Holly Lisle's Blog, page 65
March 5, 2018
Site updates to reflect what I’m doing as a writer
I’m doing some rearranging of the site. I’ll be adding links to what I’m creating. Aside from semi-regular posts in the blog and the occasional new writing article or fiction snippet, I’ve been running the blog along for years without doing much with it.
But here’s the thing:
I’m back to writing new fiction every weekday.
I’m back to writing new writing classes every weekday.
And because I’m once again steadily releasing new fiction and new nonfiction, I once again have things even blog regulars haven’t seen.
So I’m adding a sidebar with book covers and links to my fiction and nonfiction.
Fiction Update
NOT the final cover
I’m still slogging Longview 5: Vipers’ Nest. Following that will be Longview 6: STILL DON’T HAVE A TITLE.
Once I’ve finished SDHAT (yes, tiny little joke), I’ll write Moon & Sun 3: Emerald Sun.
And following Emerald Sun, I’ll go after Cadence Drake and The Wishbone Conspiracy. Parts for that have now gone into Longview 5, and in a much bigger and more surprising way than I’d anticipated.
Cookies were involved. BIG Cookies.
How long will all of this take? Depends. I’m currently writing fiction one hour a day. If I can get the funding to cover it, I can expand that to two hours a day of pure fiction writing and revision. Which means both Moon & Sun 3: Emerald Sun, and The Wishbone Conspiracy will happen twice as fast.
Nonfiction Update
I did the first thousand words of How to Write Villains: Lesson 6 today. When I complete lesson six, I’ll have two more lessons to write to finish the class.
THEN I’ll take a week to tear apart all the questions folks have asked me for How to Write Short Stories and from that build a class outline, and will then start writing the lessons.
If you have questions about writing short stories…
Go to: https://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/class-login.html
Login to your Holly’s Writing Classes account here:
OR Create a free account here: https://hollyswritingclasses.com/free/join.html
And then check to see if your questions have already been asked here: http://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/class-builder-short-stories.html
If your questions haven’t been asked, please ask them soon. Once I finish writing Villains, I’ll start the NEXT DAY on figuring out what needs to go into Short Stories.
From there, it’ll take me about a week to go over all the questions and figure out how to build the class that will walk folks through writing good short stories. (And an unknown number of months to actually write the class.)
After that, I’m building How To Write A Novel, which isn’t about building a writing career or generating series ideas or revising and prepping the book or doing marketing or anything else in How to Think Sideways.
It’s just about putting together the story you want to write, and then writing it.
If this interests you, there’s a place where you can ask questions or describe problems you’ve had with the process, and again, I’ll build the class to answer the questions and show how to fix the problems folks present. If this interests you, use the same login or account creation links above, but go here to ask your questions or describe your problems:
http://hollyswritingclasses.com/go/class-builder-novel.html
I’m having fun. This is the kind of writing I love most — lots of work, lots of progress, fiction and nonfiction.
And getting shit done. I LOVE getting shit done.
February 2, 2018
Need better villains for your stories?
Yesterday, my first new class in quite a few years went live. This is How to Write Villains.
The class will take eight weeks (minimum – it could a couple lessons more depending on questions I get in class as I’m building it), and right now I’m covering:
LESSON 1: Understanding Evil and Villainy (FINISHED)
LESSON 2: Creating Good, Bad, and Evil Characters (IN PROGRESS)
LESSON 3: Sympathy, Empathy, and Villainy
LESSON 4: Villain Roles in Fiction
LESSON 5: Representing Evil: Showing Instead of Telling
LESSON 6: Controlling Characters and Story
LESSON 7: The “Come-Back” Villain: When Readers Are Reading Your Story for Your Villain
LESSON 8: Dealing With Writing Evil
Currently I’m offering a BIG early-bird discount. That will go away when I start writing Lesson 5. I’m figuring it’ll take me a bit over three more weeks to get there, because sometimes it takes me more than a week to write a lesson. It never takes less.
Class price today is $67.
Class price when it goes up will be $127 (or two monthly payments of $67) unless I need to add more lessons to hit everything brought up in class.
If you’re interested, we’re getting started now. Get the class details here.
My first NEW class in years: How to Write Villains
Yesterday, my first new class in quite a few years went live. This is How to Write Villains.
