The Howling Redo of Despair and Agony

By Holly Lisle

It was an interesting night.

First off and totally unexpectedly, I got 287 words of actual draft. So HAH! Happy about that.

Second, I got out one of these neato little pre-ring-bound index card thingees I’ve had sitting in my office for the last few months after I found it at Office Depot—because I am a total office supplies ho, so I bought it even though I didn’t have a use for it at the time.

The thingee has about a hundred index cards in it, spiffy little plastic covers front and back, and dividers to separate it into three sections.

Dug out a Uni-Ball Vision Needle pen. (Look. This shit matters. When all that stands between your sanity and the Infinite Abyss of Screwed-Up Noveldom are office supplies, you want to have some nifty ones on hand. These are +7 Nifty, with a serious Anti-Abyss buff.)

Wrote my title on the front page: The Howling Redo of Despair and Agony: A.K.A. DTD, Section 2 — Fall.

Seriously. Those are the exact words on the cover card. Never let the Infinite Abyss think you take it seriously.

Drew my pen, aimed it at the notebook, and as quickly as I could keep the pen moving, ten very good scene sentences poured themselves onto the paper. Cardstock. Whatever.

So it was, in fact, a damn fine writing night. I’ll shoot for another ten scene sentences tomorrow night, and that will cover (PLUS three) my existing problem scenes. And, with my fingers in contact with the real—pen and paper, NOT pixels—my mind offered up a solution that will allow me to use a whole lot more of the words I’ve already written than I thought possible last night.

Sometimes, tapping the damn keys is no substitute for the physical act of writing. If this computer had a return bar I could slam from here to Newark every time I needed a carriage return, it might be different. That’s physical writing, too.

But anyway…

How are YOUR words coming along?

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Nailing my thumb to the wall

By Holly Lisle

So here’s the process I’m going through in order to skip revising the second section of the novel before I’ve finished the rest of first draft.

  • Write a single sentence encompassing what I want each existing scene to become.
     
  • Try to match that sentence to the characters and action already existing in the story.
     
  • When I can’t, then come up with a new sentence that fits the spiffy new first part of the book without breaking more of the existing writing than is ABSOLUTELY necessary.
     
  • Avoid touching a single word in the existing draft, no matter how tempting, even as I hear the tinkling of broken scenes shattering to the floor with every spiffy new scene I devise.
     
  • Maintain my equanimity while seeing whole buckety craploads of words headed for their doom.
     
  • Mutter imprecations and profanities at the idiot who wrote some of the stuff I’m dealing with.
     
  • Realize that repeatedly nailing my thumb to the wall is not the wacky good time it’s reputed to be, and determine that I’m going to have to get out a notebook and PHYSICAL index cards, and work this out in realspace before I’m actually ready to face the new scenes I need to write.

Hope your writing went better.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Untangling

By Holly Lisle

As expected, I got no real words tonight. I did get several chapters of untangling done, in simple line-per-scene style.

I’m going to have to toss stuff. I think I’ll have some I can keep, too, though.

And I’m fried, so I’m going to go to bed.

Hope your words are going well.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


The Whisper of a Devil

By Holly Lisle

My red head dropped her bomb tonight, allowing me to sliver a bit of backstory and foreshadowing into a nice dialogue scene.

And exactly 600 words later, she was out the door and on her way out of the country.

I’ve run out of new scenes. I’m back now to the original beginning, and I’m going to end up spending the next couple of days doing a quickie index card replot of each of the scenes I’ve written. I don’t want to mess with the words or any editing yet—that’s a sure way to get bogged down and screw up my progress.

So my wordcount for tomorrow and Tuesday is likely to be zero in the ‘real words’ department. If I can rethink what comes so that I don’t end up tossing 25,000 words into the can, though, it’ll be worth it.

Word count tonight: 600

Plus three words that I love enough to claim as the book’s real title. Not going to post it, though. I need to see if the story keeps growing into it.

How’s your story coming along?

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Saturday Words

By Holly Lisle

I’m going through How To Revise Your Novel beta test applications. The applications are really, really good. Which makes the decision incredibly difficult.

That’s my night.

How are your words coming?

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Friday Night

By Holly Lisle

Just woke up, little later than usual. Getting ready to watch a DVD with the guys. But am thinking about words… yours, if not mine.

How’s it going?

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Red-heads are ALWAYS trouble

By Holly Lisle

My spontaneously-generating red-head from a few chapters back walked into my scene tonight, suddenly making perfect sense in the story, and dropped a bombshell.

Actually, she took a deep breath, I glance over at my word counter, and discovered that I’d hit 499 words.

So she’ll drop her bombshell tomorrow night. But in spite of being dog-tired and not EVEN in the mood to write tonight, I got the words, and once I got rolling, they were a hell of a lot of fun.

How ’bout you?

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


The ReviseYourNovel.com Contest Blog And FAQ

By Holly Lisle

Have been working much of the morning on this.

The HTRYN.com Contest Blog
The HTRYN.com Contest FAQ

The contest rules and resources pages are linked from the FAQ.

I’ll add contest entries to the blog (the first one is up already). (I won’t add entries that I disqualify. Read the rules.)

And the biggest question I got in a WHOLE lot of email (when is the cut-off date for entries) is in the FAQ.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Cheap and Free Video Resources Now Up

By Holly Lisle

If you’re interested in participating in the How To Revise Your Novel Scholarship Contest, I’ve now put up my recommendations for free and inexpensive ways to create videos.

These include:

  • Mac/Windows Software
  • Mac ONLY software
  • Windows ONLY software (none of that yet—don’t use Windows, and don’t know what to recommend
  • Create-your-video ONLINE software
  • Stock Image Resources (PENDING)
  • Stock Sound Resources (PENDING)

And I’ve included the software I use and love.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


The Disappeared Friend

By Holly Lisle

Short night tonight. 279 words while I explored my surprise discovery last night—than one of my male MC’s dear friends had vanished.

Because of who he discovered in town, and because of the horrible cases he’s recently been working, he fears the worst.

I kept it short because I promised I’d get some links posted for folks who’ve never done video, and need to know where to get inexpensive or free software, public domain or royalty-free images, and other goodies.

The contest, you know.

And since I want to spend the workday tomorrow finishing up Lesson 1, that means getting at least SOME more work done tonight.

So anyway…

How is your writing coming along?

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved