Tag Archives: HTRYN

Tech Stuff: Holly’s Big Courses

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This post will only interest you if you want to be a writer, or, if you are a writer, if you want to look at a way to help you become a better writer. How is this? I’m fortunate to be friends with Holly Lisle, a science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal romance writer. Holly also runs an on-line writing school teaching people who want to learn how to write fiction — or to improve the fiction they’ve written.

I’ve taken her courses. I’m a slow learner when it comes to crafting stories, but I’m getting there, and Holly’s courses help. The two primary courses, How to Think Sideways and How to Revise Your Novel are shifting from open enrollment to closed enrollment formats for two excellent reasons. The first reason is the one you care most about: These courses are most effective when taken in a group. Not everyone chooses to participate in the class forums where students discuss their progress (or lack thereof), but for those who do, having a group of people in the same place you are can make a huge difference in finding your way through a tough spot in the course (and it’s a tough course) and staying stuck. The second reason? Holly’s completely revamping her writing school, and she doesn’t want the payments system to be in flux as she transitions to the new site. Yes, you can make payments for her big courses, and they do come with a satisfaction guarantee.

I’ll have more information in the next couple of weeks, but if you want to check out either of those courses, now is a great time to do so. I need to let you know, those links above are affiliate links.  If you sign up for the course via those links, I will receive compensation. I don’t care much about that. I do care that if you want to take either of those courses you know now is the time to sign up, because after this month, you’ll be locked out for a year. Don’t worry about the website change I mentioned. Once you have purchased your course, you’ll have indefinite access no matter what site it resides upon.

Revision Meat and Potatoes

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And, just in time for the Internet to go on strike, I’m ready to begin Lesson 17 of How To Revise Your Novel.  This begins the culmination of all my efforts so far, and I begin cutting the manuscript!  This process will take many weeks, but after taking several years to get to this point, what’s a few weeks?

 

Moving Again

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It’s taken me a little over a week into the new year to get started, but I’m back to working on Polar Bear on the Loose, and, by extension, “How to Revise Your Novel.”  I was dragging my feet at getting started.  The bag with the project was sitting beside my desk.  Taunting me.  I guiltily avoided it for several days.  Then, I moved it to the kitchen table to make it easier to pull the materials out to work on it.  Then I pulled the materials out and laid them neatly on the table.  Finally, while watching a Spurs game, I opened the notebook and began reviewing the notes and flipping the cards.  Then, I began working on Lesson 13, conflict.  I finished the conflict tracker.  Whew.  Lesson 13 is finished.

What’s up for Lesson 14?  Oh, wow!  A timeline.  I like this.  When I tried my first revision, I had to do a timeline, because in the seat of the pants writing of the first draft, you would not believe how the timeline for the book got messed up.  I fixed that and documented it, so I had that available.  However. In the process of taking this course, things have changed, so, naturally, that timeline isn’t completely valid anymore.  But I had it to work from, so I skimmed through at roughed the new timeline onto the index cards using the old one as a guideline.

Something still wasn’t right, so I brought my Crayola Floor Pad down from upstairs (Yes, I have a coloring pad.  What’s it to you?). I opened it to a fresh page and measured three straight lines across the page and segmented them into two inch segments.  Then, I began transcribing dates from the cards to the pad, evaluating for what I really needed.  When I finished, my timeline was 8 years, three months, and one day.  I’d shaved over a year off the novel timeline, but I think there’s still a little work to do yet.  Some things didn’t quite feel “right” as I was working.

Lesson 14 is completed, and I hope the “card games” I’ll be playing in Lesson 15 will help with those things that didn’t feel quite right.  If not, I’m confident Lesson 16, Consistency, will get those concerns resolved.  It’s good to be working again.

Official NaNo Winner, 2011

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Yes, I know I blogged it was done a few days ago.  I had another chapter and a half to write, so I did that.  First draft of Granite Hill is complete at 52,739 words.

The NaNo Site doesn’t allow winner validation until November 25th, so I had to wait until this morning to validate and get my official NaNo winner stuff.  I’m still debating if I want the 2011 Winner shirt or not.  Here’s the large badge:NaNo 2011 Winner

It’s time to return to my regularly scheduled “How To Revise Your Novel” course and Polar Bear on the Loose.

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How To Revise Your Novel Update

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I haven’t spoken much about this lately, but I have been plugging away at the How To Revise Your Novel* course, and, thus, the revision of Polar Bear on the Loose.  I was bogged down for quite a while.  Then I made a burst of progress.  Now, I’m at another … Continue reading →

Our Neck of the Woods

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What’s been happening in our neck of the woods?  I’ve been pretty quiet, and, frankly, I haven’t really been busy enough to warrant the silence.  But I haven’t been doing much that’s noteworthy.  Just in case you were wondering, here goes (in no particular order): – Hubby and I got … Continue reading →

Dribs and Drabs

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Yes, I’ve been too quiet here lately.  Here’s a variety of observations for your reading pleasure. I’m still on Lesson 5 in HTRYN.  I did complete about six more index cards.  I still have many more to go. I’m heading back up to Central TX next week.  I didn’t get … Continue reading →

Blog Maintenance

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I finally updated my Polar Bear on the Loose editing status bar.  I’m using Holly’s HTRYN course to do the revision, and I wasn’t sure how to capture it on the status bar.  Word Count isn’t going to work for this, so I finally decided to do it by lesson … Continue reading →