You had the courage to dream about being a writer--in SPITE of the doubts or open disbelief from family, friends, or others--and no matter where you are now in your publishing career... "You CAN Write A Book That Draws From Your Loves & Passions,
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MY NOVELS Dreaming the Dead The Silver Door YA Fantasy  Tor, June 2008
Epic Fantasy The Ruby Key YA Fantasy Night Echoes Paranormal Suspense I See You Romantic Suspense I See You Ghostwritten Novel Talyn: A Novel of Korre Epic Fantasy Talyn: A Novel of Korre Last Girl Dancing
" Last Girl Dancing Midnight Rain
Gods Old and Dark Crossover Fantasy The Wreck of Heaven Crossover Fantasy Memory of Fire
Crossover Fantasy Vincalis the Agitator Epic Fantasy Courage of Falcons Epic Fantasy
Courage of Falcons Courage of Falcons Courage of Falcons Vengeance of Dragons, Epic Fantasy Vengeance of Dragons Vengeance of Dragons Vengeance of Dragons Diplomacy of Wolves Epic Fantasy Diplomacy of Wolves Diplomacy of Wolves Diplomacy of Wolves In The Rift: Glenraven II (with Marion Zimmer Bradley)
Curse of the Black Heron Fantasy Tie-In  (with Ted Nolan)Baen Books, May 1997 Crossover Fantasy Wrath of the Princes, Fantasy Tie-In Hunting the Corrigan's Blood Science Fiction The Devil and Dan Cooley, Crossover Fantasy Glenraven Crossover Fantasy Thunder of the Captains Fantasy Tie-In " Sympathy for the Devil Crossover Fantasy Mall, Mayhem and Magic Crossover Fantasy Mind of the Magic Epic Fantasy The Rose Sea Epic Fantasy " Minerva Wakes Crossover Fantasy
Bones of the Past Epic Fantasy When the Bough Breaks
Fire in the Mist Epic Fantasy
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I already know I want the course. | ||||||
Orchard Books (Scholastic) Coming April 2009
" - Amazon.com
Orchard Books (Scholastic), May 2008 
Signet Eclipse (Penguin Putnam), April 2007
" - Amazon.com
Onyx (Penguin Putnam), July 2006
" - Amazon.com
French Edition
Tor, August 2005
Paperback version
Onyx (Penguin Putnam), July 2005
French Edition
Onyx (Penguin Putnam), Nov 2004
Eos (HarperCollins), Mar 2004
" - Amazon.com
Eos (Harper Collins), Apr 2003
Avon Eos (Harper Collins), May 2002
Warner Aspect (Time-Warner), March 2002
Warner Aspect (Time-Warner), October 2000
UK Edition
German Edition
Russian Edition
Warner Aspect (Time-Warner), October 1999
UK Edition
German Edition
Russian Edition
Warner Aspect (Time-Warner), November 1998
UK Edition
German Edition
Russian Edition
Baen Books, March 1998
(with Aaron Allston)
Baen Books, February 1997
(with Walter Spence) 
(with Marion Zimmer Bradley)
(with Aaron Allston)
Baen Books, January 1996
(with Chris Guin)
Baen Books, May 1995
(with S.M.Stirling)
Baen Books, January 1994
Baen Books, March 1993
(with Mercedes Lackey)
Baen Books, August 1992
Lacey Savage, Pro Novelist |
I'm multi-published in the erotic romance genre by Ellora's Cave, Loose Id, Amber Quill and Changeling Press. I've had over 40 books of various length published. What were you hoping the Think Sideways course would do for you and your writing? Lately, I've found my motivation to write drying up. In the past eighteen months, what used to be fun suddenly wasn't. What used to be a release from a long day at work became yet one more chore. I wanted to recover my enthusiasm for writing, and I knew that if anyone could teach me how to do that, Holly could. What is the most exciting writing moment you've had because you took the course? I have no end of ideas now because of this course! I can read anything--from a paragraph in a magazine to an exotic word on a billboard--and come up with a story idea practically on the spot. My muse barely shuts up. What is the most important thing you've learned about writing (so far) from taking the Think Sideways course? That some books are utter disasters, and that's okay. I'm not the only one who writes absolute crap thinking it'll somehow come together in the end only to find out that sometimes, it doesn't. I always thought that was a problem unique to me -- that I had no real talent and probably couldn't write my way out of a paper bag and everything I'd done so far had been a fluke. It's such a relief to know this is a common issue for writers, no matter how experienced. How has the Think Sideways course met or exceeded your expectations? The course was so much more in-depth than I expected it to be. I've filled entire binders with Holly's course notes, and some lessons are already dog-eared. This is one six-month investment I'll be referring to for years to come.
