Holly Lisle's Blog, page 78
April 22, 2015
How would YOU clear this schedule?
I’m swamped enough that the migraines are back, and I’m putting this in front of my readers hoping someone will see a way for me to clear a lot of stuff out of my schedule quickly. I’ll be honest. I’ve got nothing. I can come up with ideas for books and courses all day long, but when things get this backlogged, I get stressed. I’ve been focusing on doing just three things a day, and doing them well, but even that is not clearing things.
Here’s the schedule:
FICTION
Publish books and stories for which I own rights that are simply sitting on my hard drive
Talyn
Minerva Wakes
Midnight Rain
Last Girl Dancing
I See You
Night Echoes
Last Thorsday Night
>>—4EVR—>
Copyedits, Corrections, New Covers, Republish
Fire in the Mist (Have commissioned cover art, need to put it together)
Bones of the Past (Have commissioned cover art, need to put it together)
Mind of the Magic (Have commissioned cover art, need to put it together)
Hunting The Corrigan’s Blood (Cover needs new text only)
Warpaint (Cover needs new text only)
Light Through Fog
Rewind
Strange Arrivals
Sympathy for the Devil
The Devil and Dan Cooley
Hell On High
New Fiction
Cadence Drake Three: The Wishbone Conspiracy
Korre Three: Redbird
Rest of the Cadence Drake series
More Longview stuff
More short stories
Just more fiction…lots and lots more fiction.
FICTION / NONFICTION COMBOS
How To Revise Your Novel Expansion
Revise Talysmana
Add step-by-step demo to the course
NONFICTION
How To Think Sideways Walkthrough
Moon and Sun Three: The Emerald Sun (Book for the How to Think Sideways Walkthrough)
Plan: Write the book in one hard push, then
Put together the walkthrough in the same fashion
ADDED LATER: How To Think Sideways Quick Fixes
10 remaining
How to Think Sideways
Weekly email with new HTTS Live Discussion link
Set up weekly Discussion Classroom Page
Set up weekly Discussion in forum
Comment in weekly discussion.
Monthly chat: Four remaining
Personal bonuses for students who received them: As scheduled
How to Write A Series
Finish The Philosopher Gambit (copyedit, formatting, cover copy, and uploading, and product setup on three systems remain)
Post the story in class
Put up all revised versions of Longview 1 & 2 on Amazon, B&N, and my shop
Start writing Longview 4: The Vipers’ Nest
Start teaching MODULE 4 in the classroom
Finish and publish Longview 4
Finish MODULE 4
Start writing Longview 5
Start teaching MODULE 5 in the classroom
Finish Longview 5
Finish MODULE 5
Start writing Longview 6
Start teaching MODULE 6
Finish Longview 6 and the series
Finish MODULE 6
Survey the class for the bonus course
Write the bonus course
Set it up in the software
Ugly Baby / Ugly Workshop / Ugly Mastermind
Survey class for next module
Create Ugly Baby module
Create Ugly Workshop module
Do fiction launch post-mortem email for Launch Observers List
Do fiction launch forum post-mortem with Tom Vetter in UW and UMM
Do fiction launch, emails, post-mortem with Cat Gerlach
Do fiction launch, emails, post-mortem with Volunteer 3
Do fiction launch, emails, post-mortem with Volunteer 4
Do fiction launch, emails, post-mortem with Volunteer 5
Do fiction launch, emails, post-mortem with Volunteer 6
Decide if the process in reliable enough to set up a fiction launch class
Yarnlings MM
Check in before they think I’m dead
Do regular monthly updates on what I’m doing and how it’s working
COURSE AND SITE IMPROVEMENT
Copyedit and correct every single page of every single writing course, and every single page of my sites. More than a million words.
WEBSITE/ SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Website Development for Holly Lisle Online Writing School/ Readers Meet Writers/ HollyLisle.com/ OneStep Writing Website Dev
Build “what-it-needs-to-do/ how-it-needs-to-work/ how-I-want-to-use-it” wireframes for Dan (a lot of these are already done)
Daily updates and brainstorming on what we’re doing
Community Posts
Minimum one daily until I get through this backlog
This Blog
At least once a week
Writing Tips Newsletter
2 new tips a month
Fiction Newsletter
Build SOMETHING…my readers are just hanging there with nothing cool happening whatsoever
Other Mailing List emails as needed
I mail something to at least one list about twice a week, and try not to overlap
Help Desk
Monday-Friday Daily
PERSONAL
Personal emails
Monday-Friday Daily (after clearing a lot of subscriptions, these are down to about 250-300 a day, so that’s MUCH better)
So there it is.
