On the Value of a Critique Group

You've heard it before. To be a better writer, you need to share your work with others IN THE FIELD i.e. a writing group. But so many people don't. They try it, personalities clash, things fall apart. Yes, critique groups, like any other social situation, can be work - but oh so worth it. I was reminded of this fact this past weekend at the weekend-long SCBWI-MI Fall conference , and I returned with a whole new appreciation for my critique group.

Four of us, including myself, attended the conference together. They all had a critique with an editor and - as critiques often do - felt less than ecstatic about the feedback. We sat around and listened to the feedback, gave each other much needed ego boosts by pointing out the positive in the feedback, and then attacked the negative head-on. We knew each other's characters and plots so well, we were able to point out ways to fix things, and we knew each other so well, we felt comfortable doing it and safe receiving it.

I couldn't ask for a better group. There are six of us total. We've had members come and members go over the years, but for the most part, have been the same group for years. We are an eclectic bunch - writing poetry, picture books, middle-grade, and YA; romance, boy books, and fantasy; humorous, edgy, and dark - we run the gambit. We all have our strengths; we all have our hang-ups, our pitfalls, our overly used words, our crutches. Best of all? We all know it and aren't afraid to point it out.

It is a safe environment where we can be ourselves, which is so important when you are a writer - the world doesn't always get us but we get each other.

Our critique clique clicks - and I am such a better writer now than I was seven years ago when I found you all!

To those of you who do not have a critique group - get one! To those who do and it doesn't work - find another one! For those who do one and it does work - you know what I am talking about.!And to those in my group - cheers! I love you guys!

Of course, none of it helps if you aren't writing, so ................ butt-in-chair mates!

What I've Learned About Writing from Watching Project Runway

I'm guilty. I watch reality television. Not all of it; some shows are simply a flimsy platform created for idiots in search of quick fame. I do have my favorites though, like Survivor, Amazing Race, and Project Runway. My husband rolls his eyes when I say one of those shows is about to come on. I tell him I have to watch - I am doing research. "Research? Really?" He says. "Survivor?"


Yep, a wealth of character sketches and dialogue and human dynamics on that show. Amazing Race? All the places they go and challenges they must complete are interesting details to enrich plots and settings. Project Runway? Hands down, the best place to learn about the craft of writing.


What? I hear you saying - my husband too. How can a bunch of wannabe fashion designers making dresses for models teach you anything about writing?


Let me show you what I've learned from watching the show:


1) In the fashion world, everything has been done before - pants, skirts, shirts, etc. The designer's job is to make what has been done, new and fresh by mixing materials, colors, styles, etc. It is the same in the writing world. You'll find similar themes and premises in all literature - your job is to morph what's been done into something innovative and new through plot, setting, characters, etc.


2) The ideal in fashion is to create something clean, fresh, and sophisticated while still being wearable, new and fun. The same is true in writing. Publishers want well-written, 'literary' stories that will stand the test of time, but have a commercial hook that will appeal to the masses.


3) In writing like in fashion design, when we begin executing our ideas, sometimes something doesn't work. You have to be willing to change it up, alter it, or scratch it and start over , even if it means losing something you really liked. How many fashion designers have we seen fall out of the competition because they got too attached to their idea and lost sight of the big picture? Don't lose sight of what your goal is - if it isn't working, take it out and save it for another project.

4) Learn to listen to yourself and others. All artists have a little voice that tells them when something isn't right. Listen to it - don't get lazy and ignore it. Same with professionals in your field. If people are telling you the same thing about your work, listen. Sometimes that means a major overhaul - and we tend to ignore the comments if that means the work will be hard - but don't. Listen, listen, listen.


5) And ignore, ignore, ignore! You also have to learn to ignore yourself and others! We all doubt ourselves. Learn to recognize which voice is talking to you - your professional voice or that insecure child. Ignore the child. Same with people who mean well. You are the person who understands your vision the best. If what people are saying to you doesn't make sense for your vision, ignore their advice. Learn to identify what is good advice and what is not.


