A good critique group is like a great pair of shoes…

I have a critique group that meets in my house twice a month. We are all in different stages in our writing journeys. I am just starting to submit a new project -my NaNoWriMo project following edits from my initial draft. Another writer has finished a draft and is ready to start sending out queries. One writer is still figuring out the ending of her story. One has a draft completed and needs to start a rewrite. One is more in the beginning stages of learning the craft of writing. One has published and is working on multiple writing projects.

Each of us brings something different and important to the table. Each of us has a unique skill set. One of us is great with punctuation. One is good with ideas. One is good at finding unresolved loose ends, etc…Individually, were are okay writers. Together we are stronger writers.

We are honest, brutally honest with each other. But, we all know that our honesty has the goal of making each of us better writers. Sometimes it hurts. Often we all break out in peels of laughter. We laugh at each other. We laugh at ourselves. We encourage. We educate. We rip each other to shreds. And we love it. Sometimes there is wine and sometimes tea. Always there is intent and purpose.

I realized recently that I am very grateful for this group of people, who give up their time and talent to help me be a better writer. It is truly special to be surrounded by such amazing people all sharing the same goal. It is a magical thing. And, I love magic.

There are different kinds of critique groups. Some groups have you bring pages and you read aloud to everyone else who then responds by writing for several minutes on what they thought of your story. Some groups have you bring pages, and everyone reads them, and then verbally responds to what they read. Some groups are online – you post your pages and people then respond. I have tried all of these at one time or another.

My group is a bit different. We bring our pages and exchange them with each other, take them home, read them, digest them, and write up our critiques on paper and bring them back the following meeting in a perpetual cycle of the critique process. We read our critiques aloud to each other and discuss both good and bad point that we find. Sometimes we all find the same things wrong with specific pages. Sometimes we each find unique issues with specific pages. This critique format works because we are a closed critique group (i.e. not open to visitors) we make the time to devote to each other’s work. It is a huge time commitment for each of us. But it is of huge importance to each of us, so we come to the group again and again, ready to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly about the pages we submitted. The result is that each of us has grown tremendously as writers. We challenge each other. We support each other. We share information when we learn something new. We come to each other’s parties and have become friends. Surrounding yourself with people you trust and love is a great place to be.

All critique groups are different, with different formats, and with different personalities attending. Sometimes it takes a while to find one that fits. Sometimes you hate everyone in a specific group. Sometimes you like one person but hate everyone else in a different group. You just have to keep trying them on like shoes until you find one that is comfortable and looks good on you. After you wear your critique group for a while, you will look back and see how far you have all come on your journey, and will be glad you shared the time and worn so much of each other.

Making Good Karma

An acquaintance of mine recently invited me to a “presentation” for a new business opportunity. She wanted me to have financial independence, have more free time, and gain the happiness I deserved. With this new possibility I would be my own boss and let loose the shackles of the nine to five. Now, I consider myself open to opportunity most of the time (which may or may not be true, but I like to think it is). One just never knows when something good will fall into one’s lap. If her new business allowed me to spend more time pursuing my passion of writing, it was worth the time to take a look. I agreed to go. If nothing else, it was an opportunity to support this person as they worked toward the life they want to create for themselves. Good karma, right?

I realized some things as I listened to people discuss the time and effort they put into this particular business. First of all, this particular business was not for me. Not because I couldn’t do it, but I wasn’t willing to commit to the time needed to make the process work. It was just not important enough for me to consider spending my weekends and evenings doing. It would also cut into my possible writing time. What I also realized, more importantly, is that I want to pursue my writing with that same degree of passion and time commitment that I heard discussed at this presentation. And perhaps I have been lazy.

Let’s face it, writing is hard work. It takes consistency. It takes time with your butt settled in a chair and a pen in your hand or your fingers dangled above a keyboard. Though I have been writing much more regularly these past few months, I have been lax with the writing schedule and the brutal determination needed to meet it. I tend to write with great gusts of inspiration and then I sit and ponder my next move. This is part of that “panster” writing process that I talked about last post.

Writing also requires learning your craft. It takes time and effort. Time and effort being the key words. And good effort makes good karma, right? Let’s make more time and effort this year to pursue the passion that makes us happy. Let’s make good karma. Happy will happen.

