Ohio progress, AND almost done with the new HollysWritingClasses.com site.

By Holly Lisle

Today I got 458 words on Ohio 5, which was 458 more than I figured I’d get.

And I liked what I got, which was a continuation of the situation my characters walked into yesterday.

I’ll take the weekend off from fiction, and by Monday, we should be mostly done with the website stuff, excluding me inviting members back, and them letting hunt for any issues with their accounts.

(I’m going to invite folks back in SMALL groups first, so that if there are any general site problems, we can NOT receive a hundred or a thousand tickets in the help desk about that same problem.

We’ll fix and found problems before inviting the next groups back. Right now, we’ve just finished inviting the moderators back. 

It has been a long, hard slog to get the new site built and to remove the old site. 

But we’re almost at the end of it, and I am deeply relieved.

It will be delightful to get back to writing full-time.


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151 words — Got started early on the HWC upgrade and am still working on that.

By Holly Lisle

I’m glad I got words. I didn’t get many, and this late in the day (when I got these early this morning), I don’t even remember if they were particularly good, or fun, or anything.

After an entire day of working on a website — and I’ve been over at HollysWritingClasses.com since 7:30 AM today working at bringing stuff back to life — fiction is kind of a fuzzy dream.

I’ll be damn glad to get back to it tomorrow, though.

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


FUNNY words today — and 1389 of them. It was a very good writing day! Also… HWC Update.

By Holly Lisle

So first the book, because that’s where my morning started. And it was a WONDERFUL morning. Not only did I get 1389 new words, but I also the answer to something that happened in Book 1, and that explained a lot. And I discovered a secret one character has kept through four novels, and just today finally came clean about.

And I made myself laugh. I love when that happens. The words just pop out, and they’re from the part of my mind that has no censor, and that will say goofy things. And this time, they were goofy while revealing stuff about character I thought I knew that gave them some extra depth. 

The counter showing my wordcount is wrong, though, because I discovered this morning that Chapter Five was three chapters long. So I cut all the many extra words from the chapter, and pasted it into a new one. And Scrivener counted them all as new words. The wordcount in the HEADER is right.

<hr/>

On to the frustrating bit. HWC members have started logging into the new site in spite of the fact that NO invitations have gone out, and the other fact that WE’RE NOT DONE YET.

So now I have to go write an email telling all the folks who jumped the gun to log out and wait patiently so they don’t break something.

We’re going to call this Good morning/ Bad morning.

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OHIO 5: Far better than average morning: 1001 words, 8202 total

By Holly Lisle

So… The writing flew this morning.

I’m not sure why… but things just clicked. And while they were clicking, the back of my mind was working on the problem of taking books four complete first drafts and one book that as of today is not quite ten percent done (in first draft only, of course), and turning them into pick-up anywhere reads.

And I think I have it. Something that won’t cause massive rewrites during the revision, something that will not include an expository introduction to the series with “In Book One…” “In Book Two…” summaries.

Just a focus on nailing four or five essentials.

The back of my brain was hammering this out while the front of my brain was focusing on getting the days words’ and only poked me with it when I finished them.

So now I’m going to write down what I figured out, so that I don’t lose it.

And then I’m going to see how the New Site/New Forum data move is coming.

Looking very much forward to getting the old site gone and the new site live.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend. 

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Done with Ohio 5, Chapter 3: 253 words today, 6216 total (Plus HWC Update)

By Holly Lisle

No surprises today. The rest of the chapter just flowed smoothly from yesterday’s revelation.

Tomorrow, I’ll start chapter four, and probably revisit my existing outline again — because as I have with every single book so far, three chapters in, I have now completely left the outline I had for this book.

This is the process for me.

Outline.

Fight the outline.

Break the outline with something better.

Repeat.

There’s no efficiency in it, other than the efficiency of it being the process that actually works for me.

It lets me get the best stories I’m capable of writing.

It looks really messy. But my finished first draft is (almost) always solid, and I only have to revise once.

*v*v*v*

The classes are finished in the new HollysWritingClasses software, the website and webpages are built, the class sign-up pages are done except for the pricing boxes, and now what the guys have to do is turn off the old site, bring over the new one and its databases (ENORMOUS databases), and turn things on.

I make it sound small and easy, but it isn’t.

So in the next few days, there’s going to be an outage on the live site while we do this. I’m pretty sure I now have all active HWC members on the HWC list, and I’ll be letting you know when things are going to shut down. And then when they’re back up again.

I’m so very ready to be done with this, and to have a new site on new software with great support and frequent updates. It’s time.

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


The HWC “What do we do with No FORUM?!” page

By Holly Lisle

We’re getting ready to shut down the HollysWritingClasses.com site for its update (This will happen in 0-48 hours… don’t know yet).

But while the site is down, HWC members can ask questions and talk to each other here.

This is not a place to report problems. For that, go to the HWC Help Desk and create a ticket.

This is just so folks can stay in touch with each other until we get back to the forums — keep up with word counts, talk about writing… whatever.

It ain’t perfect, but it’s a lot better than nothing.

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Yippeeeee!!! Good News on Ohio 5 & Writing Site Updates!

By Holly Lisle

I had a blast this morning. Lost track of time, (and as a result got twice as many words as the last few writing days)…

And I got a kick-ass start to Chapter Two. My MC is in trouble, her entire town is in trouble, and in MY tomorrow but her next three seconds, she is going to get some awful news.

Which I am really looking forward to writing. 

But, with 506 words for the day, 3,122 words for the book, and a nice, solid start to Chapter 2, I must now go work on the website.

I’m working on the emails that will bring groups of HWC members back to the site after we replace the school with the new software. I also have some “techie for other folks, but I have to set it up” stuff to do today.

So, having had a whole lotta fun with the words, I now go to do spiffy “new school awesomeness” website stuff. 


