An entire holiday of snow (Cat Gerlach’s Advent Calendar Collection)

By Holly Lisle

More holiday fiction, including an upcoming story by me…

Katharina Gerlach, one of my HollysWritingClasses.com site moderators, a marvelous (and bilingual) writer, and a fine editor, requested stories for her annual Advent Calendar.

And got a great turn-out, some excellent stories, and a project she put together to share a bunch of writers’ fiction with new readers.

And I forgot to mention this until today.

I have been remiss…

(I’ve also been busy).

So if you go take a look today, you’ll discover a LOT of stories already up. And mine will be along in a day or three…

[su_button url=”https://adventcalendar.katharinagerlach.com” target=”_blank” style=”default” background=”#32d500″ color=”#000000″ size=”6″ wide=”yes” center=”yes” radius=”auto” desc=”stories about snow” onclick=”” rel=”” title=”fiction bring it on” id=”” class=””]Fiction? Bring It ON![/su_button]

And here’s the link to my story, Memories of Snow.

[su_button url=”https://adventcalendar.katharinagerlach.com/pages/twentyfour.html” target=”_blank” style=”default” background=”#32d500″ color=”#000000″ size=”6″ wide=”yes” center=”yes” radius=”auto” desc=”an original short story” onclick=”” rel=”” title=”hl memories of snow” id=”” class=””]Holly Lisle: Memories of Snow[/su_button]

 

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


Lost Words Found: I’m having a strange and disturbing morning…

By Holly Lisle

I think in general we as human beings like to think we’re on top of things. That we have a pretty good bead on not just where we are, but where we’ve been, and where we’re going.

I’m working on Lesson 16 of How to Write a Novel this morning, which is about voice and tone, and to show writers what I’m talking about, was digging through my fiction backlist for demo material for the lesson. I’m adding and then discussing the first  couple of paragraphs of various published novels to demonstrate how changing voice and tone changes reader expectations and why mastering this is a crucial skill…

How could that go wrong?

Well, more like, “How could that go sideways?”

So this morning, the jury’s back, and the verdict on that whole “on top of things” business is:  Nope. Not so much…

Because I came across not one, but two really good Cadence Drake novel starts that I completely forgot I’d written.

The Ships

And we’re not talking about running a thousand words up a flagpole to see who salutes.

We’re talking 13,000 words on one…, 8000 words on another… and when I found these, I remembered a third that had five or six chapters in it and that I now can’t find, but I do remember that it featured the story of who Tangerine, the cheerful hairdresser in HTCB, really was.

Can’t find that one, of course, but finding the two I completely forgot, I now also have the third one in my head as a story I just have to tell.

Lost a chunk of time on the lesson hunting through my hard drives and backups. Getting back to work now. But after I write The Wishbone Conspiracy, I have some really solid starts for THREE more Cadence Drake novels.

Sheesh…

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


Last 6 hours of my HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL Early-Bird Sale

By Holly Lisle

How To Write A NovelAt the top of this (and every) page on the site, you’ll currently see a little timer.

Today is the last day of my How to Write a Novel Early-Bird Launch, where the price is about 50% off my projected final price once the class is done.

And as I write this, we’re down to the LAST SIX HOURS.

I have not flogged the launch — we’re close to Christmas, I know money is tight for most folks, I know most folks’ thoughts are going in other directions.

But I promised some of my writers who requested it that I’d give them another chance to buy the class for a low price before I passed the halfway mark creating it.

That’s now.

And right now, the class is $57/month for 8 months, or $456 as a single payment.

There are folks who have a dream of writing a novel, but I can say from experience (having shared that dream), that until you decide to do the work, it never stops being a dream.

And if this is a dream you share, my process will help you turn the dream into your reality.

STILL not going to flog the thing… I put up two downloadable lesson samplers that you can get here:

 

The timer’s going, and once the countdown is done, I will not offer this price again.

Right now, you still have some time, and can look over the first parts of the first fourteen lessons, missing, of course,

  • most of the techniques and demos,
  • all of the worksheets,
  • the class discussions,
  • the assignments,
  • the videos…
  • and the fact that I’m only 15 out of 38 lessons (so far) into creating the class…

 

So the samplers are pretty thin. But they’ll give you a taste of what this is about.

And you can decide from there.

If this is your dream, though, I hope to see you in class, and help you make it your reality.

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


Podcast Technical Difficulties

By Holly Lisle

Becca was out of town, a raw cut of just her talking got uploaded instead of the edited episode, so she’s working on getting what was to have been today’s episode corrected. The broken one has already been pulled down.

HOWEVER… (yeah, there’s always one of those), this being the holiday season, lots more people are uploading things, so we cannot know when the correct, finished episode will become available.

