Seven. But close to done.

By Holly Lisle

At the moment, I don’t have much more to say than that. If I can get this last hill of shit shoveled, I will then be able to get some actual words today.

If I get to my fiction before I run out of working hours, I’ll be starting at 34,298 words, with a writing goal of 1250 or better — but if I get to work on the book at all today, and don’t hit my wordcount, just getting to write some fiction will be a win.Dec11 2020 ohio novel start

Here’s hoping. AND working.

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


Help I didn’t ask for… a long slog ahead to fix what a “helpful” company irreversibly broke

By Holly Lisle

Oh, irony. 

Two days ago, I think, “Gee… the writing is going really well, I miss blogging, and I would love to blog about writing fiction again.” 

Two days ago, after a middle-of-the-road-but-not-bad day of getting my words — I have fun, I like the words I get, and I get enough of them to move the story forward and to add some pretty spiffy complications — some nameless jackass at some nameless company decides that said jackass can make some changes to my basic NONWRITING work process that will make my life better by breaking the way I do damn near everything I do.

I can either put my faith in this awesome company [THAT’S IRONY] which — having once completely broken my still-unfixed daily work — has proven that although it might NOT break my process again, it could. At any time.

I can say, “Yeah, sure. I’ll take that chance.”

Or I can change my process, not depend on the help of that company or any other company like it, and make sure I control this particular mission-critical task from end to end.

EASY DECISION: Wherever it’s possible, you don’t give other folks the power to wreck your work.

OUTCOME: I have to figure out how to control the process from end to end.

So yesterday I worked from 6 a.m., when I started work and discovered I couldn’t work on anything else until I fixed this, to not long after 6 p.m., when my eyes were crossed and I didn’t dare keep going.

And my accomplishment can be summed up in a single number.

3

This is an objective number that defines what I accomplished yesterday, encompassing 12 hours of straight work, one cup of coffee, and one bathroom break. This is not 3 out of some knowable bigger number, because I have no way of telling what the end number could be. I could be 6. It could be 60. It could be worse than that. 

It is, however, an objective number of what I’ve completed in a finite but very large task.

BECAUSE… if I can’t get words, I can damnwell stick with my decision to get back to blogging, so that when I can get back to fiction, the blog will attest that I did not just forget. I did not lie down. I did not make excuses.

So that, when I can get back to the words, I will have the reminder of what broke them for however long this takes, and the reminder of how important it is to keep your mission-critical processes in your own hands.

Three. At the end of today there will be another number. At the end of tomorrow, there will be one after that. And so on, until this is fixed. 

‘Nuff said. Onward.

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