The class will take eight weeks (minimum – it could a couple lessons more depending on questions I get in class as I’m building it), and right now I’m covering:
LESSON 1: Understanding Evil and Villainy (FINISHED)
LESSON 2: Creating Good, Bad, and Evil Characters (IN PROGRESS)
LESSON 3: Sympathy, Empathy, and Villainy
LESSON 4: Villain Roles in Fiction
LESSON 5: Representing Evil: Showing Instead of Telling
LESSON 6: Controlling Characters and Story
LESSON 7: The “Come-Back” Villain: When Readers Are Reading Your Story for Your Villain
LESSON 8: Dealing With Writing Evil
Currently I’m offering a BIG early-bird discount. That will go away when I start writing Lesson 5. I’m figuring it’ll take me a bit over three more weeks to get there, because sometimes it takes me more than a week to write a lesson. It never takes less.
Class price today is $67.
Class price when it goes up will be $127 (or two monthly payments of $67) unless I need to add more lessons to hit everything brought up in class.
If you’re interested, we’re getting started now. Get the class details here.
January 30, 2018
Not feeling well
Not sure what’s going on, but I am feeling sick to my stomach, kind of week, and listless, and after staring at the keyboard for an hour trying to get words on Vipers’ Nest, I’m throwing in the towel. Words accomplished? Zero.
This is either sick, stuck, or stuck because I’m sick.
I’m taking the day off no matter which this is, though.
January 20, 2018
Have updated my SF Minecraft Maps (and added a new one)
A year ago on the 18th of this month, I posted the last updates. Since then, I’ve done:
Significant expansion in Bailey’s Irish Space Station, adding more story generator questions for myself and a LOT of buildings in new wing of the station,
Light additions to Longview
A lot of new buildings and some new questions in the City of Furies
And I’m throwing in a new map for you — Weyrd’s Place
Weyrd’s Place takes a bit of explanation. I wasn’t going to use it for anything except showing folks in my worldbuilding class how I use mapping to generate story ideas.
I threw together this little Minecraft map to demonstrate the different kinds of mapping you do using my process, I labeled stuff, wrote some demo questions on the signboards, and that was it. Done. I finished the class, put the map aside, forgot about it, and went back to my regular work.
I forgot about it.
My right brain did not, and I realized that this little area of South Florida was home to illegal aliens.
I write science fiction, so reread the previous sentence with that in mind.
The first story that grabbed me started in the dumpster in the back of Mang Wow’s Indescribably Delicious Diner.
The second I wrote is about a guy with an evil ex and a new guitar.
I have eight more to go, and I’m only working on them on some weekends because they’re just for fun. They’re not anything anyone is waiting on.
But when they’re done, they’ll become Strange Arrivals 2.
Strange Arrivals was primarily fantasy. This collection will be SF set entirely in Weyrd’s Place. And it’s a slightly more ambitious project, because it also contains a connecting story told by one of the town’s alien residents.
But you can get all the spaceships and worlds here:
January 15, 2018
Cady has a bounty hunter on her trail.
Someone forwarded me a deep space transmission that suggests my old friend Cadence Drake is in more trouble than usual.
You might know Cady. Spaceship pilot, independent finder of lost things out in settled space?
Has mad skills in locating people? And trouble?
No?
Well, my unknown ally has said I’ll receive all the interceptions findable that run from the bounty hunter tracking Cady to the client who’s paying to have her tracked.(Evidently the transmissions in the other direction are better hidden.)
And if you’re willing to read through these transmissions and see if you can pick up any clues about:
Who the client is
Why he or she is looking for Cady
Who the person sending me these intercepts is
Or where Cady might be and whether she’s okay or not…
…I’d appreciate the help.
You can email me by replying to any of the intercepts, and let me know what your theory is.
Want to get a look at the bounty hunter’s first transmission?
Send me the transmissions.
If you’re willing to help me out here, I appreciate it. I get the feeling that what’s coming after Cady is big and bad.
Holly
December 20, 2017
Longview 4: Gunslinger Moon — Free downloadable sample
IN THIS EPISODE: Gunslinger Moon
When freedom is silenced, who speaks for it?