I am wide open for suggestions.
Everything on this list is important. It all has to be done. It’s all stuff I love doing, it’s all stuff I’m excited about, but my two long-term goals are:
Spend more time writing fiction
Spend more time actually talking to my readers and working with my students
ADDED LATER (12:02 PM ET):
I’ve read every word posted to this point. And the first thing that jumps out at me is this:
1.) How the hell did I never think of INTERNS?
I didn’t want to ask for volunteers, but I will happily trade writing courses in exchange for things like bug hunting, copy editing, and help with reformatting courses.
2.) Nobody writes my words but me. So ghostwriting is out.
Having readers and writers contribute guest posts, tips, and discussion ideas is in, though. I like that idea.
3.) The organizational tips are enormously helpful.
As stuff piled up, Calendar (the Mac software) stopped being quite as useful as it initially was. The reminders are good, but getting everything ON the calendar is a mess.
4.) Because of the migraines, I’ve been doing the relaxation, meditation, and exercise all along.
At this point, my issues are in actually clearing the load. I see a light, though, in how I can do that.
ADDED EVEN LATER (2:04 PM)
I now have the better part of a plan of action for the next few weeks. Thank you, ALL of you, for every single comment here. I’ll continue reading comments tomorrow, but right now, I’m sitting down to set priorities and clear out everything that can be delegated.
I’ll be back to the blog when I have some internships to offer, and when I have a clear picture of what the next few months are going to look like for me.
April 16, 2015
Longview Cover Art: THIRD Massive Overhaul
Nothing about indie publishing is simple. Making your own cover art is actively difficult.
You can create acceptable cover art, but it takes a lot of trial and error, and some good feedback helps. I had help through the first rounds of this, and now have replacement cover art for:
LONGVIEW 1-Enter the Death Circus
TALES FROM THE LONGVIEW Episode 1: Enter the Death Circus
TALES FROM THE LONGVIEW Episode 2: The Selling of Suzee Delight,
and NEW cover are in the new series style for
TALES FROM THE LONGVIEW Episode 3: The Philosopher Gambit
LONGVIEW 2-The Selling of Suzee Delight
I finally managed to make the covers all obviously science fiction, but kept the personal aspect with characters, and figured out a way to keep my original titles for the first two stories while coming up with a new title for the third that did not hit readers with my episode main character’s name before they were ready. Bashtyk Nokyd will now be IN the story, but not spelled out on the cover.
LONGVIEW 3-The Philosopher Gambit
April 13, 2015
The HTTS Q&A Live Chat Replays link
I’ve now set the replays for the live chats up so that you can view them and get the downloads without having to login.
I’ll add each one after any special offers I do in the live chats have expired (so that I don’t end up with dead coupons on permanent pages).
Here’s the link:
April 11, 2015
Tom Vetter Hits #11 on Amazon’s Bestseller List
Tom Vetter at #11 on Amazon, in Expeditions and Discoveries World History
Tom Vetter holds the #11 spot this morning in Adventures and Discoveries World History on Amazon’s Bestseller List!
The book jumped significantly overnight, from the high 300,000s overall to 28,289 right now, and he’s sold most of his first editions.
The author’s page with first editions is here: http://www.tomvetterbooks.com/i-read-from-30000-leagues-undersea-authors-intro/
The book on Amazon is here: http://www.amazon.com/000-Leagues-Undersea-Submariner-Submergence-ebook/dp/B00VERWICQ/
April 7, 2015
LAST CALL — Free live writing chat today, with a little writing workshop thrown in
I’ve set up today’s writing chat so I should be able to answer some live questions along with the ones asked previously.
IF YOU HAVE WRITING QUESTIONS…
Today’s topics are:
Story Planning (Plotting)
Character Development
Writing from Different Points of View
What About Genre
Writer Myths AND Writing Myths
Revision and Editing (Are NOT Synonyms)
And I have downloadable notes sheets and the worksheets for you, set up for the little “Quick Story Plot” workshop we’ll do in the middle of this.
