The “five-year-old-at-Christmas” phenomenon

By Holly Lisle

I stayed up until about midnight last night, just so I would be able to sleep in until 6 AM. But it didn’t work. This morning I woke up at 3 AM — that sort of hard wake-up where you know you’re really awake and it’s going to stick. I lay in bed as long as I could stand it, but finally gave up, got up and was at the desk and writing by 3:54 AM.

I know what this is — it’s that early phase of a project excitement, which, like end-of-book excitement, sometimes hits me and won’t let me sleep. I have all these words and images and cool twists and surprises, and just can’t wait to get them on the page. I’m like a little kid at Christmas, knowing the good stuff is out there under the tree, and lying in bed in the wee hours of the morning with my eyes squinched shut, body rigid, fists clenched, waiting as long as I can stand without waking up Mom and Dad, and finally just not being able to stand it anymore, and tear-assing through the house to pound on the door and yell, “It’s Christmas — Santa came and there are PRESENTS!”

Which, when you think about it, is a pretty cool way to feel about your job — and more than one day a year, too.

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Got three thousand and change by 8 AM

By Holly Lisle

3011 words exactly. šŸ˜€

I’ll work on revisions and expanding the synopses later today. Tomorrow, I’ll start into the expanded synopsis for this.

But the scenes just landed perfectly.

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Woke up at four again

By Holly Lisle

I don’t know why. Four AM on the nose, and I was wide awake and ready to write. So I came out, sat down, and I have about a thousand words already. And I have both my end of chapter cliffhanger, which I just love, and a surprise scene-break cliffhanger, firmly in mind.

I have funny. I have spooky. I have weird. And I’m having a wonderful time — though why I’m waking up at four in the morning to have it pretty much defies all logic. I’m a morning person, yes. But this is still night.

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Productive morning so far

By Holly Lisle

I’m taking a few minutes’ breather to figure out what happens next. I’ve done over 3000 words already this morning. Finished chapter two with a cliffhanger as solid as the one for chapter one, am well into chapter three. I am, however, in dire need of a nap already. Can’t say I’m crazy about waking up at 4AM, but it certainly makes getting work done a whole lot easier.

Still, if I can I’m sleeping in until six tomorrow.

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Four AM headache woke me

By Holly Lisle

Not the best way to start a workday — but I got up, got some Tylenol and aspirin, and lay around for the better part of an hour until it went away. Since I couldn’t get back to sleep, though, I got up and got to work. Making good headway now — I’m going to push for a few more words today. I’d like to finish the second chapter and get as much of the third as I can before I run out of writing time. (I’d love to complete the third chapter. I’d have to write about five thousand words today to do it, and while I’ve done that plenty of times, I haven’t done it in the amount of time I’ll have before the bounding boy breaks loose.)

We’ll see. Off to attempt to pile up massive wordcounts.

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Up at five …

By Holly Lisle

Woke up at five, anyway, though I lazed around in bed until five-forty, and still was up before the alarm went off. Nice way to start the morning. I’ve been hitting it hard already, making some good progress on the story. Having ended on such a dark and scary note with the last chapter, it’s now time to lighten things up while heading for the next cliffhanger.

I got a lot of site work done yesterday on my day off — I’m putting together the site Help system. It’s a bit unnerving how big it’s going to be when it’s done. But the site is big and complicated and I think a good help system will let people get more out of the whole thing more quickly.

I’m loading pages as their done, so if you want to have a look at the thing in progress, the URL is https://www.hollylisle.com/help. Post any suggestions to the To-Do List in the community.

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And the Project Dolphin Throttle

By Holly Lisle

Ah, yes. And lest I forget, I currently have 12,693 keystrokes sitting uncounted on my work computer, because the Project Dolphin server is throttling them. After the exciting, nay, thrilling experience with FeaturePrice.com, my attitude toward being throttled is to throttle back.

Arrrgh.

I’ll try to send them again tonight. But talk about frustration.

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Already have 2793 words today

By Holly Lisle

Finished Chapter One, am starting into Chapter Two now. Each chapter will run around 4000 words, and I’m planning to have each end with a cliffhanger. I used the same structure in Fire in the Mist and Sympathy for the Devil, and … I think … Minerva Wakes. It works well for light, shorter novels.

Took a couple hours off to eat breakfast, do laundry, and make cookies with the four-year-old, and now it’s time to get back to work.

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Checking in with tidbits

By Holly Lisle

Already got a lot done this morning — I’m just getting to the part where the hero tells the heroine that his problem includes the missing front half of the neighbor’s Rottweiler and a thing with wings. The scene is funny, btw — in a sort of Sympathy for the Devil/Minerva Wakes “frying-pan-into-the-fire” way. All four books will be like that — a serious underlying story but told in a lighthearted manner. I’m having such fun with this — I’ve been dying to write something funny and upbeat again.

Plan for the day — 2000 words plus anything I can get. Tomorrow, off — it’s been a long week, and while the second half has been great, the first half was what Bill Murray in Groundhog Day called “the end of a very long day.”

Sunday — back at 6 A.M to hit it hard.

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Got a lot done

By Holly Lisle

Got mini-synopses for all four books in the proposal done, plus a good start on the first chapter of the first book. Need three in all — I figure a total of twelve thousand words, or three four-thousand-word chapters.

And I like what I got. I took a little break for breakfast and to add HollyCon information to the site (got a LOT of upcoming HollyCons), and now am getting back to work on the chapter. I’d like to finish the first scene before I break off to work on Midnight Rain.

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