I will join in the fun again in 2012 (DV) and I can’t wait! Irony is, I’ll be living in a region that is currently our greatest rival, so my apologies in advance to my fellow Wrimos (Alyssa, I’m looking at you babe) *evil laugh*.

Holly Lisle

It was with a curious mixture of sadness and delight that I read author Holly Lisle’s recent announcement that she will be closing her shop and putting an end to all her online writing courses, to focus on what she loves most: writing fiction.

I am a How to Think Sideways graduate and advocate, and with good reason. It has been one of the best things to ever happen in my life, and I do mean life, not just writing.

Throughout the course she challenged me as a person, my believes, my goals, my priorities and my maturity as a writer and a human being. Yes, Holly Lisle is like that, and she does not apologize for it either.

That is why I’m not surprised that she has decided to follow the advice she’s been giving her students for years: follow your passion. And if you click through to the announcement on her blog, you will find over 180 comments of people cheering her on, because she’s the type of person who inspires that kind of love and loyalty.

In case you have not yet joined any of her courses, there’s still time. She plans on moving all her current courses to Kindle/Nook/iTunes/Createspace over the next two years (removing them from her website as she does that), so you have till February 2012 to register for the online version of How to Think Sideways before she closes that door permanently. Her other courses, How To Revise Your Novel and How To Write A Series will follow suit.

My heartfelt thanks goes out to a woman who has coached, cheered on, encouraged, challenged, laughed and cried with thousands of writers. She has shared and nurtured their dreams and gave them more than just a mere writing course: she gave them a door to their passions, and a roadmap to their dreams.

Thank you Holly Lisle, for being such an inspiration, and a great human being to boot. Know that there’s an army of people supporting you, and waiting with bated breath for your next book. And the next one. And the one after that.

I have been touring through parts of Spain and France, and is currently staying in Norway, after which I’ll be visiting Amsterdam. See, told ya it’s a good reason! Since this blog is a labour of love, I suppose I’m allowed to take a break from cyberspace once in a while to go and see the real world — call it research for future writing if you will. Speaking of writing, here’s some humour to keep you till next time

(Source: “30 Error Messages You Never Want To See” on Cracked.com)

"Love will solve all your problems" / "Love will only let you down"

(Reblogged from looking4myradio.tumblr.com)

The rough draft of [Divergent #2] was the hardest thing I have ever written, and I had no idea why. After discarding every explanation I came up with, I was finally able to land on the one that was actually true: it was all related to fear.

Most of that anxiety comes from my constant assessment of other people’s opinions about me. So, you can imagine what happened when I entered into a profession in which assessments of my work are constant, abundant, and very, very public.

Then someone pointed out that I chose to write a book about bravery. I don’t know why I didn’t realize that I wrote about [Tris] because I longed for that quality of hers that is so distinctive to me: she chooses the true thing instead of the safe thing. And what she discovers is that the freedom to become who she wants to be is worth the danger.

I’ve learned from Tris that there aren’t really safe places — or that if there are, I don’t really want to be in them, because it’s not who I am.

I don’t want to be a writer who is ruled by fear. I want to be the one who says: they may not like it, but this story is as true as possible, so I don’t mind.

Anxiety doesn’t just disappear. But I am determined not to consult my fear when I make decisions, in life and in writing.

– Veronica Roth, author of Divergent. Read the first 100 pages of the book, available on HarperTeen.

The above is an excerpt from this post on her blog.

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