The worksheets are printable, but if you don’t have a printer handy, you can do the workshop with just a notebook or loose-leaf paper and a pen.
No pencils. Pencils let you erase, and erasing breaks your discussion with your muse (subconscious mind).
If you’re already signed up, check your email for the link that will take you to the live page.
If you haven’t signed up yet, HERE’S THE LINK: http://app.webinarjam.net/register/4436/e963ecd928
I hope I’ll see you there.
By the way, if you can’t make the live version, sign up to get the link to the replay—where you’ll still be able to download the worksheets and do the workshop, and get the answers to questions folks ask.
You just won’t be able to ask questions.
April 6, 2015
How To Write A Series 03-04 Kick-Butt Cover Copy is done!!!
Just this one lesson is 124 pages. It’s done, I learned so much by doing this that I’m going to have to rewrite all my own cover copy.
But now that I’m done with this, I have to finish Tales Of The Longview 3: The Philosopher Gambit
That has to go into this lesson. Once it’s done, I can move on to How To Write A Series Module Four.
Gawd, I’m tired. I did not think I was EVER going to get through this lesson, in which I take 23 pieces of volunteered, anonymous student cover copy, dissect it for the essential elements that need to be IN a good piece of cover copy, and then write new cover copy for each story.
I’m pretty sure I totally rebuilt one corner of my brain in the process. I bruised the rest of it. But I am really, really happy with the results. It’s posted in the HTWAS classroom now, and available for all students at Day 23 and higher immediately. It will appear when you hit day 23 for everyone else in the class.
Login is here: https://howtothinksideways.com/login/
The lesson is here: http://howtothinksideways.com/2852942/how-to-write-a-series-expansion-module-3-lesson-4/
The discussion is here: http://howtothinksideways.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=275&t=11762
If you’re not taking the course but want to get it before the price goes up $25 when I start into Module 4, that’s here: http://howtothinksideways.com/shop/how-to-write-a-series-master-the-art-of-sequential-fiction/
April 2, 2015
Content for the 5 Free Live Writing Chats
I now have the 5 Free Live Writing Chats set up in my calendar, and have each chat broken out according to content.
This way, if you have specific questions, you can plan accordingly.
You can use this link to join the chat series at any time. (Link opens in new tab)
You’ll receive notifications for the live chats, and I’m pretty sure you’ll receive notifications for the replays if you’ve missed anything. (BRAND NEW SOFTWARE, I’m still learning it, so we have the potential for a certain amount of…ah…excitement.)
If I run out of time before I’ve covered questions from the material, any topic I miss will drop into Webinar 6.
So:
WEBINAR #2: Tuesday, April 7th, 2015, 1 PM ET
Story Planning (Plotting)
Character Development
Writing from Different Points of View
What About Genre
Writer Myths AND Writing Myths
Revision and Editing (Are NOT Synonyms)
WEBINAR #3: Tuesday, May 5th, 2015, 1 PM ET
PUBLISHING 1
Building A Backlist
Existing Backlist
Indie Publishing
Beta Readers
Editors
ISBNs
Copyright
Pricing
WEBINAR #4: Tuesday, June 2nd, 2015, 1 PM ET
PUBLISHING 2
Marketing
Indie vs. Commercial Publishing
Commercial Publishing
–When to Go to War to Save Your Book
Contests and Competitions
WEBINAR #5: Tuesday, July 7th, 2015, 1 PM ET
WRITING AS A BUSINESS
Your Writing As PRODUCTS:
Novels,
Short Stories,
Series and Ring Cycles,
and Everything Else
THE JOB: The Work Itself, and How to Get It Done
WEBINAR #6: Tuesday, August 4th, 2015, 1 PM ET
The Questions I Ran Out Of Time For,
and Bull Session If Time Remains
April 1, 2015
YES on one-step writer websites, YES to 5 free HTTS Live Chats, now scheduled
I’ve finally caught my breath on one of the wilder February/March combos I’ve been through.
So now it’s time for me to catch up on a couple of things that have been left hanging.
Writers’ One-Step Website Software. THAT’s a big YES.
First, Dan’s and my question about whether anyone besides me wanted a one-step writer website was a resounding YES.