Whatever you think you'll get out of the course, you'll end up getting a thousand times more. Invest in your career, it's worth every penny.
Lacey Savagehttp://www.laceysavage.com |
What writing experience did you have prior to taking Think Sideways? And...
Sandy Jensen, Pro Writer & Writing Teacher |
I published my first essay with Harper's when I was 19 and have published poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, as well as academic essays professionally for the forty years since then. I have an MFA in poetry, and I teach Creative Writing at a private, four-year liberal arts college ranked in the top ten in the U.S.. I have one published book of poetry; I have won multiple writing prizes; I annually renew my writing with retreats to such nationally recognized Western conferences as Fishtrap and Yellow Bay and have studied with such prize-winning authors as Ursula K. LeGuin, Molly Gloss, William Kittredge, Annick Smith, Craig Lesley, and Kim Stafford, as well as Harlan Ellison, Theodore Sturgeon, and Ray Bradbury. What were you hoping the Think Sideways course would do for you and your writing? When I enrolled in the Think Sideways course, I hoped to learn more about how to plot a novel, and I was intensely interested in deepening my understanding of Holly's approach to the creative process, what she calls The Muse, what I call The Wonderful One Within (WOW!), which I know is rarely articulated in a clear and pragmatic voice. I was also interested in learning from a pro how to organize and tackle a really long project like my novel. What is the most exciting writing moment you've had because you took the course? I was cruising through Lesson #12, reading Holly's essay on the tools of Sustained Narrative called "When It Rains, It Pours...and When It Pours, It Freezes...And When It Freezes, The Roads Ice Over and Your Hero Skids Down an Embankment," and decided to work on the exercise she proposed: I ran my hero over the snowy embankment and fell into a sustained narrative (short story and/or novel chapter) of 9000 words!; I felt my Muse was on task, feeding me the plot points in the right order and multiple class lessons braided together to produce an exciting and original piece of fiction in a created world; what could be more exciting?! What is the most important thing you've learned about writing (so far) from taking the Think Sideways course? The most important strategies I've learned from the Thinking Sideways course have to do with working with the Creative Process or Muse. From "Sweet Spot Maps," to "Toys on the Floor," to "Muse Bombs," Holly never loses the golden thread of this central and vital idea. Very few writing instruction authors (and I have read them ALL) approach this theme, and when they do, their tone is invariably "mysto-mephisto: the process is so mysterious we can never never know it," or "holy, holy, holy: the process is so sacred we can never know it." Holly's approach is humorous, pragmatic, dare I say clever, and I want to add insightful and innovative. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY has thought through the nature and attributes of the Muse like Holly Lisle has. You can go a lot of other places for instruction on plot and publication, but Holly is one-stop shopping for that deeply internal, absolutely indispensable self--knowledge about where art comes from. Am I raving? Then pay attention! How has the Think Sideways course met or exceeded your expectations? I took the course because through purchasing Holly Lisle's on-line writing instruction books, I knew she had the gift of making small, delicate points clear as spun crystal, as well as the ability to hammer bigger points home with useful exercises and explanations. I'm always looking for someone to learn from, and I felt Holly had something to teach me. It turned out she had dozens of things to teach me. The sheer intensity of the work has built up over time. Week after week, Holly has thought through some useful angle or detail of writing a long project and broken it down into components and exercises. I have enough material to inspire and instruct me for many months to come; actually, this is food for my work for the rest of my life. I know that. What would you say to someone considering taking the course, but not sure if it would be worth his or her time or money? This course requires you to be willing to change how you relate to your core creativity. It asks you to read, to understand, to do exercises that will stretch your brain like a warm gummy bear. During this course, you will fall into the deep well of your long project, and you will know you have a friend with a flashlight showing the way. Age
is not a factor--if you are a dedicated, hard-working high-school
student, or an octogenarian still ready to set sail on the boundless
sea of your youthful imagination--you can change your life with this course. Sandy Jensenhttp://sandramardene.googlepages.com |
What writing experience did you have prior to taking Think Sideways? And finally...
