When I was a kid and my family lived on the western tundra of Alaska, my dad took me hunting and fishing with him. We were bringing in food for the table in a place where agriculture was impossible. I loved tagging along and helping out. I was nine, so for hunting I was just… Continue reading Civilization Versus The Full-Body For-Keepsies Panty Raid… and The Survival Value of ADD
Category: Mind/Body
So today I start the type-in of the Ohio 2 Revision
I was up at six, (when you’re fasting, it’s weirdly easy to roll out of bed at the crack of dawn and be through the shower, done with the first cup of coffee, before seven AM… and at my desk and finished with necessary work emails and the one help desk ticket only I could do… Continue reading So today I start the type-in of the Ohio 2 Revision
Character Paranoia, and the State of Revision
I’m past the halfway mark on the read-through-note-taking process on Ohio 2. I have a lot of the first draft that I’ll be able to use as is. That’s good. I have written novels where I discovered the first draft was The Story I Don’t Want To Tell (and could still run into that in… Continue reading Character Paranoia, and the State of Revision
Revelation Struck!!!
You grind. You dig. You read with increasing despair through a manuscript that seemed while you were writing it like a thing of wonder. You wonder how you could have gone so far off the mark. And you think, “How did I think this was going to work?” and consider the possibility that you’re going… Continue reading Revelation Struck!!!
Came up short… but landed well
Today’s scene was fun. I like what I got, I like the twist, I like the humor. I am, however, not feeling well, and at the point were I realized I’ve been circling the drain on the scene without coming up with a “what next”, or anything else that would let me hit today’s planned… Continue reading Came up short… but landed well
“Something wicked…” might be me!
Mondays can be hard starts. You’re back into work after taking the weekend off, you’re a bit cold on the book because you spent the previous week re-launching your writing classes and your mind has been elsewhere… And the first hour, I did some gear-grinding and backing and filling trying to get back into the… Continue reading “Something wicked…” might be me!
300 words on Ohio Five… and the discovery of how something clever got done
Nice interplay today between my main character and someone important to her, as she discovers more about what her grandmother had been up to. 300 words exactly. I’m happy with that. The HWC site move/upgrade is now right on top of us, and we could get the “go” at any time. So the fact that… Continue reading 300 words on Ohio Five… and the discovery of how something clever got done
6:47 AM – Finishing Ohio 4, starting Ohio 5, while building the new HollysWritingClasses.com site
SO… My website over on HollysWritingClasses.com is undergoing a massive overhaul (complete site rebuild). And I anticipated the process taking FOUR months. Turns out… it’s probably not anything like that. My amazing community moderators over there have already finished building all the classrooms in the new software, and getting all the class materials into them… Continue reading 6:47 AM – Finishing Ohio 4, starting Ohio 5, while building the new HollysWritingClasses.com site
“No plan survives first contact with the enemy…”
Or second contact… Or third… The quote may come from Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, or Carl von Clausewitz, or Dwight D. Eisenhower… or just some dude who knew shit. But it’s true — and it isn’t just true about war. It’s true about any sort of creation that requires spontaneous adaptation to unknowable but… Continue reading “No plan survives first contact with the enemy…”
When a house is not a home (and a READERS-ONLY request)… 1266 words, and 9439 total
I thought I knew what was going to happen today… and what happened did fit exactly inside my objectives for the scene, while at the same time turning everything I’d planned inside out and upside down on me and surprising me completely. And the cool twist of the day operated on the following writing principle:… Continue reading When a house is not a home (and a READERS-ONLY request)… 1266 words, and 9439 total