So here’s the deal:
If you get on the BETA list and let us know what you want, take a few questionnaires that will let us figure out what needs to be designed and built first, later, and not at all, and/or participate in the beta testing, and when we have the various parts of this ready to go live, you’ll have the opportunity to get early-adopter discounts.
Some of these will be time-limited, some will be limited by number, some will be both, so you’ll need to act fast—but you’ll have plenty of notice beforehand.
Join the beta team here
(opens in new tab)
Only if you don’t get the sign-up box on the above link, try THIS link (also opens in new tab).
The Promised 5 Free Live Writing Chats from the HTTS Launch Are Now Set Up
I’ll be doing one a month until they’re done. Dates and times are:
Tue, 7 Apr, 2015 – 1:00 PM ET
Tue, 5 May, 2015 – 1:00 PM ET
Tue, 9 Jun, 2015 – 1:00 PM ET
Tue, 7 Jul, 2015 – 1:00 PM ET
Tue, 4 Aug, 2015 – 1:00 PM ET
To sign up to attend the 5 chats, go here.
Link opens in new tab.
March 31, 2015
Unmissable real-life voyages to the bottom of the sea
Tom Vetter and two fellow explorers fit in the tiny windowed sphere between the bathyscaphe’s front legs. Everything else was for controlling buoyancy.
My personal experiences with oceans have been in getting really bad sunburns at the beach a couple of times when I was a kid, and flying over the smaller one twice.
But starting from the age of seven, when, on a beach in North Carolina I picked up and examined a dead baby shark, a horseshoe crab, and a sand dollar that had been dragged in with a fisherman’s net, I have been fascinated by what’s in there. What’s underneath all that water.
I think it’s amazing that the majority of our planet is still a mystery, never seen by anyone, still full of things waiting to be discovered, still alien.
It’s another world with a different atmosphere, different physics, different dangers…
So when I discovered that a fellow writer—one of my students—had actually been all the way down to the bottom of the ocean—had piloted a deep submergence vessel along the abyssal floor, had developed techniques for exploring the ocean that are still in use today, and much more, I was fascinated.
It is my honor and privilege to introduce you to my friend, Lieutenant Commander Thomas Vetter, US Navy (retired).
He is a genuine hero living an amazing life—and the dangerous, fascinating, hair-raising, and crazy things he has done so far, both in the line of duty and on his own, rival the stuff Jules Verne imagined.
Tom was a submariner and one of just a handful of men on the planet to become a hydronaut, an explorer in the other US Space program—traveling to deadly Inner Space, with atmospheric pressures that can crush steel flat in instants, to explore the sea floor, investigate what was down there, make new discoveries, and return to tell the tales.
And he tells them well.
His newest book is 30,000 Leagues Undersea: True Tales of A Submariner and Deep Submergence Pilot, and if you love adventure stories, alien worlds that really exist—complete with aliens, cool technology, and people who are willing to walk the razor’s edge of survival to push human knowledge to new heights—and how they came to be the people who can do these things—you’re going to love it.
Tom has done three readings from his adventures. To hear the first one today…
Start Here
March 27, 2015
Follow-up on my resignation from SFWA, with statement from SFWA’s president
Where this comes from: A new SFWA member happy to have qualified—who is also one of my writing students—contacted me privately to present misrepresentations of what I said here that were being presented in SFWA’s private forums.
I will post MY first reply,
the reply from SFWA President Steven Gould,
and my definitive response:
MY FIRST REPLY:
The potential for SFWA to use taxpayer money to fund grants is my ONLY objection, but a big enough objection that I resigned and that I will recommend to any students who ask me that they not join.
ON THE SFWA EMF…
1) The SFWA Emergency Fund doesn’t give grants. It makes loans that must be repaid.
2) The funds for those loans are donated by organization members.
As I noted in my open letter, I think private donations are fantastic when given voluntarily by individuals to whom the service [for which] they’re donating matters. I have done a lot of individual donating in my lifetime to things that matter to me, and will continue to do so.
You are welcome to quote this in its entirety on your blog.