Stephanie Siebert, Beginner |
What writing experience did you have prior to taking Think Sideways? Before taking Think Sideways, I read the Create a Character, Language, Culture, and Plot clinics by Holly Lisle, and written several novel beginnings and shorter pieces, but I had never really attempted or finished a novel. What were you hoping the Think Sideways course would do for you and your writing? In Think Sideways, I was hoping to find a way to break down the task of writing a novel into smaller, actually doable parts.
I've had several exciting moments during the course. Working with the Sentence, and expanding it to create conflict, stirred up so much excitement for my project and the writing process. Mostly, working on this course, I FELT like a writer, felt confident, creative, and passionate. That confidence led me to submit my first short story ever, which sold - first try.
I've learned a lot from this course. I've learned about breaking down the larger tasks into more manageable ones. I've learned that every writer's process is different, and to find your own style, you need to play. Play with other ideas, other processes, things that feel weird, or uncomfortable, or scary. I've learned that writing is as much about expanding your own horizons as it is about anything else, and I've learned, perhaps most importantly, that I CAN do it. In one sentence, how has the Think Sideways course met or exceeded your expectations? Having read several of Holly's other works on writing, I was expecting a lot of good guidance and advice, delivered in a realistic but encouraging and humorous manner.(Those were the things that sold me on Holly's work in the first place.) What I was NOT expecting is the excitement and passion that the work in this course inspired in me. It's been a lot of hard work, but that passion and confidence will keep me going long after this course is done.
If you're serious about writing, and I don't mean serious about wanting to write, but serious about actually getting in there, doing the work, being willing to try, to fail, to stumble, and, ultimately, to learn, then this course is worth every penny. It will make you believe. Stephanie Siebert |
If you want to write fiction, you can.
If you want to write great fiction, you can.
You.
Can.
Do.
This.
I want to do this now.
It's not magic, it's not a mystery, it's not a gift of the gods. Writing good fiction is a learnable, repeatable skill, and if you read fiction, I can teach you to write it.
However...
What You Need
To Know To Succeed
Isn't In The Library.
I know, because I looked. I looked for seven years.
During those seven long years when I struggled to figure out how to write stories that would sell, I haunted the library and bookstores, and I read magazines and even took a basic short fiction course. I learned useful things from each source, but nothing that made what I was doing publishable.
I also wrote. A lot, And I learned a LOT by writing. On my own, I discovered more than 100 ways not to sell a story, and more than 100 ways to write unpublishable fiction.
More than 100 ways to do it wrong.
The first thing you'll get from this course is...
Your Seven-Year Shortcut
By having me teach you what I learned in those seven years, you will leapfrog over every writer who is gritting teeth and bull-headedly grinding on, oblivious to the painful, obvious, avoidable mistakes he or she is making. Get seven years of from-the-trenches training in what you must avoid if you hope to jump-start your writing.
But as much as you need to know what NOT to do, you also need to know the system I developed as I started understanding what worked---the system that has allowed me to sell 32 novels to date to major publishers in New York and around the world.
You need to have...
A Proven System
For Creating Your
Best Possible Work.
And that's what How To Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers offers. This 25-week course teaches you a unique, systematic, repeatable method for creating not just fiction, but really good, rich, deep, meaningful fiction. Fiction better than anything you ever imagined you could write.