We apologize for the error, and will have the next episode to you as quickly as possible.

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


NEW Fiction, BARGAIN price: The Longview Chronicles and The Owner’s Tale

By Holly Lisle

I’m delighted to announce that The Longview Chronicles, the complete six-book series in one volume, is on sale through Friday for $2.99regular price will be $7.99 for the complete series in ebook form, but I wanted all of my folks to get the whole series for the price of one episode.

For folks who are wondering, Cady is in the series (as is Herog), and this is the (very big) book that fits between Cadence Drake: Warpaint and the next novel, Cadence Drake: The Wishbone Conspiracy, and shows you what’s happening during and right after the end of Warpaint.

When the trusted are monsters, one monster becomes a hero…

The Longview Chronicles 250X400In the vast reaches of Settled Space, everything is legal, or at least obtainable privately… for a price.

Science has created near immortality, and the wealthy and powerful are buying it to make themselves gods. But these gods require–and create–an endless procession of manufactured criminals who become human sacrifices for their amusement…

Until one twisted creature born to be a sacrifice discovers the truth. This escaped slave declares a secret war against corruption, enslavement, and the wealthy, powerful men and women who have declared themselves gods, and made their whims law.

THE COMPLETE SERIES IN ONE VOLUME

Get this book from your favorite bookstore.

(And if you love it, please leave a review…)

 

And for folks who already have the first five, for the rest of this week, The Owner’s Tale, the brand new concluding episode, will be on sale for $.99.

When the truth comes out, who is left standing?

Longview 6 The Owners TaleIn this final episode of the series. the Longview reveals its secrets, Herog finds the path to protecting the City of Furies, and Melie discovers the truth about the ship she captains and the owner she serves.

MEET THE LONGVIEW – An Ancient Spaceship Resurrected To Transport Conspiracy

Inhabited by a crew of misfits fleeing nightmare pasts, with a cargo of Condemned slated to die at the hands of the highest bidders, and with a passenger roster made up exclusively of people NOT who they claim to be, The Longview serves the hidden agenda of an eccentric recluse bent on playing puppetmaster to all of Settled Space.

Get this from your favorite bookstore.

(And if you love it, please leave a review…)

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


The How to Write a Novel Lesson Sampler — Part Two

By Holly Lisle

So as promised, here’s the second Lesson Sampler from my in-progress How to Write a Novel class.

I’ll note that:

  • Registration for the class closes tomorrow night at 11:59 PM Eastern Time, and that…
  • This is the only time How to Write a Novel will be available for the Early-Bird price.  When registration reopens sometime next year, the price will go up significantly.

 

Necessary info out of the way, though, here’s your download.

[su_box title=”The How To Write A Novel Sampler: Part 2″ style=”glass”][su_row][su_column size=”1/2″ center=”no” class=””]How to Write a Novel[/su_column] [su_column size=”1/2″ center=”no” class=””]

This is not an overview of the course lessons.

This is the first 7-9 pages of each of the second seven lessons of the course. This sampler does NOT include worksheets, demos, videos, or the forum, of course. It’s JUST the first part of each lesson.

As long as you leave the material in its existing form (including the PDF format), you’re welcome to share this course sampler with anyone you like.

Download your excerpts from the second seven lessons of How to Write a Novel.

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I hope you find this helpful with your own novel writing.

 

 

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


The How to Write a Novel Lesson Sampler — Part One

By Holly Lisle

Sometimes it’s tough to explain what a class is, how it works, why it isn’t like every other class out there.

Sometimes (well, most times) it’s a lot easier to SHOW…

So in this PART 1 demo of my How to Write a Novel class, I’ve taken the first 7 to 9 pages of each of the first seven lessons, exactly as they are in the live class.

This includes typos — and I need to mention that because I’m currently writing this class one lesson ahead of the first group of students, at a pace of one lesson per week, and I don’t at the moment have time to go back and fix typos.

All the students in my classes get all in-version updates of their classes at no extra charge — and the folks in first get a better price, because they know there are going to be splinters — typos, places where I could have done better showing them how to do something.

Once I finish the whole class in this version, I’ll go back through it with a group of students who will help me find all the bugs, and I’ll fix it. And when that’s done, it’ll will become the finished version, at the finished-course price.

Because PDFs hang around forever, you may receive this PDF after that process is complete.

But perhaps not. In either case, I apologize for the typos, the little grammar misses, and the other errors that come with publishing raw first draft.

I hope you find the content helpful in showing you part of what you’ll need to know to write novels well.

[su_box title=”The How To Write A Novel Sampler: Part 1″ style=”glass”][su_row][su_column size=”1/2″ center=”no” class=””]How to Write a Novel[/su_column] [su_column size=”1/2″ center=”no” class=””]

This is not an overview of the course lessons.

