Holly Lisle's Blog, page 23

Words went well, bad things happened…

And once again, I loved what I got.

My poor, poor characters…

And I got 1351 words, and am now at 68,056 — and the villains in town have just done something really interesting, and my MC just got to see the first tip of a brand new iceberg…

But I now have to go work on the massive overhaul of the HollysWritingClasses.com site.

My moderators and I are rebuilding the whole thing (offsite, of course). I’m estimating that it’ll take us between two and four months to get the whole thing overhauled.

It will, however, be spiff as hell when it’s done.

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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 this page.
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Ohio today — monsters and dinner

Things have gotten pretty dicey in small-town Ohio. The bad guys brought in things far too evil to be mentioned by name in a blog post, and a couple of the good guys have become lunch.

I got 1139 words, and hit the logical place to stop for the day, so I did. Still have a bunch of hours of work ahead of me working on the HollysWritingClasses.com site update/upgrade.

But, MAN, do I love the words I got today.  66,734 total… and I’m already exciting about what I’ll be writing tomorrow.

So today I’m sixty-one… RIGHT…

We had our little pizza and birthday-pie (I’m not a cake fan) celebration last night, because Matt doesn’t have today off.

So today, while I AM going to be taking the day off from the novel, I’m working on fixing the HollysWritingClasses.com website.

Doing a big overhaul, upgrading stuff to a new platform and new software, moving ALL the students and class owners…

This isn’t going to be done today. The actual work of it isn’t even going to be STARTED today. Today, my moderators and I are just figuring out the new software, and trying to find the easiest ways to bring everything over.

And…

I’m kind of thrilled, actually. I love doing this stuff — and I keep seeing how much more smoothly everything is going to work, and how much more fun it’s going to be to use.

And I’m still keeping my promise to myself that I would not work on the novel on my birthday.

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Got 1307 words, and a few moments of unexpected grace

This book keeps surprising me.

I have my Scene Sentences. I am, in theory, writing to a carefully thought-out outline.

And that’s a very nice theory.

In fact, however, I keep figuring out how to do better stuff than what I planned in those Sentences… and today, playing Beat the Sentence, I had an extraordinary moment of grace when a couple of old movies beloved from my childhood found ways to affect my MC, the terrifying situation in which she finds herself, and managed to both choke me up and make me laugh at the same exact point.

And, boy, is she in a world of hurt.

1307 words, better than my 1250 planned.

Some continuing chaos to the day, but GOT the words! And damn… I love ’em

There’s stuff you plan.

There’s stuff you have written out in line-for-scene sentences in your chapter synopsis in Scrivener — 30 words max that give you the starting conflict, the characters, and the setting.

And then there’s where you go with it once you’ve established those things… and today, I went someplace new. 

Got 1259 words (just over my 1250 planned for the day), because there’s been a LOT going in real life here, and it’s NOT stuff I planned, and it’s going to mean I’m going to be doing a lot of long hours for a while…

And today I still have a bunch more work to do before I can quit.

But that’s the breaks. I’ll work as long as I have to, I’ll get everything finished.

•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•
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 this page.
•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•

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Has been hectic… but got the words.

1264 out of 1250 needed.

Things are mean, and scary, and my MC is in deep trouble. Which isn’t nice, but which is in fact pretty much what you want to be going on in the middle of a novel.

I have NO CLUE how she’s going to get out of this. None.

When the nature of her problems revealed themselves to me, my gut response was, “Oh, shit…”

And tomorrow, when I come back to this, I’m still going to have that floating there.

Writing-wise, it has been a very good day.

What I got done before my day exploded — 348 words

I’m having technical issues elsewhere, and I have no idea how long fixing this will take.

But I had butt in chair early this morning, and managed to at least get 348 words before my day derailed.

So that’s something.

Made myself cry. It’s those ‘words from nowhere’ that get me…

I leapt into the story this morning at the exact place where I left myself yesterday — a place with nothing even remotely transcendent about it. My main character was dealing with a situation that has turned ugly and scary, she’s in trouble, she’s facing an absolutely awful situation that affects not just her but everyone she loves and has ever loved…

And all of a sudden, this newish, very strange friend of hers who has until now liked her just because he liked her grandmother, answers a question she asked.

It was a question born of fear and desperation.

And he answered that question, but then he went beyond.

Way beyond. So beyond that while I was transcribing what he was saying to her in my head, I had tears running down my cheeks, and had to blink to see the damn screen.

And my MC started to cry, too — because hey, I’m not going to be the only wimp in the room.

And when he was done, she took the condensation of what he said to her — fifteen words total — and she went to a guy she knows who does good tattoos, and she got those fifteen words tattooed upside down on her right thigh.

And I’m in a great place to pick up the story on Monday… and it isn’t even remotely the place I thought I was going to be when I sat down to write this morning.

1280 words for the day (of 1250 planned), 60,331 total on the novel, and today was a magnificent writing day.

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

My MC thought she had a GREAT solution for her nightmarish problem…

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Turns out, not so much. When the guy helping you says, “Well, we’re gonna need to make a smoking crater, and we have to be right in the middle…”

That’s when you know it’s time to start looking for Plan B.

Very, very good writing day, with 1430 words of my 1250 planned, and a total of 59,051 — so if all goes well, I’ll roll over 60,000 tomorrow. 

I love big round numbers, even if they flash past so quickly I almost always miss them.

Now, though, on to the rest of the day’s work.

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My Ohio 4 folks face bad, badder, and YEESH!… Plus a Moon & Sun: Emerald Sun update

In my Ohio main character’s living room, folks who have befriended her and worked with her have just got some very bad news… as in, “Well, guys… we’re now potentially looking at the end of us, the town, Ohio… the country… maybe the whole world…”

And there’s a certain amount of lack of support for keeping going in the face of what are almost certainly Dire Consequences.

I tried to keep quiet and just let them talk, and they came up with some pretty good arguments for packing up their toys and going home.

So tomorrow, I’m going to have to see if my hero has anything she can put in front of them to change their minds.

Things are… Bad. Very bad. Very scary. 

Got 1335 words, more than the 1250 I needed. And I like what I got, though I really wasn’t expecting quite the level of vehement lack of support for T and her job.

I’m really hoping someone tomorrow is going to stand up and say, “You bunch of chickens… You lily-livered weasels…”

But with the stakes being whole-town, whole-planet, whole-solar-system… I don’t have a clue what any of them might say.

Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about that. 

Tomorrow-Holly is the one who will have that land on her plate.

THE MOON & SUN SERIES

I’ve had people asking me for years when I was going to write The Emerald Sun and finish the series.

Here’s the problem. I have no clue how many readers actually want to have the series back in print, or to read the as-yet-unwritten final novel.

And until yesterday, had no clue how to get in touch with the people who wanted to read those books.

And without being able to talk to the folks who want to read the series, there’s no point in writing it, because there’s no way to reach them to let them know when I do.

But I had one person from my big list write to me to say, “I’m waiting on your list because I want to read The Emerald Sun.”

One. But that’s why she was/ is there… and there might well be other folks who are waiting for the same thing.

If that’s you, here’s your page: https://hollylisle.com/i-want-to-read-the-emerald-sun/

Go there, add yourself to the Moon & Sun reader’s list, and if you have some who share your reading tastes, bring friends. Reply to the ONE email on that list — right now there’s just one. Talk to me.

The problem is — and always has been — that I need enough readers for the series to do the massive amount of work (and incur the large expense) to bring the first two books back to life and write the third one.

This — building the list, and then talking to readers and would-be readers of those books in a way that will allow me to let you know when the books are available for purchase — is the first step.

•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•
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 this page.
•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•

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