In Section One: Sideways Thinking on Ideas, you'll learn to clear out the four thinking obstacles that have stood in the way of your success in the past, you'll learn how to discover your own "genre" that you can take with you wherever you go in the publishing world, you'll learn how to work with your Muse, and you'll create ideas on a time limit---but without pressure---and not just figure out which ideas are worth writing, but learn how to improve your keepers.
You need to know:
How To Break
The Four "Thinking" Barriers
To Your Success
In the first lesson of this course, you will:
- Discover the four very common thinking patterns that prevent most people who want to write from ever
succeeding---and you will identify which patterns plague you, and why.
Clear out the deadwood in your thinking and you'll be thrilled with the
power of everything that deadwood has been choking and stifling.
- Learn and use the fix for each of the four problem thought patterns---and watch your writing take off.
- Discover one technique for connecting your conscious and subconscious minds
and teaching them to work together to give you the best stories you've
ever come up with---this is where you start building a career based on
stories that matter to you.
- Learn how to find and identify the writing opportunities you've been tripping over and missing until now---you'll be floored by how fun this is, and blown away by how quickly you start getting results.
You must also find out:
How To Discover Your
Writing "Sweet Spot"
So in your second lesson, you will:
- Discover what you really want to write (it might not be what you think).
- Create a career map
that will show you how to write stories you love and are passionate
about every time---because your career cannot be a cheap imitation of
anyone else's career...it is what makes you unique that will make your
work sell.
- Learn how to train your subconscious mind work with your conscious mind in uncovering your passions and interests---because the sad truth about why so many writers who do succeed are miserable in their success is that they have NEVER learned to do this.
Then you need to discover:
How To Generate Ideas
On a Deadline
So in lesson three, you'll:
- Learn how to come up with powerful, exciting story ideas even when you're under a deadline---it's fun, it's a little crazy, and it will save your career.
- Discover how to identify the great ideas you've been getting and overlooking for years---you
have a well of brilliance inside you that you have not yet learned to
tap to its fullest potential, but once you learn the technique, it's
easy to reach.
- Get those ideas on paper in a form you can use now...or later (no more cryptic scribbles that used to mean something once upon a time)---because that little note about "that guy who ate all the bananas" might have been a great story idea once, but it isn't going to help you once you've had a chance to forget the context.
Once you've mastered generating ideas, you'll follow up in lesson four with:
How To Recognize And
Build On Good Ideas
A good idea for me will NOT be a good idea for you, and in your fourth lesson, you will:
- Sharpen your ideas from lesson three into well-honed tools that will keep your story on track from start to finish---this technique will change the way you think about your fiction, and make it so easy to see where you've been going wrong.
- Learn to identify not only good ideas and great ideas, but also the bad ideas that have been wasting your time and energy
and sending you off on wild goose chases---because, remarkably, a lot
of ideas that you've been pursuing up to this point have been complete
wastes of your time, even if they might have been awesome for some other writer.
- Identify and USE the four elements that make an idea carry a book to a tremendous conclusion... or fizzle and die if ignored---don't kill your story by ignoring these.
- Learn how to turn good ideas into great ideas time after time (it's not magic---it's a simple, repeatable skill).
In Section Two: Thinking Sideways on Project Planning, you will take the ideas you built in your first month and develop your system for planning projects that you need to write, and that you can be passionate about, and you'll use your system to plan your project. (When I talk about projects, I'm mostly talking about writing novels, but you can adapt the material in this course for screenplays, short stories, non-fiction, and any other form of creative writing.)
So you'll learn:
How To Define
Your Project's Needs
In lesson five, you will:
- Learn two simple concepts that will allow you to lock in on what really matters in your story---in
the world of novel writing, more information is not necessarily better,
and drilling down to the information you really need and want will rip
the boring right out of your pages.
- Focus on the critical and the extraordinary when creating characters, situations, and more---because the only people who matter in fiction are the ones who can surprise, amaze, and delight the reader.