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Ohio Novel #5- 251 words on Chapter 2

By Holly Lisle

So to get the context of this, the picture above is what’s going on outside my house right now.

I’m inside, where it’s warm (if you’re wearing sweatpants, double-layered socks, and a hand-knit wool sweater, anyway).

I’m writing about Ohio in the spring… which (ahem) this ain’t… while looking out the window at snow spiraling down off the barn next door, with the snow currently coming down so hard that the house catty-corner from us across the street is just a hazy impression of its big old monster self.

Turns out, this is the perfect time to write a spring scene. Because to get spring right, you have to want it. You have to be able to summon the shapes and colors and sounds and scents, the still-cool air that feels like a kiss, the smell of warming earth and fresh-sprouting grass… and as much as I’m enjoying watching the snow because I’m inside and don’t have to drive in it, (and right now, we don’t have a road anyway… we have an unbroken blanket of snow that’s going to be last to get cleared because we live on an alley…) I do find myself happy to contemplate dogwoods and crabapples and Judas trees in full bloom. 

Those are next on the Ohio Weather menu.

Meanwhile, I got 251 words, NOT about the weather, but about scary things happening to people I like.

Now I have to go talk with my guys over at HollysWritingClasses.com about the upcoming website move. And work on that. So…

ONWARD!


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My next week-ish: Brain reset, but no rest

By Holly Lisle

I may not be in here regularly for the next week (I am possibly being a bit optimistic on that week thing, by the way. It might take me two or three to do everything I have to do.)

The first part of what I’m doing is letting Book 4 settle into the back of my brain. I need to figure out Book 5 — and Book 5 needs to bring the first series to a strong ending. The first reason is that I cannot know how well these will do, and if they flop, I don’t want the folks who bought all five to be left hanging.

The second is because if they do well, I have stuff in mind for following books, and I’m torn between each one being a complete adventure, and doing a second five-book series.

Gotta get some distance, some perspective — and gotta think about the stuff in the closet. It’s a pretty scary closet.

The other thing is, of course, the HollysWritingClasses.com complete rebuild.

The classes — lessons, videos, and downloads — are already built on out out-of-the-way work domain. My moderators did that part.

But the SITE is not built. I hooked it up to the new shopping cart yesterday, and we did test purchases, and the word that comes to mind is… BUTTERY. I don’t imagine a lot of people “squeeee” over a new shopping cart.

I squeeeeed.

I’ve owned this software for years — I got it when Dan was building the first version of the HollysWritingClasses.com site. He couldn’t come up with a way to integrate it into what he was building, though.

So I just hung onto it — it was, like the stuff I create, a one-time purchase that you can go back to any time.

And when I had to buy all-new classroom software, I made DAMN sure before it bought it that it worked with my existing cart.

And… <SQUEEEE! (yeah, again)> Boy, does it.

Dead simple to set up classes, and my moderators doing test purchases were saying stuff like, “Wow, that was flawless.”

FLAWLESS.

We like flawless. 

The software comes with built-in affiliate software, so the affiliate program for members will be coming back.

EMAILS.

My database guys got me ALL the membership emails for HollysWritingClasses, going back to the days when there were just the one class: How to Think Sideways.

There were more than 7000.

Obviously, a lot of these are going to be dead emails.

And obviously, not all of the folks who owned the classes will want to come back.

I told folks when I sent out the emails, If you unsubscribe, we’ll remove you from the classes. Had a total of 222 unsubscribes when I came in this morning, handed off those email addresses to my database guys so they could start deleting accounts.

Had 477 so far who will be staying. I’m delighted such a high percentage of folks are staying.

I’ll give this a week-ish to sort itself out, re-email only those folks who didn’t do anything, and give them one more week.

Then I’ll delete all the non-responders from the mailing list, and my moderator/database guys (Tom & James) will remove their classes and delete their accounts.

And we’ll move on to the next big obstacle.


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6:47 AM – Finishing Ohio 4, starting Ohio 5, while building the new HollysWritingClasses.com site

By Holly Lisle

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 — a process I’d expected to take about two months. That means that all the lessons, all the downloads, all the videos, all the EVERYTHING… are done.

Except for the lesson timers (the things that make a new lesson show up each week for the writer taking the class), which I have to go in and do manually.

Turns out, that takes about ten seconds a lesson, and all the lessons are (for the person building the class), on the same page, so you can just go through and check a box and put in a number and it takes a couple seconds if you’re being careful. 

So, timers are a non-issue. I have to do them, but they won’t slow anything down. That’s what I’m going to do today on all the classes… and I anticipate having all the classes done today… even if I have to duplicate the BIG classes to offer the slower-pace/smaller monthly price one-lesson-every-OTHER-week option.

I’d figured another two months for my two database guys to figure out how to move all the existing members and all their existing classes into the NEW database, while I built the front end — the sales pages for the classes, for us to test the new classroom with the new, beautiful, professional, already integrated shopping cart.

And it very well might take us that long.

But since the software we’re using has built-in professional integration with the shopping cart we’re using… probably not.

Moving ever single writer who ever bought a class (and who therefore still owns it) into the new database might in fact take two months. 

But I’m going to say odds are pretty slim that anything else will.

So I’m saying  BEST CASE, we could be on the new software and live on December 8th (one month from now).

I’m saying that the Reasonable Assumption is that we’ll be moving everyone and everything to the new site (and the new site to HollysWritingClasses.com) around the New Year.

I’m excited. There are a lot of things I’ll be able to do on the new software that I cannot do on the old software… but that’s a post for another time.

Right now… I’m heading in to write the ending of Ohio 4 novel. Yep. LAST SCENE. And I know what I want to have in it.

Tomorrow, I’ll start outlining Ohio 5.


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