Ex-PHTF slave WE-39R (This Criminal, from Episode 1), renamed Jex, is part of a team the Longview’s owner has tasked with finding the meaning behind Bashtyk Nokyd’s enigmatic final diagram. Drawing the most undesirable assignment, Jex and an unlikely ally fight their way to pieces of the truth.
Want to read the first three chapters to see if you’d like the story?
This is the fourth story in the Tales from the Longview series, and like the others, it stands alone (though you’ll find a much bigger connecting story if you read them in order).
Other stories:
Longview 1: Born from Fire
Longview 2: The Selling of Suzee Delight
Longview 3: The Philosopher Gambit
Longview 4: Gunslinger Moon
Longview 5: Vipers’ Nest (In Progress)
Longview 6: (The Conclusion — No Title Yet)
The free PDF sample below is sharable anywhere.
And I hope you enjoy the story.
Longview 4: Gunslinger Moon SAMPLEVersion: SAMPLEClick Here To Download24 Downloads
December 15, 2017
Longview 4: Gunslinger Moon
Shay
Shay closed her eyes and rubbed her temples.
She’d been in her office for hours, a “Do Not Disturb” sign on her door, looking for any single tiny piece of new information that might let her believe hope still existed.That her stupidity had not destroyed Settled Space’s last best chance for freedom.
Bashtyk Nokyd, the philosopher she’d risked her life to rescue from a Pact Worlds Alliance death contract, whom she had secured in the Longview, and whom she could have gotten to the City of Furies if she hadn’t been stupid enough to let him go to dinner with the owners of Bailey’s Irish Space Station, was dead because of her.
Her hero. The man who’d been responsible for her own freedom, the man who had written Simple Rights: The Indi- vidual As Universal Core, was dead, and she might as well have killed him herself.
She pushed the replay button again and once again saw him sitting across the table from her. He had his tablet in hand.
“I have it,” he said, drawing, and she could hear his excitement in those few words. His surprise. “The process for freeing the Pact Worlds’ captive people.” His hand moved steadily, drawing boxes, writing words.
She watched herself say, “You do?” At her desk, her whole body stiffened. Even after seeing the replay so many times, she could not stop the reflex to tense, to get ready to stop the thing she could not stop.
His voice was deep, certain, but still tinged with the elation of discovery. “I can’t give them freedom. No one can. The only free people are those who recognize their right to be free, claim it, and then fight to protect that freedom.”
Wils Bailey, the owner of Bailey’s Irish Space Station, said, “We see that here. Like everyplace else, we’re getting refugees who are escaping from Pact Worlds. Some understand that to be here, they have to pay their way. Some…” He shook his head. “They ask where they can sign up for benefits, and where the free rooming houses are, and how to get the free food…”
Shay spotted an expression on the face of Wils’ teenage daughter, and wished she had been paying attention to the girl, not to Nokyd. She hadn’t noticed it at the time. She’d been too intent on watching Bashtyk Nokyd drawing on his tablet.
The girl stood up and said, “I’ll be right back.”
Her father smiled, giving her a half-second glance, returning his attention to his guest without any recognition that something was wrong. “We’re a space station,” he said. “What we can’t make or grow here on our own, we have to go out to get or pay to have brought in. We don’t have the resource buffer that planets have, with food growing wild that you just find lying around on the ground, or shoot as it walks past.”
Nokyd didn’t look up. He was busy diagramming. His hand stopped moving for a moment, long enough for him to study what he’d drawn, and he said, “Most worlds — being terraformed — don’t have easy food or other resources either. But I get your meaning. You’re dealing with government slaves. Religion slaves. They’re different from body slaves — men and women owned by individual masters. Body slaves know that if they don’t work, they don’t eat. If they resist, they don’t eat. If they fight, they’ll be chained to a stake without shelter. Their actions all connect — so when they get free, their minds still work.
“Government slaves and religion slaves are different. Their minds have been intentionally broken. They have been taught from birth that work and food are unrelated. That no matter what they do, they will still eat, still have a place to sleep, still have someone to take care of them, because government or God will provide. At the same time, they are taught that their time, their thought, and their work have no value to them. That they must give it away for free, for the benefit of others. That anything they do for themselves is of no use, of no importance. That anything they want for them- selves is evil or selfish — even their own lives. Even their own thoughts.”
