B. Jeanne Boyko » Holly Lisle

I Love My Book Again!

B. Jeanne Boyko — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:46:11 +0000

Of course when we start writing, we love the idea. Then revising we see everything that could be better, or rather, we get the feeling they could be better, but pre-HTRYN we don't have the vocabulary to explicitly define and therefor fix what's not as good as it could be. And that's disappointing.

The cumulative progress by the end of lesson 12 has left me excited about my story again! There were so many things that nagged and niggled in my mind, even after much effort revising on my own. I fixed a lot things before, but the remaining problems I just couldn't get a grip on. HTRYN has given me everything I wanted from the course now (and there's still more to go!). What was weak is now strong. Everything that bugged me and left me in tears of frustration I know I can fix and am going to fix. I am so thrilled that by the time I actually submit it, I am going to be HAPPY with this manuscript.

I'm so thankful for this course!

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So, What’s Your Book About? Recovering from a week away for a family wedding, I pulled out Lesson Four again...
Begin again So this week I have made the time to prepare a new undertaking. I got...
Revision begun! So with everything prepped and ready, getting down to the business of revising this morning...

Why yes, yes I did!

B. Jeanne Boyko — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 18:53:10 +0000

So after the extreme butt-whooping of Lesson 7, after part of a morning of bashing my head against a wall I got Lesson 8 done in one day (after reading it through a few times the previous day), and then did the same for Lesson 9. That got me two whole lessons done in just one week! I am now done the "triage" portion of the course, and learning the tools needed for "major surgery".

Lesson 10 is likely to take a week at least again, but for now I appear to be back on schedule for finishing this puppy by the end of the year.

Once again, Go Me!

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I’m Baaack! After a much needed hiatus during December, I’ve begun my new Holly Lisle course, “How...
Begin again So this week I have made the time to prepare a new undertaking. I got...
Huge Lesson 17 is actually applying everything learned to this point to the physical manuscript. This,...

Victory!

B. Jeanne Boyko — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 20:08:47 +0000

How To Revise Your Novel has required a lot of work, a lot of time and a LOT of worksheets, but Lesson Seven (which ended up using more paper than my novel did) took the cake. And..it was worth it.

Here at last l acquired a vocabulary to define not one but several missing elements that before I had no way to express, AND saw the means of changing these things, so my story can indeed become the novel that I wanted. "Grateful" is just the tip of the iceberg. "Empowered" "inspired" and "determined" are in there too.

It's hard to imagine a more significant lesson, but it is after all only Lesson 7 of 21, so it's safe to assume there will be more value to follow. Knowing the problem is the first step, knowing how to solve it is probably number two, but actually doing the work of fixing it is still to come. There's still a lot of work ahead of me, but I can see the prize more clearly now.

Thank you, thank you, Holly.

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Every step matters. Scene cards went well today, I think I’m getting the hang of it. The ‘sequels’...
So, What’s Your Book About? Recovering from a week away for a family wedding, I pulled out Lesson Four again...
Work before work Today I did significant work on Shurley English and completed Lesson Four in HTRYN. The...

So, What’s Your Book About?

B. Jeanne Boyko — Thu, 27 May 2010 22:21:53 +0000

Recovering from a week away for a family wedding, I pulled out Lesson Four again and spent some time writing a new "one sentence summary" of my first Nanonovel, Gift of the Ancients.

I had a one sentence summary for the story before I wrote it, but Holly Lisle's way of going about it is different than Randy Ingermanson's (I used his Snowflake method to plan the novel in the last ten days of October 2007). As usual, at first I resisted changing a pre-learned method, but I have to say I'm very pleased with the results. The new summary brings the story to life better. As I work on more things in coming weeks some things in the sentence may change, but overall I think we have a winner.

The purpose of a one sentence summary is a marketing tool. It's a fast but complete response to the question "So what is your book about?" and is your first line of attack in trying to interest an editor. It's important, and not easy to do. My original one sentence was:

Forbidden friends must reach and activate an ancient weapon to save their land from invasion.

Ingermanson recommends a 15-17 word limit to keep your sound-bite short. It's accurate, but doesn't hook the way I wanted it to.

In How To Revise Your Novel, Holly Lisle allows for 30 words, but advises including your Protag, Antag, Plot, Setting and Twist and breaks down just how to do it. The new sentence is:

A strong-willed troublemaker secretly discovers Ancient technology and must use it to protect low-tech Ympyra from powerful invaders, but an enemy becomes a friend and nothing works out like she thought.

The twist needs some work, but this is by far the stronger sentence. Anyone agree?

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I Love My Book Again! Of course when we start writing, we love the idea. Then revising we see everything...
Getting To Know All About You Filling in Character information in the research section of Scrivener. Came up with another interesting...
Victory! How To Revise Your Novel has required a lot of work, a lot of time...

