Holly Lisle: Writer

Category: C: The Secret Project

  • How It’s All Going

    I guess I ought to clarify the whole business with C. Robin likes it quite well as a future submission to Knopf. She doesn’t like it at all as a current submission to Onyx. It’s simply the wrong sort of book, but I knew that as I was writing it. I will definitely keep working…

  • So … The Clock Just Ran Out

    First, I guess I’ll note that my agent does not love C. She’s read the first 190 pages of it, and notes that it’s “smart — and what I call a confrontational novel. It forces the reader to think.” This makes it decidedly not commercial, which I pretty much knew while I was working on…

  • I’m Struggling

    There is simply no other way to put it. While I’ve had some good days on C, today was a bloody, painful crawl from one end of the day to the other, with damn near nothing to show for it. I might be pushing too hard, so for a while, I’m going to cut my…

  • New Math for C

    A while back, I cut the anticipated word count for C down to 100,000. This was to speed up the pace, and to eliminate a surrealist second storyline that I’d originally envisioned, and that I disliked as I started working through it. Decided today, with a third of the first draft finished, to do a…

  • Tiny Little Snippet from “C”

    Snippet linked here. You must be logged in to read. This is a small one.

  • And Now to “C”

    Back, stuff done, and now for the dessert of the day. A couple hours of unadulterated fun as I work through more of “C.” A couple of people have asked if I could at least give hints on what this one is about. I’ll do better than that. From time to time, I’ll post snippets…

  • Blue Horses: Loving the Real

      Picasso and Franz Marc might seem to be odd folks to remember from public school kindergarten. But my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Quimby, had us doing crayon copies of their work, and discussing what we liked about it. She didn’t name the artists, or the paintings, but I still vividly recall my encounter with Big…

  • And a WIP Bar Update

    "C", my secret project is gone from the WIP Progress graphs shown. In its place is the work-for-hire book I’ll be doing under the pseudonym. "C" will reappear when it’s actually on the schedule again. Here’s hoping that’s soon.

  • New Year, New Books — Clearing the Deck

    I’ve cleared my desk (which took all of two minutes — with good shelves and a carefully thought-out organizational system, I’ve discovered I can be a tidy writer after all). I’ve pulled LAST GIRL DANCING from my active files and my WIP Progress meter. Have opened HAWKSPAR and moved it into the first spot on…

  • Promises You Make

    Claire liked "C". Robin e-mailed me yesterday, and mentioned that she wanted to know about a couple of changes to the basic premise, though. Throughout the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve made plenty of changes in previous premises, rewritten whole vast chunks of books, never quibbled because in every instance I could see how…