I didn't expect to make a second post about How To Think Sideways' final registration period before it's closed for 2015. However, this is important. As soon as it rolls around to Friday on the US time zone, HTTS will be closed until 2016. From memory, Holly hasn't guaranteed when that will be, so it could be as long as twenty-one months, or as little as nine months. If you're sitting on the fence, you have approximately forty-nine hours left before you lose your chance.
How To Think Sideways is a Career Class. Final registration for 2015.
The first twenty-five sales bonuses mentioned in my previous post are all gone. However, even though she had not reached the 100 sales she wanted, she is still offering new bonuses, available to anyone who didn't get one of the twenty-five bonuses. Direct from Holly herself:
Ten new students will get the following bonus:
One private consultation with me on any 10-page portion of the project you write for this class:
Manuscript, plotting, worldbuilding, character development, one particular scene that's driving you nuts… You'll send your ten pages to me along with a concise description of the problem you're having or the question you want me to answer, and I'll get your answer back to you,along with a PDF of your pages marked up with my comments, brainstorming, or whatever else you needed.
You'll be able to use your consultation at any point during the nine months when lessons are arriving, plus you'll get a three-month grace-period at the end. So you'll have a full year to use your bonus.
HOW DO YOU EARN THIS BONUS?
On the forum topic linked from the classroom hub, you tell me why you decided to take this course now, what you hope to achieve by taking it, and what you want to have accomplished with your writing one year from the day you write your entry.
You will have until the MONDAY following the closing of HTTS Registration to add your entry (Monday, March 9, at 11:59 PM ET) to post your entry on that board. I will not read any entries until then.
I'll choose ten answers based on what you say, and what kind of passion, humor, and/or meaning you bring to saying it.
My choices will be admittedly arbitrary, my decisions will be final, and I can already tell you there will be many, many entries I want to pick that I won't, simply because the stories people tell about their writing and why they're doing it are almost always amazing.
There will be too many good stories to pick them all.
But if you answer this question—even if I don't choose your entry—you will have told yourself why this matters to you, and by doing so you will massively increase your chances for reaching your writing goal, and making this wonderful vision you have for your life into your reality.
There is no risk in taking the course; if you find you don't like the course, or it's not what you wanted it to be, you get a 100% refund within the first fourteen days, followed by a per-week pro-rata refund.
In addition, Holly has decided to run a live chat at 1 pm ET on Wednesday, March 4th. Roughly speaking, that's about fourteen hours away from this posting.
LIVE: Holly Lisle answers questions about writing for a living.
On a personal note, I have pursued various other writing courses (and non-writing courses) and after all that, I highly recommend How To Think Sideways. I recommend HTTS because I hated every other course I tried, whether it was a writing course or not.
The few writing courses I tried didn't do much teaching about writing—or so was my understanding; they were more a course where the teacher assigned us a theme for the next week, and then we shared what we had written and we talked about it. I don't really recall ever discussing things that taught me to be a better writer.
Which leads into a major problem for me, personally. If I want to learn how to build websites, or draw Elsa and Anna from Frozen, THAT IS WHAT I WANT TO LEARN. I don't care one whit about how to select a webhost, or how to draw the human shape. I understand why courses teach things outside the scope of what my interest is, but I don't like it.
I want to learn about writing. I want to learn what I want to learn, rather than additional extras I don't care about. How To Think Sideways covers both bases there.
I've been stuck for ideas for any sort of story… I've known where I want to go, but short of a freaking time skip I haven't known how to get there… I've scribbled down an idea of "girl meets demon lord", and that's not been good enough by the time I come back to it.
Those problems are dealt with in the first three lessons of HTTS.
If you want to be a writer, I believe HTTS is a good investment in your career.
If you don't believe me, listen to Holly. LIVE: Holly Lisle answers questions about writing for a living. Bring her your questions and concerns.
If writing is your dream… then Hook Hand Thug of Tangled said it best: "Go. Live your dream."
And Holly wants to help you live it.