- Avoid the meandering, pointless sidetracking that leads to unfinished projects and failed careers---when
you learn how to blast through your own uncertainty, you eliminate most
kinds of writer's block, focus like a laser on what YOU want from your
work, and make it happen.
- Discover one amazing way to create powerful conflicts that will drive your stories, and keep your readers hanging on your words---and best of all, you'll discover that this technique is simple, fast, and fun.
Once you have that down, you'll find out:
How To Discover
(Or Create)
Your Project's Market
In your sixth lesson, get ready to:
- Identify markets you never imagined (as well as the one you did) for the project you're creating---
- Learn how to write professionally in a new genre to rescue an ailing career, boost your numbers, broaden your readership...or just because you want to. (If more pro writers knew this technique, there would be a lot fewer dead careers).
- Learn how to create your own genre
either professionally or for fun---because no, you don't have to want
to make a fortune as a writer to want to be a better writer, and
whether you want to take this course to go pro, or just to write
kick-ass stories for your family and friends, you deserve the skills that will let you tell any story you want in a genre you hand-tailored to it.
- Discover one fast, simple, eye-opening way to do market research---in ten minutes, you can find not just genres related to your own work that you didn't know existed but publishers paying good money for books in those genreas
Next, you'll find out...
How to Develop Your Personal Project System
Lesson seven will teach you how to:
- Do pinpoint-accurate research without getting bogged down
in tons of information you'll never use---let other writers spend
months or years digging around for the details of their story before
they put a word on paper: You'll be up and writing in days.
- Learn how to build just the parts of a world or background you need to start...and
how to build the rest the right way as you go---worldbuilding is not
building your world in such detail that you could live there. It's
building it in the specific details that will make your reader believe she could.
- Use between four and eight steps to custom-create exactly the foundation you need to write your story---the
eight story-development modules will focus you on the heart of your
story and let you discover depths, conflict, and twists and turns you
never suspected you had in you.
- Kill once and for all the dreaded Research Procrastination Syndrome---because, yes, worldbuilding and character creation are a blast, but if you're a writer, they're tools to get you to your book, not the quest themselves.
You'll be panting a bit after all of that, but there's a lot more. Next you'll learn:
How To Plan
Your Project While
NOT Killing Your Story
In lesson eight, you'll:
- Discover how writers outline---and it isn't the way teachers outline, the way professors outline, or the way editors outline.
- Create a quick, working outline for your project that will NOT suck all the fun and mystery out of writing the story---beginning
writers and pros alike kill a lot of potentially wonderful books by
getting this wrong. Or they think they can't write to an outline
because they've had hideous luck with them before...and so spend months
or years wandering in the bleak wastelands, searching for the heart of
their story.
- Analyze, dissect, and correct problem scenes, troublesome characters, and story holes before you've written them, rather than after you've sunk endless hours and countless pages into struggling with them---I could have saved myself from throwing out over six hundred pages of finished novel...TWICE...had I invented this technique a bit earlier in my career.
In Section Three: Think Sideways on Beginnings, you'll begin writing your novel or story, you'll learn how to plan serendipity (yep, seriously---and it's one of students favorite parts of the course, too), you'll learn how to put together selling proposals, and you'll discover how to get from the first part of your story into the middle (a point where a LOT of writers' stories die) without running out of gas.
A quick aside: I can feel some of you thinking "three months before I even start writing?" and worrying if this course is going to slow your work down.
Let me put your mind at ease. It doesn't take me three months to get up and running on most of my books. Some, sure, but those are huge projects that require massive worldbuilding in advance. Most of the time I can be ready to write in a week or two. My delays come in waiting for the project to sell after I pitch it.
Remember, you're learning a system for producing consistent results as well as writing a project in this course, and it's learning the system and its techniques and tools that takes the time.
So first you'll learn:
How To Write
From Inside Your Story
In your ninth lesson, you will:
- Uncover how and where you'll start your story (most writers, including many published ones, get this wrong)
- Discover how to figure out which character will carry the point of view in each scene
to help you create the most excitement, the best suspense, and the
greatest conflict---and learn how to decide when a story should be
written in first person or third, and when just one POV character will
work better for your story...or when you need several to make your
project work best.
