Holly Lisle's Novel Writing Course: The Blog » Miscellaneous

Who will hold your hand?

Texanne — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:50:55 +0000

A Sideways student asked her classmates to name their ideal mentors–aside from Holly–who would offer tips on writing as well as on the business, political, and emotional aspects of the writing life.

Surprising answers as well as related questions arose. Log in to learn what others say and then share your own thoughts on the topic.

I’ll see your paperclip, and raise you two curtain rings.

Texanne — Mon, 17 May 2010 21:00:45 +0000

Week 3 of How to Revise Your Novel brings up the delight of Scene Cards. Maybe 50 or 100 of them. You do not want these little darlings loose on the table when the dogs and kids run through, dragging their contrails behind them. What to do? Corral them, round them up, put them in order, for now, mwahahaha, and keep them in order. (Corral the scene cards, that is. What you do with the kids and dogs is purely a personal decision.)

Holly’s lesson calls for paperclips or perhaps a length of sturdy string. However, the Hardy Revision students quickly spread out among office supply stores internationally. Oy.

Does the cat aid the revision process?

Texanne — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:00:07 +0000

We are proud and happy to announce a new forum in Holly Lisle’s Writers’ Boot Camps:

HTRYN (How To Revise Your Novel) Lite. This forum is for the grand folks who took Holly’s Crash Revision Course at Savvy Authors (wow, I’m running out of capital letters) and who wanted to continue their writing community. The HTRYN Lite forum is also open to members of the regular HTRYN group. So, rousing good bunch of novel revisers, all working on renewing their vision and bringing their fiction up to professional levels.

New Technique – Revised One-Pass Revision – Added

Holly — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:58:28 +0000

As promised, I’m continuing to add to and upgrade the HTTS course. This week, in Lesson 22, I’ve added an excerpt from Lesson 10 of the How To Revise Your Novel course that gives the long-promised steps to my REVISED One-Pass Revision. If you’re at Lesson 22 of the course or later, you can pick it up right now.

If you’re not, it will be waiting for you when you get there.

IF YOU ARE ALSO AN HTRYN STUDENT, I strongly suggest that you don’t download this now. Rather, wait until it appears in your HTRYN course, when you’ll be much better equipped to deal with it.

Cheerfully,
Holly

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

Texanne — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:40:41 +0000

It’s been an intense month for the How to Revise Your Novel students, but every lesson has been worth the effort. Week 5 is about finding and understanding the conflict that’s already in the first draft. Many of the surprises have been sweet. One student expresses the joy of her discovery:

For the first time I can see there’s something worthwhile in there. Something more than just a silly story I wrote to entertain myself, and which my husband enjoyed. Something that could make this great. And I am going to dig it out. I just don’t know how yet. But that’s what the rest of this course is for. Once we’ve diagnosed the problems, we’ll learn how to discover the solutions.

Whose story is it, anyway?

Texanne — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:00:23 +0000

She was doing fine, writing her NaNovel, when an unplanned character appeared on her page and stole her heart, outdazzling her main character and taking over the stage.

Is this a wonderful gift from the muse, or just a case of that shiny object flitting across her screen and derailing a perfectly good tale?

That depends on how the writer handles the situation.

Has this happened to you? How did you handle it? How did it work out? Share your experiences and views.

Sentencing Phase

Texanne — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:00:21 +0000

When a Sideways student needed to practice designing The Sentence, she created this topic and invited others to join her in teasing out The Sentence of famous stories.

This is a valuable exercise–and a lot of fun, too. Join in the game to sharpen your story focus.

The Sentence — practice

Urbs in Yer Chester Drawers

Texanne — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:00:58 +0000

Writers love words as fresh meat loves salt. What’s to love? Meaning, etymology, usage, pronunciation, rhythm, rhyme and harmony.

At least.

Powerful things, words. Lively discussion this. It started quite some time ago, but it’s evergreen, so take a look and offer your take on commonly abused English words.

The Most Often Mispronounced Words in English

Perchance to Dream Sequence

Texanne — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:00:45 +0000

Paranormal dreams. Backstory dreams. Dreams that stop the story dead or give it a frisson of the extraordinary. Here’s a discussion that touches on these subjects and more.

Dreams and why we hate them

Eureka! A skeptic meets the muse

Holly — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:29:17 +0000

From a deeply skeptical student:

I’ve never really believed in the concept of a “muse.” To be honest, I’ve always rolled my eyes a little bit when other writers start talking about their muse like it’s a roommate that lives down the hall. I am a left-brained logical person, and the concept of having a muse just made no sense.

When I decided to begin work on my sweet spot map for Lesson 2, I approached it with (surprise, surprise) a logical and methodical plan to complete it by the end of the week. I would work on one “segment” of the map each evening for 10 – 20 minutes. After 6 days, I would have the exercise completed.

So I sat down planning to work on “I fear.” For the first 10 minutes or so, I was only writing down the mundane and obvious. But I quickly realized that this was a necessary step. I was clearing away the vines, old branches, and dead leaves that were concealing a vast stone wall in my mind. Once all the garbage was cleared away, I punched a small hole in that wall…

Everyone can follow the link to read the rest of this Eureka moment.