Happy New Year!

NaNoWriMo is over…now what?

NaNoWriMo 2011 is behind me. I was somewhat successful. I met some of my writing goals. Other goals I did not make. The process was phenomenal though, and I learned some great lessons. So here is a brief list of five lessons that I learned during the month of November while participating in NaNoWriMo.

Lesson #1 – It is okay to suck.
The NaNoWriMo goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. If you do writer’s math this equates to 1,667 words per day or about six and a half to seven pages per day. Since I am not Stephen King, this is no easy feat for me. It is no easy feat for most writers, actually. So, you then take the 1,667 words and cram those into the allotted time that you have to write. If you are like me, and consequently, like the average writer in America, you have a day job. It is a sad but true statement. Most writers have regular 40-hour per week jobs that take up a good measure of each of their days. Even New York Times bestselling authors have day jobs. Really. (Okay – lemme stop ranting and get back on task…) Which means that, after you get home from work, cook dinner, do the dishes (unless you have a god-like partner to do those things) etc…you may have a couple of hours in the evening in which to cram your 1,667 words. So, if you have, say, two hours, you have to write 835-ish words in that hour, or you have to write about four-ish pages per hour. Maybe that does not sound like much to you, but it IS a lot. Try it. I dare you. Consequently, in order to achieve this, I have learned that I have stop trying to be perfect and allow myself to suck. It is quite liberating, actually. Just write the crappy draft and suck big eggs. Sucking is okay because it allows you to shut the judgmental part of the brain off. Creatively also flows when you allow yourself to suck. Funny how that works.

Lesson #2 – You can edit later.
You cannot edit when you were trying to meet a word deadline. You cannot edit when you are writing the crappy draft. Otherwise, you will get sucked into wanting everything to be perfect. You must edit later. Just write the crappy draft. Do not get stuck on word choice, grammar, or if you dialog is attributed to the correct character. You will catch these issues when you go back and re-read, re-write, and edit your draft. You will do this anyway regardless of the draft number, or at least, you should. If you do not re-read or edit your work after you have written it… well, there is another bigger problem on your plate.

Lesson #3 – it is okay to fail.
You might not make your word quota on any given day. Life happens; the cat barfs on your bed, the windshield on your car splits into a horror show scene from the freezing temperatures and an errant rock kicked up by the driver in front of you, your mom comes over to visit and wants to chat and go shopping. Whatever the distraction is, you do not make your word quota. This is not the end of the world. Stop kicking yourself in the head (see lesson #4) and move on. Review your writing goals, take a deep breath, and acknowledge that you failed. Do not try to do double the word count the following day; Going from 1600 words to 3200 words in the same two-hour time span is crazy making. Do not do it. Just press on the next day. If you continue to write you will still get there.

Lesson #4 – Do not get down on yourself.
Some of us (not you, obviously, but some of those like me, and clearly me) can easily get down on ourselves for not doing what we want to do, and also for doing what we don’t want to do. We want to write. We don’t want to take an hour to go grocery shopping. We want to write. We don’t want to…well you get my drift. But, beating yourself up doesn’t solve anything. It just makes you feel bad. So – be gentle with yourself. You didn’t make your word count goal today. But, you are 10,000 words further along in your novel than you were before November 1st. Look forward. Continue on. You will get there.

Lesson #5 – NaNoWriMo is over but there is still work to do.
If you completed your 50,000 word draft, then it’s time to edit, re-write, pitch, publish, and market. If you did not complete your 50,000 word draft then it’s time to continue writing. There is still December, January and more months to get the draft done. Review your writing goals to complete your draft by the end of December. Just do it. Just write. Eventually, you will get the crappy draft done, and then it will time to edit, re-write, publish, and market. You see, the writing tasks never end. You are a writer, and your job is to write. You just have to keep writing. It is what you do.

A Transitional Pantster

I have always been a write-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of writer, otherwise called a Pantster. A Pantster is a technical term for a particular writing style where the writer eschews outlining their particular story prior to the writing of that story for freely writing as the mood strikes. Pantsters feel that outlining robs them of their creativity or forces them into a particular structure or format. Most Pantsters I know are less time oriented with their writing, less rule driven, less structured. They write their stories based upon ideas bouncing around in their heads and look forward to the surprises they discover throughout the writing process.