6) Never get too cocky. Everyone has talent, but no one starts a project perfectly. When you get complacent, so does your work. Push yourself every time.


7) Even the best ideas can fall apart with the wrong choices You've seen it happen on Project Runway before - a safe dress costs a designer the competition because she/he chose the wrong accessories. Make sure all the pieces of your story work together.


8) Stay current, but don't get trapped into creating yesterday's trends. Nothing worse than writing with shoulder pads and big belts, i.e. outdated devices and dialogue. Try to stay classic while being fresh and thinking out of the box.


9) Don't be afraid to try new things. If you think all you can make are dresses and you never try to make pants, you may be missing out on a talent you never knew you had. Don't let the fear of using chocolate or paper napkins scare you out of the race. BE OPEN AND INNOVATIVE!


10) The most important thing I have learned from Project Runway: Don't give up. You may be at the bottom on one project, but at the top the next. Don't let rejection cut you out of the pack. Learn from it and move on.



And that's what I've learned from Project Runway!

Happy creating!

A Blog Entry At Last!

Today marks the last full day of writing time before my kids are home for summer break, and I thought I would use it to update my sorely neglected blog.

It has been nearly eight months since my last post - which is embarrassing, considering so many of my writer friends post every day. I haven't quite figured out how to juggle the household, the kids, and the millions of extra stuff that comes up, with my writing, my research, my agent/editor queries, and my blog. How do you all manage it?

During my blog silence, I finished a major overhaul of my novel. It was a huge undertaking. I switched the POV from third to first, cut 18,000 words, and pulled a few plot threads, which meant some tedious re-plotting of things. The actual overhaul took about three months of thinking about the changes, and six months of actually making those changes. Once the hardcore writing began, I couldn't focus on a blog or anything else beyond my household. In fact, every day, I fought hard to come out of the catatonic, zombie-state I found myself in after writing before the kids came home. (Is that normal? Anyone else get that way? I forced myself to walk - it helps!)

How DO you all do it? I thought my 7 am to 2 pm, five days a week schedule devoted to writing was pretty good - so many of my writer friends work outside of the home and complain they never have time to write - but I see people writing books and blogging, doing author visits, etc. and I wonder - HOW?

I stressed about not blogging for a while. Every time I would go to my critique meetings with my AWESOME writer's group and saw Jacqui and Diane, the champion bloggers in my group, I'd feel inadequate in my ability to juggle stuff. But I have realized that I have a sort of writing cycle that works for me. I blog when I am in the thinking stages of a work - when I am doing research, or plotting, or trying on character voices - this is usually during the summer months and early fall when the kids are home or just getting settled into the new school year and so much 'stuff' is going on. Then, right about October/November, I hit my hardcore writing groove, and nothing but that novel gets written because I have a goal - to finish in May before the insanity that is the end of the school year begins. With summer comes a new project, more thinking than writing, and, therefore, more blogging.

Probably not industry standards, and if I get published, I will probably need to change that because I will need to have a more regular blog - but for now? It works for me.

So, here's to summer days, reading books, writing blogs, and just plain hanging out while characters run rampant in my head (I love that part).

Cheers!

What's Been Stopping You From Writing?

Every time I send an email out to someone lately, I cringe at my perky little "Check out my blog!" note that automatically attaches to the end of each email. I have even erased it several times to avoid being seen by the recipient because I know if they actually DO check out my blog, they will be sorely disappointed.

Writing has been hard for me lately - not just the blogging, but the actual writing, working on my books. I'm not stuck. I think about my revision all day long; I know exactly what I need to do and how to do it. But when I sit down at the computer to work, I shut down.

Why? What's stopping me?

Things have been busy around here. My daughter started her junior year in high school and a job at McDonald's, so she's juggling work schedules, PSAT/ACT/SAT prep, and AP classes. My son started middle school and is adjusting to the increase in tests and homework plus playing flag football for his school. My youngest started third grade and has an increase in homework too plus basketball. Put that together with my husband's full-time job and his part-time National Guard job that may as well be a full-time job and dentist appointments and doctor appointments and school functions - and well, yes, life has been over-the-top busy.

