotten to work together before, and I think this will be a blast. (Plus, she’s the one who has to do all the hard stuff.)

It’ll be fun, it’ll be something special just for the folks who read my weblog and newsletters, and it won’t have the pressure attached to it of me doing something I’m intending for pro publication.

So that’s what I’m doing tonight. Putting together my cluster, calling down lightning, doing my Sentence, doing my Sentences Lite for scenes…

Fun stuff.

Becky and I will get a link put together pretty soon where you can get the chapters as they come out, and buy one of the pieces of her jewelry if something strikes your fancy.

Meanwhile, Dreaming the Dead is on hold for the duration of the writing of How To Revise Your Novel, because having my brain melting out my ears isn’t good for anybody.

Especially not me.

No words that count tonight. But stuff that will lead to words very soon. :D

How about you?

{ 33 comments }

Creaking Knees

by Holly Lisle on November 4, 2009 · 22 comments

in Books, Dreaming the Dead, ON SPEC, PARANORMAL, Write A Book With Me, Writing Neep

It was a tiny detail for which I had no plans. I simply noted that the man in my bit of scene tonight had knees that creaked when he walked.

I’ve heard knees creak, heard the sound bone makes on bone when weighed down by muscle, skin, sinew, and fluid. It’s a distinctive sound—nothing else compares.

So that detail slipped in as I was writing, and then the question followed:

What if the sound Aleksa hears from his knees isn’t that sound?

Tiny detail, tiny question…but the man escorting her to the train station came alive for me when I suddenly got the answer, and understood what it meant.

I stopped at 300 words exactly.

How did you do?

{ 22 comments }

Setting Out A Bowl For Jim Baen

by Holly Lisle on October 31, 2009 · 2 comments

in Books, Dreaming the Dead, Nightmares, ON SPEC, PARANORMAL, Writing Life, Writing Neep

Just over a year ago, on October 28, 2008, I had a dream that is still changing my life.

My first publisher, Jim Baen, who died on June 28, 2006, paid me a visit.

Now, I’m not pagan, Christian, or otherwise religious in any way, shape, or form. I’m not a believer in things. I’m not a fan of faith, which to me is the denial of the provable and rational in favor of the unprovable and irrational.

I do NOT, however, think that humans are just animated meat. I think that we are creatures of energy AND flesh, and that when the flesh falls apart, the energy goes on.

In what form this energy that we were goes on, I don’t know. I have some speculations based on areas of science I follow, but they’re only that, and worthless beyond my own personal interest.

However, while I’m waiting for scientific proof in either direction, I’m willing to play with my theory, and consider it as rationally possible as the theory of oblivion at the moment of death, which does not deal in any fashion with what happens to the energy of life.

I’m willing to consider that, along with the possibility that my subconscious had a brilliant idea while I was sleeping and found a way to make it unforgettable, I also could have experienced something real on October 28th of last year.

Either way, it’s Halloween, traditionally time to acknowledge the dead, and I would like to take this moment to set out a metaphorical place at the table for Jim Baen.

I’m still writing the book that came from that dream. The idea I got that night is still something that at times leaves me trembling with the potential power of the story, if I can only find the craft within myself to realize that potential.

And whether the idea came from Jim, or whether my subconscious used him as a highly effective attention-getter, he is in my thoughts today. And whether the experience was real or metaphorical, I offer my thanks for it.

And I miss you, Jim.

{ 2 comments }

The Deadline Crunch

by Holly Lisle on October 27, 2009 · 16 comments

in Articles on Writing, Big Courses, Books, Dreaming the Dead, How To Revise Your Novel, ON SPEC, PARANORMAL, Write A Book With Me, Writing Life, Writing Neep

Okay. So I’ve done 1800+ words tonight, and there are going to be a whole lot more before I’m done. What I’m writing is already 5622 words long, and I still have a couple of critical elements to include by tonight.