The problem with this particular creative writing style, for me at least, is that it can take me an extra, extra long time to get to the end of a story because I have digressed into beautiful tangents of prose. As a Pantster, when a problem arises with the plot, I have to stop writing and take valuable time to let my subconscious dwell on the issue until I have the solution to the story problem, or the character issue, or whatever the issue is that is not working. It is tedious, and the reality is that I spend too much time problem solving after the fact, and too little time writing. This is not a productive place to be.

Also as a Pantster, I have a myriad of story ideas rolling around in my head that have actually never made it to paper. I started making lists but this does not actually solve the problem. The stories remain unwritten.

It is also difficult for me to write consistent story line. I discovered this in subsequent re-writes, and in critique groups. I know that Stephen King can do it, and I know several people who say they are able to do it. but not me, apparently. I get to caught up in the beautiful tangents of prose. I lose the threads of the story sometimes and it takes me much time to find them again. This is not a happy writing place.

So, I did a very terrifying thing. I signed up to do NaNoWriMo. The goal of NaNo is to write 50,000 words in 30 days for National Novel Writing Month. 50,000 words. In one month. For me, it’s truly daunting. But I committed to doing it.

And then reality set in.

The only possible way for me to write 50,000 words in 30 days is to be sure that I have all the story problems solved before I begin. This means I have to focus on structure. I have to have an outline. Me? Really? So I have been working on creating an outline for a new writing project just for NaNo. It’s terrifying. And it’s really difficult. But, I am so glad that I am doing it. I can see the story line from beginning to end, even before I write a word of my draft. I can see the holes in the plot and the sub-plot. I can see the loose ends that I need to tie up. It is rather a transitional moment for me. I am becoming a Plotter. Imagine that. Me. Focused on structure.

I am not now an anti-Pantster by any means. I am just realizing the time saving, valuable tools that plotting offers. I guess that makes me a transitional Pantster.

The Perils and Pitfalls of Contracts

Understanding contracts can make you a better and more efficient writer, whether you’re just starting out, working with agents and publishers, or self-publishing in print and online. Even a basic understanding helps the writer interface with industry professionals, avoid the traps and pitfalls that menace the unwary, and facilitate a more beneficial publishing experience.

A publisher approached a writer at a conference recently, to discuss contract terms, and since the writer did not yet have an agent she “talked terms” with the publisher directly. The writer’s knowledge of basic contract terms enabled her to hammer out the deal points well enough to know that she was interested in
the deal. This also helped her get and agent because the agent was very impressed with her business sense, and mentioned that her knowledge of the industry makes her easy and exciting to work with.

On the other end of the spectrum, a knowledge of contracts can help you avoid becoming a cautionary tale.

Earlier this year another woman was offered a management deal by a company that wanted to help her publish and promote her music. She had no experience, and didn’t understand how a “manager” differed from an “agent” or why she would want one. She read the proposed contract and suspected a trap, but she didn’t
actually see any problem with the terms. She almost signed, but since she was a minor her parents wanted the contract reviewed “just in case.” Her father, in particular, didn’t understand why she would want a manager and not an agent, and he was concerned that the contract seemed to duplicate fees if an agent got
involved. He was right, and the “contract” was a scam. Had he not known a little about contracts, and the industry, he might have let her sign her life, her work, and all of their money away.

Understanding contracts makes you a much stronger partner for your agent, editor and publisher, and lack of understanding makes you a target.

This information is from practicing attorney Susan Spann, who will be teaching a Friday Morning Master Class at this year’s Colorado Gold Conference.

“Contracts and Copyrights: How to Read and Understand a Publishing Deal” will discuss real-world examples, war stories, and terms from actual publishing contracts to give attendees the skills they need to move forward with confidence.

Registration for this Friday Morning Master Classes closes August 15th. You may register online at http://rmfw.org/conference .