But while that has contributed to my lack of productivity, that's not totally it. My life is always ridiculously stressed like that. Whose isn't?

I think my productivity problem has more to do with me trying to justify the time I put into writing. It is something I enjoy tremendously, but I don't get paid to do it - and who is to say I ever will be? How do I justify all the time I spend on it when it is not something I 'have' to be doing and there are chores to be done, a household to run, kids to attend to? I look at other stay-at-home moms and all they do at their kids' schools, at home, etc. and I feel like a failure. I volunteer, but not as much as others do, and half of them have REAL jobs. I don't. I have nothing critical going from 7 AM to 3 PM five days a week.

This past June my stepsister lost her battle with cancer. She fought hard for about four years and all the while she was giving her seven kids and husband a hundred and twenty-five percent in addition to helping people in her church and community. She was one of those rare people that makes everyone a better person just by knowing her. I look at Leslie and how much she did for everyone, how she was going all the time, doing for others while fighting her own battle inside, and quite frankly, it makes me think, what the hell am I doing? How is spending hours a day writing a book helping anyone? How is sitting at a computer creating fictitious characters and fictitious worlds doing anything constructive for the rest of the world?

I know that a happy mom makes happy children. And, writing isn't something I am doing to make money anyway - it is a part of me, like breathing, and when I am not writing, I get depressed and stir-crazy. But how do I justify writing instead of say, cleaning house? How do I justify shutting that door to the world outside to immerse myself in a fictitious world when there are real chores and real problems to be dealt with?

This is what has been stopping me from being productive lately, so I thought I'd share. Maybe if I still have a few readers out there who haven't given up on reading my consistently non-existent blog, you'd care to share how you justify the time you spend on writing?

Will Kindle kill the Publishing House?

Yeah, I know I promised a debrief on the SCBWI LA conference, but this does sort of relate. While at the conference my friend Su brought her kindle and I got to check it out. Pretty cool. I especially liked how one can change the font size - for someone like me who can't read small print without a magnification device, it is awesome.

While she was showing it to me and our friend, Libby, the three of us talked about how the kindle may change publishing forever. You can download a book for less than $10 versus an average of $17 for a new hardcover. It's lightweight - no breaking your back carrying a bunch of books with you.

But what about the illustrations of a picture book? The cover art? The smell of the paper? The feel of that book in your hands? There is something intimate about a book - curling up with it, just you and the characters, falling into the author's world - can you feel that way with the generic look and cold feel of a Kindle? I haven't tried it, so I can't answer that, but I do know that I hate reading books on my computer. I read it differently, more mechanically or something, than I do when I am holding the paper in my hands.

Video didn't kill the radio star; audio didn't kill the book when it became popular- nor did the penny press kill literary works as predicted when it brought literature to the masses. But, yeah, Kindle could kill the profits. Publishers may resort to only printing the classics, the proven sellers. Why spend the money to print a new release in hardcover when you can spend less and wait to see if it will be a seller on Amazon? And perhaps this will cause a re-kindling (pun intended) of the picture book industry when money once spent on hardcovers is freed up. (I mean, I don't care how cheap it is to publish work on the internet, no parent is going to let their baby drool all over a Kindle while reading a picture book, right?)

Let's look into the future for a moment though. Imagine the world of books has been diminished to the 'classics' and mass quantities of books downloaded onto mass quantities of Kindles.

Now imagine a mega virus has wiped out all that is Internet, machines have been trashed and discarded, life as we live it now has been destroyed.

Okay, now fast forward a century or two later, when someone like Tally from Scott Westerfield's Uglies is wandering the abandoned city streets of Old America. What will she find? An abundance of books like Moby Dick, The Odyssey, and The Scarlet Letter, perhaps The Outsiders and Good Night Moon - but none representing our time right now or our tomorrow. Whole generations of books will be gone forever. How sad that Tally won't be able to read the brilliance of today's and tomorrow's authors because their work is trapped inside a broken piece of plastic, accessible no more.