He went back to drawing, and said, “I cannot say the fix for this will be simple, and there will always be people who will choose to be slaves rather than work to be free.”
“Here’s where we start,” he said, and pointed to his diagram.
And the girl placed her hands on either side of his head. His head imploded before Shay could pause the holo. She closed her eyes, blinked back tears.
Took a deep breath and straightened her spine.
The diagram was in front of her.
The solution to giving lasting freedom to the people of Settled Space.
She stared at the place on the tablet where his finger rested, to what he’d designated as the starting point.
B or F Principle.
In the week following his death, she’d immersed herself in his work, had brain-imprinted everything he’d published over his long life, as well as every lecture he’d ever given. She’d force-fed seven million written words and almost a thousand hours of holo and audio via high compression into her consciousness.
And there simply was no B or F Principle in any of his work.
There was no B or F Principle anywhere in any philosophy. As for the rest of the diagram…
Better Horse or Bigger Gun → NO net! → moon & sun dilemma → Shoot on Sight → “Happy Madame”
HARD Restart?
There was nothing. Nothing that made sense, nothing that connected to any philosophical theory… just nothing. And with the threat of attack by PWA-hired pirate fleets running through the dark channels of space, with rumors of forces being built to come against both the Longview and Bailey’s Station, she could not afford to throw herself against this wall any longer.
She closed her eyes, rested weary head in hand, and the image of a Medix floated like sweet temptation through her mind.
Reju would feel wonderful…
But that wasn’t what the image meant, was it? This was her brain trying to tell her something important. And what she saw hadn’t been a regular Medix. It had been one of the modified
Sleeper cells.
Right.
Sleepers who had applied to become crew would have already been tested, would have already received basic crew training, and would have personality profiles on hand.
None of them were doing anything at the moment. They were still in sleep because the Longview was docked at Bailey’s, and because its Death Circus charter had been cancelled when the Pact Worlds Alliance put a bounty on the ship. Shay didn’t see the ship going anywhere for a while.
The most promising of the Sleepers would have been brought up as crew by Melie once she could be announced as captain.
But in the meantime, they were in the Sleeper cells.
Shay could dig through their files, find the potential crew best at lateral thinking, puzzle-solving, and logic-leaping.
The owner would need to present them with the situation and impress them with the importance of the task to him.
Once that was done, though, they could dig through Bashtyk Nokyd’s sealed quarters. Perhaps they could find something she’d missed.
CHAPTER TWO
Jex
We sit at a long table, four of us, staring up at a man covered head to toe in what I’ve learned is an armored deep-space worksuit. His face is hard to see through the shaded moleibond helmet shield, his voice is deep and rasping. He has identified himself to us as Mado Werix Keyr, the owner of this ship.
“Each of you is being drafted as provisional crew. If you provide something from your first objective that proves your resourcefulness and attention to detail, your ability to think creatively, or a provable solution or partial solution to the task I’m giving you, you will receive a permanent universal iden- tity and a crew slot on the Longview.”
The speaker stares at the four of us — and the shield does not hide the fact that he is… terrible.
Terrifying.
I’m taller than he is, broader of shoulder, hardened by a brutal past — but the gleam of his eyes through the shield plate sends ice down my spine.
I’ve been brought out of storage to find something that probably doesn’t exist, and three other men have been brought out with me.
His voice, muffled by the suit’s breathing apparatus, is clear enough to get the danger in our situation across.
“The man who drew this diagram was getting ready to tell a small audience of listeners the process he’d figured out for changing Settled Space to Free Space — for setting up a system of laws, perhaps, or something else that would make the conditions that permit slavery impossible. Before he could explain each of the items on the diagram he drew, he was murdered by a third party, not present in the room, control- ling a child who was.
“Everyone present at that meeting submitted to memory scans, and we now know that nothing in what Bashtyk Nokyd said before his death provides clues to what any of this means.”
“Others on this ship well-suited to the task are searching for his killer. Meanwhile, the Pact Worlds Alliance has hired an armada of pirates to exterminate everyone on this ship, as well as everyone on the station to which we’re docked. And because of treachery and enormous loss of life, the crew of this ship is short- handed. We can spare no active crew to do what must be done in these quarters. Which is why the four of you receive this chance.”