- Uncover the roles your characters will play---and
discover which characters you need to shoot before you even start
writing (because there are some characters that will suck the soul
right out of your story, and you can identify and eliminate most of
these buggers before they wreck your book, if you know what to look
for.)
- Learn what your characters can tell you about keeping your readers fascinated---and have a ball doing it.
Next, that much-loved lesson on:
How To "Plan" Surprises
That Surprise Even You
In your tenth lesson, you'll:
- Learn to use the Law of Unintended Consequences to amaze yourself...and everyone who thought they knew what was coming next in your story---if you haven't discovered what an amazing writer you can be before this lesson, you'll find out here.
- Learn how to allow your subconscious mind to plant great hooks for future conflict---and
to let this happen with minimal effort from you. Odds are good that
when you go back and everything you've ever written before taking this
course, you'll smack yourself on the head when you see what your Muse
was trying to show you all along.
- Learn how to set up story rules that will make every element of your story matter to your reader
Then you'll move on to:
How To Design
Compelling Queries,
Proposals, And
Sample Chapters
This may seem early in the process for this sort of 'marketing your work' lesson, but first, you'll discover critical elements in your work by doing this that you can't get in any other fashion, and second, once you're doing this as a pro, this is the point in the writing process where you actually put together this material and start sending it out. So, in lesson eleven, you will:
- Discover how to sell your book before you write it
(because for most pros most of the time---unless you have deep pockets
or an outside source of income---this is how you get paid in advance to
write your novels, so you can afford to write for a living).
- Learn the three kinds of changes that exist for writers of pre-sold books:
- Changes you can always make
- Changes you dare to make only with editor approval
- Changes that will cause your editor to reject your book when you turn it in (Most professional writers don't know these, and they should...but you will)
- Changes you can always make
- Learn to write a query letter that agents or editors will read---I'll
give you a sample letter, but in the lesson you'll also learn the
reason why, and come to understand what makes a query catch an editor's
or agent's eye...and it isn't purple paper, a hundred-dollar bill,
bragging about how awesome your book is, or a desperate "if you don't
buy my book, my family is going to starve" plea. All of these are
routinely tried, none of them work.
- Dissect and apply the methods that will let you write a synopsis that will get you requests for a proposal package---you
can get your toe in the door of even the most prestigious "we don't
take unsolicited submissions" publishers if you can learn to nail this
step...and I'll show you how.
- Discover how to write a proposal package that will make editors and agents want more...and can sometimes result in a sale right there---I
have sold roughly half of my novels by this process...while selling to
your editor over lunch by scribbling a quickie proposal on the back of
a napkin is more fun, this process can let you reach the editor or agent who is not yet yours.
- Learn to adapt the forms you know to unexpected editor and agent requests and still make the sale
Then on to one of the most essential skills in writing fiction that doesn't lag, fizzle, or just plain suck:
How to Create,
Complicate, And
Solve Problems
In lesson twelve, you'll:
- Learn the difference between cheating narrative and sustained narrative---and
uncover the reasons why some stories that have annoyed you for years
don't work...and what their writers should have done, could have done,
but DIDN'T do, to fix them.
- Discover how NOT to cheat
(cheating narrative is one of the biggest ways to cripple your book and
kill its chances before you even finish it---yet most unpublished
writers do this all the time).
- Master two new techniques that will lock readers to your story until you let them go---you have complete control over your reader's focus and fascination with your story...if you choose to exercise it.
- Learn how to resolve conflicts in ways that are satisfying, that don't cheat, that always matter...and that keep your story moving---because nothing will get a reader to throw a book across a room faster than being made to believe something huge was about to happen, only to find out you duped him with your "just a misunderstanding" follow-up.