So, will the Kindle kill the publishing house? For the sake of our dystopian future, let's not let it. Let it be an industry tool, an industry advancement, but not an industry end.

Why Attend a Writer's Conference?

I leave Thursday for the SCBWI National conference in LA. Inevitably when I tell someone I am going to a Writer’s Conference, they ask “So do you bring your manuscript around and give it to agents and editors?” And when I say “No. In fact that is a sure-fire way not to get published,” the response is usually, “So, why go?”

Why? Because:

The first writer’s conference I attended was the 2000 Write on The Sound conference in Edmonds, WA. It wasn’t specifically children’s writing, but it did have sessions on YA and it was in Edmonds, where my sister lives, so it worked for me. Even though several of the sessions I sat in on were about writing I didn't necessarily plan on writing - memoirs, magazines, nonfiction - I learned a wealth of knowledge about the business and even more about the market. But the most significant thing I came away with were contacts - I met so many people, writers like me, that I could stay in touch with via email. This actually shocked me. This networking thing. I had always been (and still am!) the shy one – never speaking to someone until spoken to, afraid of social situations because I didn't know what to say – and yet, there I was talking to people about writing, my writing, and talking to them about their writing. So why go? BUSINESS and MARKET INFORMATION and NETWORKING.

I went the following year to the same conference – this time submitting a manuscript for critique. It was scary. It was one thing to have friends or classmates in workshop read it, but have an actual publishing professional read it and comment on it? YIKES!! The experience was amazing. My writing grew in leaps and bounds just from that one critique. As I started attending more conferences, I made it a point to always submit something; in my opinion, it is a wasted opportunity if you don't. You’ll never make it out there if you don’t let those who work out there read your stuff. So, why attend? CRITIQUES

That next year I also attended my first SCBWI National conference. It was February, 2002. Five months after September 11th; five months after the birth of my third child. I traveled all the way from Alaska, by myself. And it was NEW YORK CITY. It was hard to leave my newborn, hard to go to New York after the terrorists had devastated it, hard to go alone, but I had a completed manuscript I was ready to publish and I wanted to meet editors and agents. So I went. I listened to editors talk about what they liked, what they were looking for, what to do and not to do – and the best part was many of them were handing out “golden tickets” – the opportunity to submit to them as a conference attendee even though they were closed to unagented, and/or unsolicited submissions. So why attend? SUBMISSION OPPORTUNITIES.

Coming back from that New York conference, however, I also realized that despite those golden tickets I held in my hand, my manuscript wasn’t ready to submit, mot yet. I had listened to what those editors were saying about common mistakes and I had committed most of them in my novel. Time to revise.

We moved to Michigan shortly after that and I found A WRITING COMMUNITY, something I hadn’t had in Alaska. (Alaska has a SCBWI, but in case all you in the lower 48 didn't realize, Alaska is a pretty big place. Very spread out. Hard to get together. Although they do try!) I found in the Michigan SCBWI an awesome group of writers who kept in contact through conferences, a very active list serv, summer schmoozes (thanks to Shutta Crum!), and various author support events like book launches. I attended my first Michigan conference, got hooked up with their list serv, and found a critique group – the same group I am with now, six years later. That again moved my writing up volumes.

So, to recap, why go to a writer’s conference if you can’t chase an editor into the elevator and sling your novel at her? For Business & Market Information, Networking, Critiques, Submission Opportunities, a Writing community, and let's not forget FUN!!

I promise to blog about what I took away from this conference, but it won't be until mid-August. The day after I get back from LA I will be heading on a quick vacation with my husband and kids to Cedar Point and Put-In Bay (okay, not sure if that's how you spell it; I can spell Koyukuk and Matanuska and Ninilchik, but not so sure about those Ohio names!)

Hope to see some of you in LA!!

You Can't Hide Those Writer-eyes

My 16 (and a half) year old daughter left this week for a ten day CSI:Forensic Science seminar at John Hopkins University. The ten day camp is her first experience with college life - living in a dorm, sharing a bathroom with three roommates she doesn't know, on her own with meal cards and room keys to keep track of, a schedule to keep, etc.

