Holly Lisle's Blog, page 17

Back to the OHIO words: 755 today,

During the worst of the site rebuild, when we were trying and failing to get writers into their classes, I didn’t get any fiction written.

That was a rough few days.

But we have everyone in, we now have a way to add their classes, and we’re close to opening the classes to new students.

So today, I both slept in (which was really nice), and then gave myself an hour to work on the novel (which was even nicer).

And I love what I got.

But… BOY, am I mean to my characters.

Writing THE END on Ohio 5

I was rolling along on Chapter 9 this morning. The word were flowing,  flew — 1106 words, 22,677 total — and a really brutal surprise — and it was all falling together perfectly. 

Except that I discovered I was writing the actual end of the novel.

So I dragged Chapter 9 down to Chapter 30, and swapped the empty Chapter 30 file up to the Chapter 9 position, and then I just kept writing. 

The ending is exactly what it needs to be for Book 5 in this series. It sort of solves the primary problem from the first five books. And it creates a solid ending to the story.

And to the series, if I want that.

But it gives me massive elbow room for more novels if these do well.

And the novel itself will still stand alone.

I still have about 75,000 words to write on this novel. The novel itself is not finished, or anything like it.

But I now have a great ending to write TO… and sometimes that’s a huge help in getting the book done.

It was a very good writing day.

OVER AT THE SCHOOL

But now, on to working on the HollysWritingClasses.com site. I solved a big problem over there yesterday, and today, I’m going to see where Tom Vetter and James Husum are on their side of the same issue.

This is not easy. At the moment, it’s not fun. 

But we are making steady progress.

Got my words first thing. 976 for the day, 20,974 total — and the train jumped back on the track.

The book smacked me in the head. Said, “Yo, dumbass… you’re still going exactly where you thought you were going when you had that great revelation, and THIS is how you’re going to get there.”

Said it in that snarky know-it-all voice that made me want to punch it, too.

But it was right.

And I got a really good scene today. HAH.

Today is not going to be a writing day. HollysWritingClasses.com went live on the new software…

Yesterday I took the new HWC school live for existing students, and today Becca and I are going to be working in the help desk fixing accounts.

In theory, anyway. Becca and I have 194 brand new tickets in the help desk (I just counted them in email, and a few of them might be additions to existing tickets, but all of them are NEW), and I’m heading in now to get started on those.

Becca will be along after she’s fed the chickens and the cats and the dogs and probably watered the garden (assuming she isn’t having rain down in Georgia).

My guess is that today and the next few days are going to be long and difficult, because she and I are going to be learning how to fix classes and repair accounts using the brand-new school software for the first time while actually fixing real problems, and we’re going to have to figure this out as we go.

Wish me luck. Hell, wish us both luck. My gut says we’re gonna need it.

A very good day for Ohio 5: 1325 words, 19,576 total… and a surprise

This doesn’t happen very often: My main character reasoned me out of the major plot direction I wanted to write today.

I’d spent the weekend doodling around in my mind with how today’s scene was going to go. I had a specific thing my main character was going to do, it was pretty epic, it was pretty heroic…

And when I sat with my hands on the keyboard, my character said, “Nope. That’s not what I’m going to do, and here’s why I’m not going to do it.”

And she walked me through it step by step and detail by detail, and she was exactly right. 

Damn her.

Now, of course, I’ve got to figure out how things get knocked into the direction my character was going to take WITHOUT my character following that path…

… Because that path is what the book was, and is still going to be about.

Now, however, that my MC has done the smart, absolutely right thing, I’ve got shove her into a corner so tight and mean and scary that the only choice she eventually has left is to do the wrong thing. 

And I can feel the Grinch Smile pulling at the corners of my mouth already, because while I don’t know how I’m going to do this, figuring that out is going to be FUN.

via GIFER

Get Holly’s Free Fiction Sampler, plus Weekly Fiction Updates, and when these books go on sale, get invited to the launch.

Doing a Line-for-Scene re-plot of Book 5 from Chapter 7 to Chapter 30

I got 281 words, and am up to 18,423 total, and was rolling along pretty nicely.

Hit the end of Chapter 5, rolled over to Chapter 5, and found stuff written clear through Chapter 8 that I’ll either have to save or delete. But I also discovered that the book I’ve been writing since the Cave is different by a lot (and better by a lot) than the story I’d been telling up to that point. 

So now I have to pull out my Book 5 Line-for-Scene outline, see if there’s anything in it I can save, and re-plot from there. I have another hour and change to work on this before I have to move over to writing-school-upgrade stuff.

So there aren’t going to be anymore words today, and tomorrow might have a terrific word slaughter pending…

But I’m going to see how cleverly non-destructive I can be in working in what I’ve already written. (THIS USUALLY GOES BADLY.)

Either way, none of the rest of the words I’ll do today will count. They’ll all be line-for-scene outlining and rethinking.

YESTERDAY’S words on Ohio 5

[image error]

The day got crazy pretty quickly. HollysWritingClasses.com is on its new software, but between big by-hand database updates to get all the members all their classes, and layout improvements to get all the members TO their classes, and  necessary (and still in progress fixes to the integration between the classrooms and the forum, Tom, James, and I worked from ten a.m until about 4 PM for me, and possibly later for them.

Before that, I managed to get 561 words that I liked yesterday on Ohio 5. I’ll see how well they hold up today.

Heading in now.

Got 512 words on Ohio 5, and now am back to work on HollysWritingClasses.com

I like what I got. My MC’s discovery of the BIG lie yesterday had an interesting consequence today that I had not anticipated. 

And my MC dealt with it much, much better than I would have. I suspect that once she’s out of sight of the person who let this news slip, her response is going to be different.

Fun writing day, but now over to the HollysWritingClasses.com site fixes.

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

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.

•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•
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.
•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•

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

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.