This is the first 7-9 pages of each of the first seven lessons of the course. This sampler does NOT include worksheets, demos, videos, or the forum, of course. It’s JUST the first part of each lesson.

As long as you leave the material in its existing form (including the PDF format), you’re welcome to share this course sampler with anyone you like.

Download your excerpts from the first seven lessons of How to Write a Novel.

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Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Novel

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


The Titanic of Launches

By Holly Lisle

Yesterday was EPIC…

And by that I mean that it was the worst launch start I’ve ever been through.

Better yet, the wreck was my fault. I had, you see, this wonderful idea. We would have a way for folks in the shop to buy gifts for other writers, and to send those gifts directly — nice little note that the writer included straight to the friend’s email, link in the note to the class the writer bought for the friend, account created automatically for the friend IF the friend didn’t have one…

Neat, right?

And I pushed to have it ready for the launch. So if you wanted to, you’d be able to buy How to Write a Novel for your friend at the awesome Early-Bird price.

And at the last minute, I realized there was no way we could have it ready in time, so Dan shut it down, put us back on the regular launch, and off we went…

We thought.

But I did not give Dan the time he needed to test the launch process, because of that whole LAST MINUTE thing…

“We have a deadline, and we can’t see where we’re going, so let’s just drive faster.”

The captain of the Titanic…

And me.

So…

The class registration page is working now.

Class registration is open. Folks are heading in, getting their first lessons, introducing themselves, starting on their new novel.

I apologize for yesterday’s chaos, and I hope I’ll see you there.

How to Write a Novel

Early-Bird Price, $57/month x 8 months, or $456 single payment

This price will only be available now through next Tuesday, and then never again.

(The count-down timer is up at the top of the page.)

  • The class is self-paced, so you cannot fall behind,
  • includes lessons with step-by-step instructions,
  • worksheets,
  • demonstrations,
  • forum discussions, and
  • answers to your questions from me, moderators, and other students who are doing what you’re doing.

The class is already full of amazing people who are writing their novels.

And you can be one of them, AND get the Early-Bird Bonuses:

  • Weekly “Write-Along-With-Me” demo video of me writing MY class novel live
  • Brainstorm the Class Graduation Bonus (this is a separate small class I make exclusively for the folks who buy HTWAN — it’s not available for separate purchase)
  • Vote on the Class Graduation Bonus you want

You want to write a novel. Start it. Build it. And FINISH it.

You can do this.

Holly

P.S. It takes about five minutes from purchase to starting class. If you’re new to my classrooms, don’t skip the instruction video on the course intro page.

How to Write a Novel

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


IT’S A SIGN!!! – Moon & Sun Book 3: The Emerald Sun

By Holly Lisle

A long time ago (back in 2006-2008), I wrote two novels I loved and younger readers loved.

The Ruby Key: Moon & Sun Book 1

The Silver Door: Moon & Sun Book 2

I’d started work on the third one, The Emerald Sun: Moon & Sun Book 3…

And then Scholastic told me they weren’t going to continue the series. It would end with Book 3, and they would only want the third book if I took a massive pay cut.

I couldn’t afford to take the pay cut. We were already just squeaking by.

So I stopped working on the series, and wrote a bunch of writing books instead. Mugging the Muse: Writing Fiction for Love & Money, Create a Character Clinic, Create a Plot Clinic… and a long list of other books and classes I’m not going to name goes here, but that kept a roof over our heads and food in our bellies.

Meanwhile, however, I kept hearing from the kids who wanted to know what happened next with Genna, Dan, the Cat…

And now those kids are adults.

The rights to the first two books have reverted to me. Today I start the read-through of the first one to get back into the world, to get the voice back, and to find and take notes on any toys I left on the floor that I can pick up for Book 3.

And after I did the first run of reading, I got an unexpected gift.

During a Hard Drive Move (which is never anyone’s favorite thing) years ago (which I think coincided with our move from Georgia back to Florida, I lost track of the Book 3 outline and early chapters.

My older computer had become massively obsolete. I moved the backups to a new computer, and when I did this, Moon & Sun had already become a dead project, so I didn’t check to make sure I could find it.

Forward a bunch of years to when I wanted to find it, and I couldn’t. Realize… Macs have excellent backup, and really good search, and I knew what I was looking for. And no search term I had brought me to those manuscripts.

Today, on the day I started this project, I dug into an unrelated folder looking for something else, and found the entire Moon & Sun project in there, including the start of Book 3. Wasn’t where it was supposed to be, but everything opens, everything is readable, everything is usable.

It’s a sign. Time to write Book 3, time to get the first two into print again, time to bring this world back to life.

 

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