Technically, I finished Ohio 3 this morning…

By Holly Lisle

I’ll start my read-through, Monday. And I am considering the possibility of a final very short chapter to point the book toward Book 4.

I have the empty file sitting in my template.

But I’m not sure the “summation” chapter is needed, and I won’t know until I’ve finished the read-through.

The book is currently 57,040 words long, and will gain a few thousand words during revision as I find places where I wrote thin. (It always happens in first draft, especially to me.)

Meanwhile, I made myself laugh writing the ending.

ANYWAY… I’m looking forward to outlining Ohio 4 starting on Monday, working off of what I’ve now built into the first three novels, and seeing if there’s anything in the first draft of Ohio 4 that will be worth saving.

I’m not holding my breath on that. But I did find some things worth keeping from the first drafts on 1, 2, and 3. So it could happen.

Have a fantastic weekend!

I’m looking forward to mine.


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Evil Afoot — 2077 words, and I got a nice bit of a cliffhanger at the end

By Holly Lisle

Very pleased with the nasty situation in which I’ve dumped my MC — she’s going to have a rough rest of the week, too.

Evil is a foot (it left its footprint all over everydamnthing, in fact…) and my MC is in the process of using what she discovered to lead the bad guys into helping her.

So, with that done, I’m now going to work for a bit on the new Big Course for Writers I’m putting together.

Not going to discuss the course, or give hints about what it is. I’ll have it pretty much done when I take it live.

It will fill a big hole in my current classes, though.


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Solid complications in Ohio Three today. 691 words, and 54,188 total

By Holly Lisle

I love what I got. I didn’t get a huge wordcount, but I did get some spectacular complications to throw into the plot.

The story’s coming together well. And now I’m at a tricky bit of plotting that is going to affect not just this book, but the next two, and probably have significant impact on any books I might want to write in the series after the first five.

So I’m having to think about future ramifications at the same time that I’m trying to write stuff that is going to take me to the ending of THIS story.

So… FRIDAY. Which means I get to give my brain a couple days off to let the stuff I planted today put down roots in my imagination.

I’ll come back Monday, and see what grew.

Now I’m going to work for a bit on the surprise thing for writers. And then go have a weekend.


•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•
My daily words are funded by my Ko-Fi supporters.

All supporters are thanked by name (withheld by request) in
each book’s acknowledgements.
To add your support, use the orange Support me button
on the bottom left corner of this page.
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Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


A tricky bit to figure out for tomorrow… BUT done for today.

By Holly Lisle

Tomorrow my MC has to figure out how to contact (and then rescue) someone important trapped behind enemy lines without breaking the rules that forbid her from having any contact with the enemy.

I already know how she’s going to do this. I just need to figure out how to make it smooth, and clean, and coherent.

But today was good — today I put the discovery that this guy exists in front of her.

Word count: 1984 words for the day, 53,496 for the book… and I’m happy with what I got.

Meanwhile, however, with fiction done, I’m going to do more planning on some important nonfiction I’m working out.

And then I’m going to try to get rid of a headache that has been plaguing me on and off ever since winter and spring started duking it out for the Most Annoying Weather crown.


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Today was SOLID — and eventful: 2121 words, and 51,559 total

By Holly Lisle

I’m over the hump and heading toward the ending now, and today’s scene and tomorrow’s scene are dark, and pretty scary for my MC and her folks, with a massive chance of things going so wrong that she could — with just one mistake — lose everything she has come to love (and not just for herself, but for everyone she cares about).

I love what I got today, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s words.

Now, though, I have to do non-fiction stuff.


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Happy Writing… and some love

By Holly Lisle

My MC has discovered that she is not alone in the world, or the universe… and today I finally got to do some of the happy stuff with that.

If I’d been able to keep all the words from today’s scene, the word count would have been a lot bigger. But I had to rip out a chunk, so I got 880 that I could keep, and 49,500 (and actual round number on BOTH stats today).

And I fell in love with the story and the MC and the MC’s new (very temporary) house guest all over again.

* * *


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It’s “Make Yourself Cry” Day…

By Holly Lisle

I got good words. 997, to be exact. And I love what I got today.

But some of what I wrote was pulled out of my real life, and part of it was me getting to do in fiction something I never had the opportunity to do in real life, because my real childhood was a never-ending series of ill-considered and poorly thought-out moves into bad places and worse places, with no consideration — EVER — for the people those dumb-and-dumber moves left behind.

I wrote today the scene I would have given anything to live through in real life, and writing it helped.

It also happens to be a really solid scene right before TSGD (The Shit Goes Down)… which is what I get to write tomorrow.

So not only am I happy with what I got today, but I’m really excited about tomorrow.

Now, though, on to all the other work that must be done.

 

WITH ONE RATHER DROLL OBSERVATION… (ADDED AFTER THE EMAIL WENT OUT)

I’ve been working on the same part of the book for three days, and had not noticed (until I read my own blog posts for these last three days, that I have, in fact, made myself cry three damn days in a row.

Here’s the bright news on that. These are in general, pretty funny books.

There is just this one little section here where I gave my hero some bits of my own childhood in her past (heavily altered), and threw in one person in my life who meant the world to me. And she and that one special person got to do the one thing I never did. Which is why there were tears.


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Ohio 3, and the Shoe-Drop Moment

By Holly Lisle

There’s the “make yourself cry” moment, and there was some of that today. I did, indeed, make myself cry. Again.

There was a bit of making myself laugh.

There was giving my character one moment I would take in a heartbeat if someone could just stop the world and roll back time.

And there was the bit that you couldn’t even pay me to sit through watching in a movie in a well-lit room.

So… big story day, and the moment where the other shoe dropped gave me a terrific place to pick up tomorrow.

So now, on to the OTHER STUFF.

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Today was BIG… good words, but also landed a huge PIVOT scene

By Holly Lisle

And made myself cry.

That might not seem like a big deal. But this was a crucial scene in the book in which my MC has just come through an massive ordeal, and found one moment in time in which she got to say goodbye to her person in the world — the one who’d meant the most to her in her life…

And what she had to do in order to do that was horrific. And then, at the end, she discovers this crazy, tiny little gift that she had all along, except she hadn’t known it was a gift until right at that moment.

And BAM. Serious, embarrassing waterworks.

Very glad I had the office to myself when I did this, because I hate to cry, and even worse hate to do it in front of anyone else.

Thing is, there are parts of your life that you tear out of yourself and translate into fiction. And the ones that hurt back when they were real hurt again when they show up on the page.

They do make for a pretty spiffy moment in the plot, though.

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


That which cannot be unseen… 45,783 and 699 for the day.

By Holly Lisle

This was a tough scene to write. It was emotional, and painful, and just mean. But it allowed me to bring together two characters who need to build a relationship that’s going to affect the rest of the novels…

And it sets me up to bring BACK a character who has been silent so far in this book, but who is crucial to the entire series, and to my MC.

I’m satisfied that I got this right, and I worked out what I’m going to be writing tomorrow. So… GOOD writing day.

Just not an easy one.


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