Cheerfully,
Holly
SFWA President Steven Gould’s response (linkback):
One of SFWA’s motivations for becoming a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation is, indeed, to be able to give outright grants for medical and legal aid rather than make loans. Another benefit is that now the donations we receive are fully tax-deductible for the donor. There are other non-monetary reasons. Under Massachusetts corporate regs, we could not hold officer elections via electronic/digital/online ballots, nor could we hold a general business meeting in another country (say if the WorldCon was in Canada.)
We do make grants for many purposes. We support AboutSF, the educational outreach program at the University of Kansas’ Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction and we’ve given a grant to the LaunchPad Astronomy Workshop for Writers. We also give a grant to the University of Northern Illinois for their Special Collections, though this is because they are SFWA’s official archive, so in a way we’re paying for services. We are implementing a program to provide technology grants to aid members whose ability to write has been impacted by a major hardware/software disaster and can’t afford to replace, repair, or upgrade their system.
A large amount of the organization’s income come from payments received from the Author’s Coalition of America, which distributes foreign non-title specific royalty payments for American works photocopied abroad. This is the closest thing we receive to “public grant money” and it is private fees paid by individuals outside of the United States.
We are certainly investigating the possibility of applying for appropriate grants from public and private sources when the purposes of those grants line up with our existing mission programs. But we have yet to do so and I seriously doubt it will ever be a significant portion of SFWA funding.
MY DEFINITIVE FINAL REPLY:
First, I applaud SFWA’s desire to give grants rather than loans to people suffering from medical emergencies. Continuing its practice of having members volunteer to fund those grants is probably the intent—but the repayment of the loans kept the fund fluid so more loans could be offered.
Under the new system, the well will run dry promptly, requiring more donations from a membership ever less eager to give, and alternate sources will need to be found—and the government is ever willing to fund grants so long as the grants are spent regularly and in a timely fashion, and not kept in storage to maintain a self-funded system.
Second, as I said right at the beginning of my original statement, I know SFWA had many GOOD reasons for wanting to move the corporation to California.
Third, however, Sun Tzu says to prepare not for what the enemy might do, but for what he CAN do.
I’ll note that I do not consider SFWA the “enemy.”
THE ART OF WAR, though, is applicable to many situations in life beyond war, and it is applicable to organizations that expand their powers and reach over time.
Organizations generally begin with the best of intentions. They generally increase the powers they give themselves for good reasons and with hopeful intent.
However, across the life of an organization, every power the organization gives itself will eventually be used, first in “exceptional” cases, and over time as a matter of course.
An organization that puts itself into position where it CAN tap into Federal funds for the purposes of redistributing them eventually WILL.
It may do so tentatively at first, but exceptions become conventions, and people who have a conscience about using money they didn’t have to earn are replaced by those who happily use promises of giving that unearned money to friends and allies within an organization in exchange for votes.
Campaigns of “FREE Writing Grants for SFWA Members! It’s YOUR Money!!” will remove those with consciences from office and replace them with those who think “free” money taken at gunpoint from taxpayers is just nifty.
Gould states, “We are certainly investigating the possibility of applying for appropriate grants from public and private sources when the purposes of those grants line up with our existing mission programs. But we have yet to do so and I seriously doubt it will ever be a significant portion of SFWA funding.”
And this is the part of that statement that proves I made the right choice in posting my open letter and walking away NOW.
“But we have yet to do so and I seriously doubt it will ever be a significant portion of SFWA funding.”
I DON’T. Organizations follow predictable paths.
Federal income tax was initially a pittance compared to revenue taxes.
SFWA is an organization with an elected government, too.
Gould and others who intend the best will be replaced (and probably must faster than they imagine) by those who want to have power within SFWA, and who see that a new path to power within the organization has just been created by the simple expedient of promising money that isn’t theirs to folks who would like have money they didn’t have to earn, and who are willing to vote to rob Peter to pay themselves.
Again, you are welcome to post my response as long as you post it in full.
Cheerfully,
Holly
ADDED LATER: My response to the angry people screaming in not-posted-and-never-going-to-be comments at me, “How dare you delete my previous comment?!” (So far, these comments have all been to the FIRST post on this subject.) [Link to original Open Letter post]
Here’s how I dare.
Point One: My blog, my rules.
Point Two: My rules are POSTED…
…and have been for years. Linked right on this page, and on EVERY FREAKIN’ PAGE OF THE BLOG.
If you don’t want to be deleted, don’t break my rules.