We flew with her to Baltimore to help her settle in to her dorm. I saw her excitement as she unpacked her things into her wardrobe closet and desk. I saw the apprehension when she realized there was only one toilet and shower to share between four girls. I saw the nervous fear as we kissed her good-bye and left her on her own. And, I hear the homesick, lonely edge in her voice when she calls. She's experiencing the social and emotional woes of a college freshman as a high school junior, and I can't do anything but tell her it will all be okay. It breaks my heart to know that I can't be there to help her or give her a hug.

But I am so using this in a future novel. What a great set-up for a mystery or coming-of-age plot, don't you think?

My writer-eyes see potential everywhere I go. I can't help it. So often I hear people say they have nothing to write about, and I can honestly say that is not a problem for me. Everyday life puts us into situations that can become part of a great plot later down the line. These experiences don't make a plot by themselves necessarily, but they can inspire a storyline, enhance a character or drive a plot in a new direction. All you have to do is take the time to observe them - and as an added bonus, observing them through your writer-eyes can also save your sanity - something I realized on my way to Baltimore.

While sitting in the Detroit airport waiting for our flight, I found myself getting very annoyed with my kids. We'd arrived way early, like two hours early (I wasn't sure how many people would be in that security line so I thought early was better) and they were already stir crazy from weeks of being together at home, let alone *TRYING* to behave in an airport terminal. As I sat there getting increasingly irritated by their behavior, I decided to take off that mom-hat and put on my writer-hat. This is how that hat-switch saved my sanity:

When my ten year old shoved three pieces of Hubba Bubba bubble gum into his mouth and then blew a bubble so big that when it popped, it connected his mouth to the food container he was holding with a thick pink string at least six inches long - I laughed rather than yelled.

And when he played the *Random game with me every time I asked him a question, I made random statements too. (*he and his younger sister play this by stating random things either in answer to a question or as an ongoing conversation. The point is to sound the most sincere, as if you actually make sense, while, saying some ludicrous, nonsensical thing, like "The elephant is pink." "Yeah, but I ate the frog." "Run to the hills." "Jack Frost is an amoeba", etc, etc.) As I played along, I started thinking, "I could use this . . . "

When I visited the restroom with my seven year old twenty-two times in 45 minutes (I assure you, that is no exaggeration) I tried to note things about the bathroom and those using it each time I visited. Like the five year old who informed his mother he would not eat any salad today because it gives him gas, or the woman who slid on a wet section of the floor and went careening, head first, into the toilet. That was rather scary, I have to admit, and as we made sure she was okay, I couldn't help thinking, "What if she had hit her head?" Which then led to "What if she'd hit her head and passed out and while she was passed out someone stole her purse and her boarding pass? And when she came to she had no memory of who she was or where she was going?" That scenario actually kept me going for quite a while.

As did the dark hotel we arrived at when we finally got to Baltimore. We arrived around seven that night in the middle of a thunderstorm. After trying to contact the hotel's free airport shuttle by phone for almost an hour while standing outside in the rain with very agitated, restless children, I decided to scratch the shuttle and grab a cab. I was glad I did. The power was out at the hotel. Ever check into a pitch dark hotel? It's a very eerie feeling.

The staff was standing around with glow-sticks and flashlights. Several patrons stood huddled in the lobby. Since it was now almost nine pm, I asked if there was any way we could check in. I was told they could put us in a room, but we would have no keys until the electricity came back on (the van driver let us in with a master key) and would have to take the stairs (very dark, service stairwell, led by the key master aka van driver). So armed only with a glow-stick to light the way, we did just that. I sat in the pitch black hotel room with my three kids and our little glow-stick (my husband was meeting us the next day) for the next hour, waiting for the power to be restored. It was a freaky, scary hour, but the whole time my mind was spinning with ways to make that part of a story.

The point I am hoping to make here is: when you are in need of inspiration or are stuck with an area of your plot and unsure how to proceed - drop your hat, arm yourself with the question, "What if?" and step out of your box. You may be surprised what you find lurking around you when you let yourself view life through your writer-eyes.