Lie, lay lain versus lay, laid, laid

I am pretty good at catching grammatical errors except for mine it seems. Sometimes I glide over my own grammar faux pas without a second thought, and then, after I’ve had a bit of time and distance, then I can see what wrongs I have written. I usually curse when this happens, but we won’t print that here. Yesterday I was working on some revision of a chapter I had written earlier and found something to the effect of, “…the objects laying along the shore…” I felt a loud “WRONG” scream at me. I knew that the word laying was incorrect, but for the life of me I couldn’t say why exactly. I had to look it up.

The word lie means to recline. Present tense is lie or lying, “I lie in bed. I am lying in bed.” Past tense is lay, “I lay on the bed earlier today after I had a glass of wine.” There’s also the past participle which is has/have lain, “I have lain on that bed many times.” To recline equates to: lie, lay, lain. To recline is a state of being. “I (subject) lie (state of being) in bed (object).”

There is no laid in reference to bed. Truly there isn’t.

The word lay means to place. The present tense is lay or laying, “I lay the pencil on the counter. I am laying it on the counter, Dad. All right?” Past tense is laid, “I laid that pencil on the counter yesterday. Didn’t you see it there?” The past participle is also laid, “I had laid the pencil on the table. I swear I did.” So to place equates to: lay, laid, laid. To place is an action. I (subject) lay (action) the pencil (object) on the counter.

The chicken laid an egg along the shore.

Chickens most certainly can lay many eggs on the shore, but that isn’t what I meant when I wrote “…objects laying along the shore…” Those objects I mentioned were in a state of being. Consequently, I change my sentence to, “…the objects lying along the shore…” because the objects reclined or rested there.

Ahhh. That feels better, doesn’t it? I am sure I have it now.

I guess it’s true what “they” say – that the best way to learn something is to teach it.

Save. Save Often.

I am usually very good with backing up my files. I have a hard drive, a spanking new flash drive, and an internet document storage account. As a writer who has lost the occasional file in the past, I know better. I know to save and to save often. I know to save my work to multiple locations. I know this. I do.

I didn’t.

Dangit.

I had been working on an outline to restructure one of my recent stories. I saved the entire outline to my brand new shiny flash drive. I didn’t save to my hard drive. And I didn’t save to my internet document account. And somehow, between life and travel, I have misplaced my flash drive.

I am grief-stricken but not entirely in panic mode. I can re-create what I have written. I can re-create the other documents that were also on the flash drive. But, had I saved my work, and I am apt to do, I would not have to spend my much limited creative hours writing what I have previously written (insert heavy sigh).

So, just as a reminder to my fellow writing friends: Save. Save often.

Please.

I just can’t help myself…

I decided in late November to take the month of December off from writing. I have never officially done that before. It had been a hectic season at work, I had finished a draft of a novel and needed some time to contemplate a re-write, and my December included travel and several events. I was stressed and did not know how I was going to meet my social obligations, obligations to my craft and to myself. So, though I had never officially taken time off from writing before, I did so. It was frightening and relieving all at the same time.

I will not work on my re-write, I said to myself. I will not do any book reviews on Goodreads.com, I would not blog, and I probably would not read overmuch except on plane rides. I gave myself time off to relax, and gave myself permission to cast aside my internal writing angel-hermit-ogre-pixie, or at least store her in a box for a month.

Best laid plans…

In the wee hours of the morning during the first week of my month long writing sabbatical, I woke up, startled, to discover a new story bouncing around in my brain. I had to get up out of bed and write down the synopsis before I forgot it in sleep. Even though I was on vacation, dangit! I do not usually want for story ideas, but I do not usually wake up at 3am to get them. A week later, another story popped up during the daytime, and this story so had-to-be-written-write-now! that I wrote 5,000 words immediately at a blind run. I then struggled for a while with the possibility of pending my current re-write to write this new story. I would definitely have to focus when I got back to writing. I wasn’t writing this month, remember?

I did write, though. I just can’t help myself. I wrote journal entries, letters and outlined story ideas. I toyed with the structure of my re-write. I thought about a book review or two that I would write when I returned to writing; so much so that I wrote them. I started a new story with that occasional fabulous passion that makes writing a joy (usually it is hard work).

And all I can think of is, “Writers write.” I can try not to write, but I failed. Miserably.

