Holly Lisle's Blog, page 25

Mwha-ha-ha! Being cruel to my MC, evil to the townsfolk — and loving the result.

A 30-word scene sentence and a thirty-sentence outline leaves you an awful lot of room for figuring out what actually needs to fill each 3000-word chapter.

Today’s tiny sentence  turned into a scene of action, a bit of stuff I pulled out of having been a registered nurse working in both ICU and ER…

Some critters I introduced in the previous book…

An attempted repeat of something that happened to start this novel…

And it roped in my main character, a dear friend of hers, an entire school full of kids and teachers, the local cops, the entire local hospital ER staff, and a WHOLE lot of upset parents… and made sure everyone had just a gawdawful morning…

That nevertheless turned out a whole lot better than it could have. 

One Pied Piper who showed up out of nowhere could have wreaked a lot of destruction and tragedy… if a few tiny heroes with a really gross way of stopping him had not come to the rescue.

I loved today’s words. Had no idea any of this was going to happen — but it fit the Sentence, it solved the problem… and it gave me the bigger problem that I’ll get to deal with next Monday.

1445 words out of 1250 planned. Really, really, really wonderful, fun, awesome writing day — the kind of day that makes this the job I bounce out of bed in the morning to do — because SOMETIMES I get to do this.

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Woot! Bad got worse, worse got terrible — and I got words: 1378 of 1250 planned.

I do not envy my main characters. I’ve mentioned this in the past, I will no doubt mention it again in the future… but I particularly do not envy my Ohio main character.

She has World’s Worst Job, which she inherited from her grandmother, and she wasn’t quite as quiet or subdued about doing it as her grandmother had been. Grandma managed to keep things quiet — but the rules changed by the time my MC showed up.

And… boy… the bag guys really picked up their game yesterday and today, and now… well, I’m remembering the “shoot it where it won’t grow back” line from Men in Black, and thinking that guy had it easy.

Got the words, the outline is holding up, the scenes are holding together as I write them, and I’m staying on deadline.

I do love this world, and this story, and these people.

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Oh, today was GOOD… main character in deep soup, her dear friend in deadly danger…

First, though, the words — 1393 out of my 1250 words-per-day objective. 40,171 total. At 45,000, I’ll pass the halfway mark on Book Four.

But… oh, boy. I hated having to stop for the day. There’s such incredibly bad stuff happening, and this guy my main character loves so much is in horrible trouble.

I got a late start this morning (started at almost eight AM), but it didn’t matter, because today everything I set up yesterday just rolled into place. It clicked.

And tomorrow should be fun, because all the moving pieces are going to collide — heroes will meet hell, and monsters  will meet mayhem, and while I don’t know HOW it’s going to work out, that’s the fun of this job. I’ll set things in motion, follow them through to the end, and get to find out. 

So I’m very much looking forward to my Thursday words.

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

Happy dance… Got good words in a mean scene

Today was about big, bad things coming at my MC… and about her knowing they were coming, and getting ready to walk out to face them unarmed to save a dear friend…

And about how being someone who shows up when others need help can sometimes pay off when YOU need help…

And it went well.

To say the least.

I was up at at the desk just after seven AM, and now, just after ten AM, I discovered that I wrote 2555 words (way more than my 1250-word/day objective), and I now have 38,865 total written on Book 4, and I love the way this novel is coming together.

 

Got words. Was a Mean Girl. My main character is, therefore, having a really horrible day.

I got 1363 words (putting me at 37,578), and I love them all, but my poor main character is watching the world fall apart around here while someone she loves is in the middle of horror and hell.

More tomorrow.

My MC is in big trouble, and so is a beloved friend — 1268 words, and nice progress

Today’s scene and situation were both really good ways to end my writing week.

I have a cliffhanger scene, a cliffhanger situation, absolutely no clue what’s going to happen when I come back in on Monday — 

And that’s a good thing. This stuff gets to percolate all weekend while I take down-time, play No Man’s Sky, read fiction, and specifically don’t think about the story. 

The gigantic scene I wrote previously that had to go all the way to the back third of Book 4 is a consequence of what I’m writing now.

I know only one connecting point between the two scenes — but it’s big, and it’s a really mean twist that I’ve known was coming since Book One.

It will be resolved in this novel. The trouble its resolution spawns, however, is going to carry me all the way to the end of Book Five.

So — this is a really good place to leave myself as I go kick back for a couple days and let myself relax.

I’m looking forward to the weekend, and to letting this stuff all bake slowly in the background.

1268 words of 1250 planned — still a little behind on what Scrivener says I need to hit my deadline of October 29th — but in first draft (when writing indie) all deadlines are flexible. Not VERY flexible, of course. I have long-term objectives I want to hit.

But I can play with a few days either way.

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Today, 1983 words and a scene WAY out of order… (and yesterday…)

Ran out of time to blog yesterday — so this is going to have to cover both days.

I got 912 words yesterday, and did some more worldbuilding. It was an important day because I figured out the big element in an upcoming scene —

And TODAY wrote that great scene, forgetting that it was going to have to be the big MID-NOVEL conflict scene.

So after writing the majority of that scene today, which I love, by the way, I moved it to Chapter 17.

And tomorrow, I will write the scene in Chapter 7 that I should have written today.

Good words. Wrong place. It happens. With modern word processing (as opposed to the manual typewriter I used when I was getting started) it’s no big deal.

Cut and Paste is AWESOME.

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Today’s words funded by my Ko-Fi supporters.

All supporters are thanked by name (withheld by request) in each book’s acknowledgements.

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“Interesting choice…” My MC didn’t just surprise her enemy. She surprised me.

Today’s words went well. I have my hero in a nicely awful situation, and she’s going to see a whole lot worse for the rest of this week’s writing.

Have a total on Book 4 of 33,137 words, and 1362 for today. Good writing day, lots of fun with my character and the trouble I’ve put her in.

I left myself looking forward to tomorrow.

 

On other subjects,… the Summer of Fiction Writing event over at HollysWritingClasses.com ends today. I have a vote up on whether or not to do an Autumn of Fiction writing, or some other alternatives.

If you’re an HWC member/writer reading this, I’d appreciate your feedback.

Ohio 4 Slow start, but some nice conflict — 852 words

This morning didn’t go as I’d planned (scheduling conflicts and a calendar screw-up that broke a couple of planned things), and I was way late getting started on the words.

But the local high-school football stadium found its way into the story, and tomorrow, I’ll be writing some scary, magic-y things happening there. Things that are FINALLY going to reveal the identity of one traitor…

Though not the BIG one.

The new outline is working well so far. 

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Today’s words funded by my Ko-Fi supporters.

All supporters are thanked by name (withheld by request) in each book’s acknowledgements.

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FICTION WRITERS! Sign up for Holly’s Thursday Writing Tips

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Today — the tedium of drudge work

I had to move all the line-for-scene Sentences for books four and five into their Scrivener sections — the pre-built thirty-chapter manuscripts I set up for all five books when I started this project.

So now the books are outlined, the manuscripts are ready to go…

And Monday I’ll get back to the words.

It was a tedious morning. But it doesn’t have to be repeated for this series.

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Get Holly’s Free Fiction Sampler, plus Weekly Fiction Updates

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Today’s words funded by my Ko-Fi supporters.

All supporters are thanked by name (withheld by request) in each book’s acknowledgements.

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FICTION WRITERS! Sign up for Holly’s Thursday Writing Tips

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