He pauses, leans against the table that separates us from him, and breathes heavily. He is looking at each of us in turn, and when his gaze meets mine, I feel myself shrinking, falling into darkness, losing my grasp on who I am.
When he looks to the next man, my mind clears. But I feel shaky and sick. Whatever is wrong with the man across the table from us is beyond the scope of my experience, and it is ugly.
Horrifying. Deadly.
“You four have proven yourselves trustworthy while in hibernation. You have each passed the honor test, reading and crew tests, and various problem-solving tests that make you ideal for the task you’ve been given. In these quarters you are bound to conduct yourselves by ship rules, and maintain ship discipline. If the answer to the problem before us can be found, the four of you will find it.
“Anything in these quarters might offer a key to the solu- tion we seek. Ignore nothing. Assume nothing. No piece of information is too small. If it relates to this, nothing is insignificant.
“When you find something that applies to the words on the diagram I’ll give you, press your button on your wrist- com.” He points, and I look down to see that a band has been attached to my wrist just under the sleeve of the shipsuit I wear. The band is smaller than the diameter of my hand. It will not come off, will not be possible to lose.
I nod my understanding.
“When you press your com button, you will reach either me or my representative. One of us will come when you call.
And he hands each of us a tablet. I am familiar with the technology. My second parents taught my brothers and sisters and me on such devices.
I stare at the image before me, scrawled by hand in the language I learned following my second birth.
December 11, 2017
So… Free Stories for SF and Fantasy Readers? Yep…
I’ve been doing “indie” stuff to get ready for bringing out Longview #4: Gunslinger Moon.
I’ve put together a special SF & F Reader Notification list for folks who like the genres, and set up two free stories that you can get.
The first you receive automatically when you join the list. Oddfolks is “odd fantasy.”
You sign up and confirm your email address, and you receive a confirmation email that includes the link to Oddfolks. There are two very short stories in the little book, along with details of the bigger project I hope it becomes.
The second story?
Last Thorsday Night is longer (about 8000 words), and previously published — but none of my SF & F readers will have found it. It’s time travel SF and I love it, and I hope you will too.
In the confirmation email that takes you to Oddfolks, you’ll ALSO receive the option to recommend the first story (and by extension, me as a writer you think folks would like), and get a special link you can use to do that. And if two folks sign up through your link, you get the free story as my thank you for helping me reach new folks.
Please don’t sign up through your own link just to get the second story. I kept the number of folks you need to earn your reward really low so that you could actually help me find new folks.
Why am I doing this?
Because it’s tough being an indie, tough reaching new readers, and I’m hoping that ahead of bringing out all three existing Longview stories with new covers and formatting, and offering them in print versions, too, and launching Gunslinger Moon in both ebook and print format, I can have a nice group of genuine SF/fantasy fans who will be looking forward to reading it.
Maybe reviewing it on Amazon.
Get Oddfolks just for signing up.
Get Oddfolks immediately after you confirm, and Last Thorsday Night when two new readers join my list through your link.
Important: Your Confirmation Email will come from Perkzilla, as will your download link to your copy of Last Thorsday Night when two new readers have signed up through your link.
December 4, 2017
Currently on the Needles
THREE repubbed novels now working through a launch under a pseudonym (my first voluntary one)
Six novellas I’m reworking, editing, and updating with new covers, formatting, debugging, and other clean-up, including the next NEW story, Longview #4: Gunslinger Moon
One Really Spiffy Thing For Writers that’s going out via email tomorrow at ten AM (if you’re a fiction writer and you’re not on my updates list, use the little slider form below to sign up, because this is a one-time EVER thing, and it’s big) — and be sure to click the Segmenting Tag for “writer” when you get that email.
If the words “And a Partridge in a Pear Tree” drifted through your mind… you are not alone. ‘Tis the season, and I’m head down and working really hard.
So I need a breather for the little down time I have. Something to let me wind down.
I think of this as “potato chip knitting.”
Because you just do a little at a time, just like writing a novel. And as long as you keep at it, you see progress. And in my case, I make it up as I go — though the chips can get a bit weird, and go wrong sometimes.
Of course I have pictures. 
