What Makes the Best Crit Partner?

There's a post over on The Literary Lab today about having friends critique your work. The gist of it is that you shouldn't have friends (writer or otherwise) critique your work, because the feedback you get is not going to be as honest as what you need to make your writing the best it can be. I agree with this to a point.

Obviously, close friends and family who are not writers, or maybe they are writers but you were friends before your writing came into the relationship—either way, those people, as a general rule, are not going to tell you what's wrong with your writing. In those cases, the personal relationship would be too important to alienate you, the writer, by truly being critical of your work. I think this holds true for most relationship in the blogosphere as well. You just don't know if saying something critical is going to hurt someone's feelings, or if they're going to take it the wrong way.

However, I think it's possible to have a close, friendly relationship with other writers and still get solid, honest feedback on your work. I have a couple of writer friends that I met online and we swapped manuscripts and did critiques for eachother. In the process, they've actually become what I consider my good friends, but that doesn't have a negative affect on our critiquing relationship. If anything, I think it makes it more honest, because I know what they want out of the crit, and if there's something HUGE in their manuscripts that needs fixed, I tell them. Granted, I will most likely preface it with a "Please don't hate, but...", but I always try to be as honest as possible. Even if I think it might initially be painful to hear, because I want them to succeed as much as I want to succeed.

So what do you all think? Is it possible to be friends with the writers you go to for critiques? Or do you think keeping it strictly professional is essential?

WIP Wednesday

First, the important stuff. :) Last week I posted about a contest over on The Bookshelf Muse blog—enter the first two lines of your novel for a chance to win a 2, 5, or 10 page critique. Winners were announced on Monday and I won first place! And this is after getting second place in a similar contest on YA Highway in January. So, I think I finally have my hook set and solid. Now, if I could just get the rest of the story to fall in line, I’ll be perfect. ;)

In other news, I actually have some progress to report. Over the last few weeks I’ve managed to glue all my random scenes together into what is now the first 36 pages of my story. Plus, I added an additional 5000 words. Not as much as I would’ve liked, but progress is progress, right?

I read somewhere recently that people who are very busy are more likely to find time to write. I can’t remember where I saw it, but I’m finding that it’s so true. Never before have I had so much free time, and never before have I found so many ways to procrastinate. I should have no problem churning out 1000 words per day minimum. Just last night I sat down and pounded out 500 words in about 10 minutes. Granted, I’d been thinking about that part of the scene for an hour while I cleaned the kitchen, but 1000 words a day is not an unrealistic goal.

So that’s what I’m challenging myself with. That should give me close 30,000 more words by the end of the month, and 60,000 if I push myself to double that. That would put me very close to done, and done is something I’m definitely ready to be. I’m getting anxious to work on another project I have brewing.

What about all of you? Do you find that you seek out more writing time when you’re busy? Or does endless amounts of free time sound like writer’s heaven?

Tell the Truth Tuesday

I have a confession to make.

I read a lot of one-star and two-star reviews on Amazon.

Okay, so it’s not so I can laugh at the author, but I still feel a little guilty about it. I always read the book first, so I'm supporting the author by purchasing the book (especially if it's a debut author), and so my experience isn’t tainted by someone else’s opinion. Then I read the reviews to see if other readers caught the same things I did—which is the case about 99% of the time. Oftentimes, the same issues pop up in review after review.

Why would I subject myself to so much negativity?

I agree there are some reviews that are unnecessarily mean, but many are well thought out and very well written. The best reviews weigh the good against the bad—showing what’s working and what’s not. Sometimes, they even point out things I’d glossed over and ignored because the same things are happening in my work. This was especially true when I was first starting out. Yes, I know not everyone is going to love my story and no matter how perfect I get it, it will never be good enough for some people, but it does force me to look at my work more critically and decide if the things I thought no one else would notice are worth changing.

Ultimately, for me, it’s just another tool to help me improve my writing.

As to whether I would read negative reviews of my own book if that ever became a possibility—I don’t know. Probably not.

What about you? Anything to add? Anything to confess? :)

Motivational Monday—Embracing Failure

This post was inspired by this article by Rebecca Brown. Some of you have probably already seen it. If you haven’t, do yourself a favor and take the time to read it. It’s worth every second.

And along the same lines is this post from Rebecca Knight. Very inspiring!

A writer’s life is filled with what can be construed as failures. Sometimes it feels like no matter what we do, nothing will ever be good enough—for our crit buddies, for an agent, for an editor, for ourselves.

As many of you know, I’ve been seriously devoted to this writing thing for the last year and a half. And when I started, I thought I was pretty good. Boy, was I delusional. I’m so glad I didn’t get published then.

Sure, the seemingly instant success of authors like Stephenie Meyer is appealing, but I don’t think I would be happy if I’d gotten published that way. Okay, the money would’ve been nice, but it would make me insane to know my work that was out there for the whole world to see was not the best I could’ve produced.

I cringe now just thinking about my first draft. Even after revising it a gazillion times, I can’t believe I actually thought it was good enough to query. Having said that, I don’t think I ever would’ve gotten to this point without those rejections. Every rejection—even the form rejections—led me to look at my manuscript with a more critical eye, eventually leading to my acceptance that it needed to be rewritten.

So even though they seemed devastating at the time, those failures have helped me become a better writer. A year from now, I’ll most likely look back at what I think is so much better now, and it won’t be good enough, but I’m sure there will be more failures along the way to get me there.

What about you? Do you embrace your failures?

We Have a Winner!

To be as fair as possible, I totalled everyone's entries and assigned numbers accordingly. Then I let the Random Number Generator pick for me. And the winner is

Southern Princess

Click on the contact button above and shoot me an email with your mailing address, and I'll get you your prizes. Thanks everyone for playing and for celebrating with me!