Problem. My writing tonight is non-fiction. My two beta testers are starting into How To Revise Your Novel next Monday, and in between the hospital stuff, Margaret and I have been working madly to get the course software debugged—and now that it’s done, I’m wrapping up Lesson 2 tonight because I MUST have a buffer between myself and the lessons students are taking, in case I get sick. But I still have a lot of stuff that has to go into the course before next Monday.

Two lessons is all I had for the whole insane Think Sideways run.

Two lessons is evidently all I’m going to have as a buffer for HTRYN, too.

Not much in the way of sick time. :D

That’s my night.

How’s your writing coming along?

{ 16 comments }

I Left out the Whole Freaking WORLD!

by Holly Lisle on October 15, 2009 · 10 comments

in Big Courses, How To Revise Your Novel, Writing Life, Writing Neep

Writing Lesson 2 of How to Revise Your Novel right now, and discovered that I left out the World Check in Stage I, the Trauma Triage stage of the course.

Which makes World Check Lesson EIGHT, and bumps the course up to 22 lessons.

That’s a full five months. Up from the three I’d hoped to manage it in originally. I should have known better. Revising a novel is easily three times as complex as writing one in the first place, and breaking it down into techniques and logical reasons why you do things, and why you do them in a certain order, takes time, too.

At least the lessons are coming together nicely.

{ 10 comments }

Better than yesterday

by Holly Lisle on October 5, 2009 · 37 comments

in Books, Dreaming the Dead, PARANORMAL, Write A Book With Me, Writing Life, Writing Neep

No words on the page, but six new scenes figured out. Which means I’ve about finished my coronary bypass around the the clogged artery of those bad center scenes where I took the story over the top.

Process is simple. Write one notecard for each scene that will replace a broken scene.

DO NOT REVISE THE BROKEN SCENE. Simply apply the patch of a one-sentence index card saying “This is what SHOULD be here,” in its place.

When all scenes have a bright pink SEP field* around them, you simply move on to write the next unwritten scene, as if all the preceding wrecked scenes had been written the way they needed to be, and were currently perfect.

Someone is thinking, “Why? Why? Why would you do this instead of fixing the scene and then moving on? Why?”

Simple reason. I only revise once, but I do one ferocious job of it when I do it. I think I know how my story will end now. But I might not. Things change. And I refuse to rework scenes that are going to have to be changed again when I discover than my ending has changed drastically. Creating index cards allows me to know I know what to do with those scenes when I get back to them. And if the ending changes, it allows me to rethink a thirty-word card, and not a 3000 word scene. Times ten.

That’s why.

Have about three scenes to go. Will get those tomorrow.

How did your writing go?

* Douglas Adams reference: “Somebody Else’s Problem”

{ 37 comments }

Self-Employeds: Think you can deduct the time you donate? Think again.

by Holly Lisle on September 17, 2009 · 7 comments

in Writing Life, Writing Neep

Your time is not deductible. This is something I learned the hard way a few years back, and was reminded of again when I got my nifty newsletter from June Walker, who teaches self-employed folks how to do their own taxes.

(I hire the best accountant money can buy to do my taxes—I wouldn’t even consider doing my own—but I still bought her book and read her newsletters, because it makes it easier for me to know what I can deduct and can’t, and how to organize everything to make life easier for my accountant.)

Here’s the link to the current issue of her newsletter Tax Solutions for Indies, which explains how a whole lot of decent people end up in a whole world of hurt.

P.S. If you’re buying writing supplies and software, writing with intent to publish, sending out stories, and so on, even if you haven’t sold anything yet, there are circumstances in which your writing counts as a schedule C deductible activity. You need to start saving receipts and talk to an accountant about whether you can start deducting materials, software, books, computers, magazines, postage, and all those other writing supplies, essentials, and semi-essentials that constitute setting up and running a writing business.

SO if you’re writing, odds are decent that the information above applies to you.

{ 7 comments }