Reading in my genre.

I am and have always been an eclectic reader. I read both fiction and non-fiction and I read with no particular logical method of choosing what I read. Much of my reading is mood based. I will be in the mood to read a mystery and will just happen to have one available in my overly dramatic pile of books to be read, or as I call it, the angst pile. A large portion of my reading also seems to be a result of what I call chasing rabbits. I will be reading or researching something and will stumble across some idea or name or title of something else and will absolutely need to read it. So I suppose I am quite like Alice. I just go down the rabbit hole chasing the rabbit in search of some reading tidbit that could be amazingly interesting. (**On a side note, Ron Heimbecher of Chalice Media has created an insane amount of rabbit holes for his readers. I am intrigued with the whole concept as a reader). Consequently, I have a PBS mind in an MTV world. I know a lot of useless tidbits in no particular order that hops around a lot.

I so love reading that it is my most favorite escape since I can remember. I even remember reading Go, Dog. Go! over and over again. It was my first favorite book. I don’t remember how old I was but I wasn’t in school yet. My insatiable madness for reading existed even then. I remember when I was in the 1st grade and the local library had a reading contest. The child who read the most books would be the winner. I won A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. I had read more books than all the other kids combined. It actually is the only thing I have ever won and I still have it in my library.

The realization hit me that the big reason I write stories is because I love to read stories, and I have so many stories to tell. But because I am such an eclectic reader, I wonder if that could make my stories a little bit genre psychotic. I know what I like, and I write what I want to read, but are my stories necessarily genre specific? I wrestle with that concept since the final point of writing is to sell so that other people can read what I’ve written. And books sell by genre generally.

So it crossed my mind that perhaps I do not read enough novels in my current chosen genre which is historical women’s fiction. It makes sense that I should read more of the genre I am writing in, doesn’t it? But this leads me to another rabbit hole. There are genres and sub-genres and yet time is a limited commodity. I do not want to just read historical women’s fiction. I want to read the best historical women’s fiction. So I’m on a quest, and I’m falling down a hole. Perhaps someone will tempt me with a carrot?

Fear and Halloween

Recent events (the combination of Halloween / Samhain and poor sick me watching hours of the History Channel) got me thinking about fear as a tangle to tease out. We all have, as far as I know, some deep dark secret fear entwined within the fabric of our being. Some of us know what the threads of our fears are, while some of us manufacture the yarn that we have no such fears hanging about. We do, of course. However, it’s our unique blend of fear, personality and life experience woven together that shape our reactions to stressful situations. Which is why each of us is extraordinary among the 6,878,700,000 other people living on the earth. No other person has lived what we have lived. It is what keeps us interesting. And our characters, too.

Fear is a very powerful incentive to movement and action. I have been contemplating which fear to weave into the creation of my most recent heroine. What specific fear should I consider? What will best express her frame and temper? I have to consider that fear can be external or internal. External fear relates to a thing outside yourself that you desire to avoid. Indiana Jones was afraid of snakes, for example. Internal fear also relates to some particular thing outside yourself, but that particular thing triggers a negative emotion. Public speaking is an internal fear that many people suffer from. That specific negative emotion creates stress, tension, and drama.

For me, the internal fear is much more fun than external fear. That my hero is afraid of spiders is much less interesting than if he is afraid of heights. It is the internal fear mixed with personality and trauma that shapes the drama of my heroine’s choices. It’s the internal fear that she must face before she arcs into a better version of herself. The knotty question is how is she going to do that? How will her fear hinder her or manipulate her into something beautiful.

My heroine’s unique fear also dictates that I must know her back story in order to express her fear on the page in a believable and unique fashion. If she is afraid of public speaking but I have her give a speech with barely a heart palpitation, her fear is not believable. I have to carefully knit her fear with her emotional and physical reactions.

What are my heroine’s physical reactions to fear? Her heart rate increases and she feels her pulse within her body. Her blood pressure sails upward. Her muscles tighten as she tenses to fight or flee. All of her senses are heightened and her pupils dilate. Her eyes become wide as her brows draw together. Her lips stretch across her face. Fun, huh? I hadn’t considered fear so fun before Halloween.