In Section Four, Think Sideways on Middles,
you'll be into the second big hurdle of projects---keeping things
interesting in the middle. I'll show you how to bring in fresh ideas,
how to discover where your Muse hid those surprises from Month Three,
how to uncover ways to bring your stories to life that you've never
even imagined, and how to tell when your project is going wrong before
you've written the whole thing---and how to get it going right again.
So first you're going to learn do deal with that inevitable moment when you ask:
"Can't I Just Kill Them All?"
How To Fall In Love
With Your Project
A Second Time
In your thirteenth lesson, you will:
- Learn the four problems that cause writers to hate their characters and abandon their stories---and if you haven't landed there yet, you will. I spend a bit of time in this spot with just about every book I write.
- Master the four techniques that will let you solve each mid-story character problem...and
each problem character (Yes. Ve have our vays of dealing with problem
characters.)---You'll laugh at some of my more bizarre ways to get
stories rolling again...until you discover how amazingly well they work.
- Discover how to keep writing and keep your story moving forward instead of falling into Revision Death---this is one of those critical pro-levels skills that is the make or break difference between whether you meet your deadline and get paid, or blow your deadline sky-high and owe your publisher the advance you already spent.
Next, on to:
How To Find And Use
Your "Planned" Surprises
In lesson fourteen, you will:
- Discover the surprises your subconscious mind hid earlier in your story---if
you're read the student comments on the side, you've heard more them
talk about Muse Bombs. You know that breathtaking moment when you're
reading a great story and the author makes something happen that is
both so cool and so perfect, all you can think is "Holy crap, I should
have seen that coming!" Those are Muse Bombs, and this is where YOU
learn to do that.
- Learn how to develop these surprises to make your story richer and deeper---because
once you find the Muse Bomb, you have to blow up the Muse Bomb...and
detonating your surprises on cue is a cool, precision skill (this baby
has won me more than one editor, and gets frequent, specific mention
when my fans write to me about my books).
- Create a system that will keep you surprising yourself (and your readers) in every scene and in every book you write---once you learn how to do it once, you'll discover that doing it again and again doesn't get old. It just makes what you're writing better, and a lot more fun for you and your readers.
Once you have your Muse Bombs exploding on cue, you need to know:
How To "Hire" Spies,
And Why Your Project
Needs Them
In lesson fifteen, you'll:
- Learn where to find and how to use free spies, paid spies, and live spies to keep you looking smart and knowlegable
in front of your agent, editor, and readers---because the unnerving
truth about writing fiction is you cannot ever hope to know everything
you need to know in order to write your story...but you still have to
LOOK like you know what you're talking about.
- Learn which of the five types of spies you'll need to pick in any situation---from
covering basic research to creating a character based on nitty-gritty
insider information to dishing the dirt on a profession as background,
you can find RIGHT spies to will spill exactly the goods you need to
make your story ring true.
- Discover how to "interrogate" your spies to get only the information you need, and avoid wasting your time, or theirs---because getting the wrong information doesn't help anyone, and it sure doesn't help your book.
And with your spies tucked away, you'll move on to:
How To Assess
Your Progress And Make
Mid-Course Corrections
In lesson sixteen, you'll:
- Learn how to figure out what's going wrong in the middle of the book,
and why knowing this will save you a ton of time later---because,
believe me, your heart breaks more than a little when you have to toss
out 40,000 or 60,000 words because you screwed up your story.
Been there. Done that.
You do NOT want this T-shirt.
- Learn how to correct problems without stopping to revise
(This one skill has been responsible for the fact that I have come in
either on time or early in 29 out of 32 novels, and has cumulatively
saved me thousands of hours of pointless, wasted revision.)
- Discover how to prepare the manuscript as you write it so that when you do have to revise, you only revise what needs to be fixed, and you only do it once---let other writers brag or moan about the five or ten or twenty revisions they did on their novels. You will get it right the first time, and move on to write five or ten or twenty new books while they're still piddling around on their first one. (Yes, Virginia, repeated revision IS a form of procrastination.)
In Section Five: Thinking Sideways on Endings, you'll learn how use story gravity to propel your novel to the best possible ending, how to find the ending that fits your beginn