Begin again

B. Jeanne Boyko — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 22:18:31 +0000

So this week I have made the time to prepare a new undertaking. I got further in revising my novel Phoenix and the Vulture than the progress bar currently indicates (will fix that soon), and then got blindsided by other commitments.

Lesson learned? Don't make other commitments!

The new goal is to go back to my first Nanonovel, Gift of the Ancients and give it a final revision.

This is a manuscript I've already spent at least a year working on since it was written. I've made may improvements, but there were still some things I knew needed fixing, just couldn't properly define.

Going through How To Revise Your Novel will give me the tools, as it says, to "Get the novel I want from the novel I have." I meant to cut my teeth on this course with Phoenix and the Vulture, but only made it so far. There is a time factor for getting Gift done, which helps me to focus, so I'm really looking forward to this. Deadlines are my friend.

Watch for progress reports, which will include actually submitting the manuscript to an editor. It's time for this Work In Progress to get to work!

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I Love My Book Again! Of course when we start writing, we love the idea. Then revising we see everything...
On the Threshold And here I am, within sight of the Nano finish line. I still have some...
Victory! How To Revise Your Novel has required a lot of work, a lot of time...

Promises, promises…

B. Jeanne Boyko — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:50:17 +0000

...is the title of lesson two in How To Revise Your Novel, and it's so interesting.

The basic issue is that whatever we spend a lot of words on leads the reader to believe that this item or person is important. If you've plotted first, you will plan to do this for your main characters and items, but in the course of actual writing sometimes things of no significance at all somehow leap off the page, and when it turns out to serve no purpose, makes the reader feel cheated.

Not good.

So I am four chapters into discovering all the places I didn't mean to 'lead the reader on', and filling in worksheets accordingly. Happily, having worked from good plot cards, I'm not coming across too many over-described bits, but it's still time consuming. It's so interesting to go over the whole thing with a fine comb again though, and pay attention to these kinds of details.

So I'm not terribly far along, but the process is under way. I hope to get a lot more done this weekend on my LOOONG bus ride, at least once we hit the prairies and it's a smoother ride.

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Promises promises, take two Despite having all my children home today, I got the organisational end figured out for...
Getting To Know All About You Filling in Character information in the research section of Scrivener. Came up with another interesting...
Less is more? Today I covered less ground in my manuscript than I would have liked, getting through...

One down! Woot!

B. Jeanne Boyko — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:16:54 +0000

Well, it was fairly grueling but certainly educational to do a first critical read-through of my Nanonovel while taking extensive notes. I managed it in two days, and I’m looking forward to fixing the messy bits.

The good news is there are still lots of things that I love, and hopefully that will encompass all of the book by the end of this course.

And of course I always get a thrill just from watching the progress widget advance.

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Ah, progress!

B. Jeanne Boyko — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:28:38 +0000

So this Saturday is turning out like I'd intended the last one to. I've made it through a big portion of my novel going through the first lesson of Holly Lisle's "How To Revise Your Novel" and it's good to look the difficult bits in the face. There really aren't that many. It will take effort to fix them, but it's completely within my ability to do, especially with Holly teaching me how to fix the problems I find.

I'm close to half way done, hoping to accomplish more this evening. It will be nice to show some progress on the progress bar.

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In Preparation of Progress This week I was able to read through my 2nd lesson and the demo that...
I Love My Book Again! Of course when we start writing, we love the idea. Then revising we see everything...
So, What’s Your Book About? Recovering from a week away for a family wedding, I pulled out Lesson Four again...

Slow start

B. Jeanne Boyko — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 02:07:20 +0000

I knew I would be writing only on M-W-F until other commitments are complete. The first assignment is so intense (described by its creator as the hardest) that picking at it bit by bit isn't working too well. I think I will focus on understanding the process as well as I can, and devote several hours together on Saturday to just immersing myself in it and getting it done.

Looking forward to Saturday!

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You have to start somewhere! If you will recall, Lesson 7 was extremely taxing but gave me one of the...

We have a Winner!

B. Jeanne Boyko — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:40:10 +0000

Thank you, thank you. I'd like to thank the academy....

Just kidding. But today I completed my 50 000 words for Nanowrimo this year, and a few hundred words after that I finished the actual story, very rough first draft.

Phew!

I am hoping to get in on Holly Lisle's new class, How To Revise Your Novel (which this one will surely need) right away, but if the class fills too soon, I think I'll be content to go back to learning more plot techniques and other goodies from my still unfinished courses. Yes, I am a quick start and I'll leave one thing for another that's shinier, only to return to the first thing at a different time. Keeps life interesting, and it's all the more reason to be proud that I kept the pace up for the whole month of November.

Go me!

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Rolling Along I seem to be rolling along racking up the Nano-numbers fairly smoothly. Today I did...
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