Similar to MSFV's Secret Agent contest, Roni at Fiction Groupie is hosting a crit session every Tuesday and Thursday. Brave souls have offered up the openings of their precious manuscripts for some serious shredding. All with the hope of making their writing as shiny as possible. It can be brutal to be on the receiving end, but ultimately (when you can finally see through your tears ;)), it's so worth it.
Everyone is welcome to participate. Feel free to offer up any advice you think might be helpful. And if you're new to critiquing, this is a great way to get an idea of what goes into a critique and what to expect when you eventually get one. Because every good writer knows, you just can't be your best without those awesome critters.
Up today, is the very awesome Tere Kirkland. Good luck, Tere!
And I want to apologize for being a little absent lately around the blogosphere. I haven't been commenting as much as I would like, but that's because I've been COOKIN' on my manuscript. I wrote over 3000 words yesterday! Insane, I know. I hope I'm not jinxing myself by posting about it. ;) So, I'm not completely absent, just lurking a little more while the words are flowing so freely.
Happy Thursday, everyone! :)
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Oodles of Contests and a Blogfest
It's contest time again, er, still. :)
1. Elana Johnson is doing a huge SIGNED book giveaway over on her blog to celebrate reaching 700 followers. Contest ends March 14th.
2. Suzette Saxton and Bethany Wiggins are having a Fantabulous Followers Giveaway over on their blog, Shooting Stars, with prizes including a 40-page submission and critique by fabulous agent Suzie Townsend of FinePrintLit! Contest ends March 14th.
3. Chimera Critiques is giving away a $20.00 gift certificate to either Barnes & Nobles or Books-A-Million, winner’s choice. Plus an in-depth critique by all of their staff members on your first Chapter. Contest ends April 10th.
4. Check out Ali Cross's blog for details on how to win an Office Box and a signed copy of WRONG NUMBER by Rachelle J. Christensen. Ali's also running a preliminary contest to win some cool stuff. Be sure to check it out. Both contests end March 15th.
5. Nicole Ducleroir at One Significant Moment at a Time is having her 100+ Significant Followers Giveaway. You could win THE WRITER'S BUMP ANTHOLOGY, VOLUME ONE plus a $25 Barnes and Noble gift card! Enter before March 15th.
6. Tricia J. O'Brien at Tailspinning is giving away a personalized signed copy of MY LIFE WITH THE LINCOLNS by Gayle Brandeis. HURRY! This one ends today at 6 p.m. Pacific Time.
7. Noelle Nolan at Noelle Nolan: A Life Rewritten is holding a contest for a chance to win a $10 Amazon gift card. Contest ends when she reaches 150 followers.
8. Sara at The Babbling Flow of a Fledgling Scribbler is having an awesome giveaway with FIVE fabulous prizes! If you follow because of me, make sure you tell her I sent you. I get more entries. :) Contest ends March 22nd.
9. Guinevere at This is Not My Day Job is having a 101 followers contest. Enter to win two cool books or a Hobo bag. Contest ends March 13th.
10. Guide to Literary Agents is having another Dear Lucky Agent contest. Enter the first 150-200 words of your unpublished, book-length work of urban fantasy or paranormal romance (adult or YA - both accepted) to win a 10 or 20 page crit of your work by the agent judge plus a one-year submission to WritersMarket.com. Contest judged by agent Joanna Stampfel-Volpe. Ends March 14th.
Blogfest: Kelly Lyman at Kelly's Compositions is holding a First Page Blogfest! Blogfest to be held April 2nd. Click over to add your name to the Mr. Linky. :)
Update:
1. Elana Johnson is doing a huge SIGNED book giveaway over on her blog to celebrate reaching 700 followers. Contest ends March 14th.
2. Suzette Saxton and Bethany Wiggins are having a Fantabulous Followers Giveaway over on their blog, Shooting Stars, with prizes including a 40-page submission and critique by fabulous agent Suzie Townsend of FinePrintLit! Contest ends March 14th.
3. Chimera Critiques is giving away a $20.00 gift certificate to either Barnes & Nobles or Books-A-Million, winner’s choice. Plus an in-depth critique by all of their staff members on your first Chapter. Contest ends April 10th.
4. Check out Ali Cross's blog for details on how to win an Office Box and a signed copy of WRONG NUMBER by Rachelle J. Christensen. Ali's also running a preliminary contest to win some cool stuff. Be sure to check it out. Both contests end March 15th.
5. Nicole Ducleroir at One Significant Moment at a Time is having her 100+ Significant Followers Giveaway. You could win THE WRITER'S BUMP ANTHOLOGY, VOLUME ONE plus a $25 Barnes and Noble gift card! Enter before March 15th.
6. Tricia J. O'Brien at Tailspinning is giving away a personalized signed copy of MY LIFE WITH THE LINCOLNS by Gayle Brandeis. HURRY! This one ends today at 6 p.m. Pacific Time.
7. Noelle Nolan at Noelle Nolan: A Life Rewritten is holding a contest for a chance to win a $10 Amazon gift card. Contest ends when she reaches 150 followers.
8. Sara at The Babbling Flow of a Fledgling Scribbler is having an awesome giveaway with FIVE fabulous prizes! If you follow because of me, make sure you tell her I sent you. I get more entries. :) Contest ends March 22nd.
9. Guinevere at This is Not My Day Job is having a 101 followers contest. Enter to win two cool books or a Hobo bag. Contest ends March 13th.
10. Guide to Literary Agents is having another Dear Lucky Agent contest. Enter the first 150-200 words of your unpublished, book-length work of urban fantasy or paranormal romance (adult or YA - both accepted) to win a 10 or 20 page crit of your work by the agent judge plus a one-year submission to WritersMarket.com. Contest judged by agent Joanna Stampfel-Volpe. Ends March 14th.
Blogfest: Kelly Lyman at Kelly's Compositions is holding a First Page Blogfest! Blogfest to be held April 2nd. Click over to add your name to the Mr. Linky. :)
Update:
11. Lady Glamis at The Innocent Flower is doing a fun giveaway of children's picture book, A NEW JOB FOR DILLY by Rena Jones. Hurry over! Looks like the contest is running for today only.
That's it! I know it's a ton, but lots of fun opportunities out there this week. If you're having a contest and I missed it, let me know and I'll add it to the list.
Good luck everyone!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
What Color Are Your Reader's Glasses?
We’ve all heard the phrase about seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. If you haven’t, you’ve been in your writing cave too long. It’s time to come out. :)
I know it may sound cliché, but I think we all see the world through our own special glasses, colored by our experiences. Whether this makes the lenses blue, green, orange, brown, or pink, we all have our own realities.
I recently changed over my vehicle registration from Arizona to Idaho. In Arizona, you only get one license plate and it goes on the back of your vehicle. In Idaho, you get two—front and back. Since I’ve never had a front plate, I had no bracket, so I headed down to the local auto parts store to purchase one. They didn’t have one that would fit my truck, but the clerk there was nice enough to give me directions to a local junk yard that would have what I needed. Everyone is SO nice here—like going out of their way to be nice kind of nice. Very strange for me. Anyway.
These are the clerks exact directions (as I remember them, anyway): He pointed to the nearest road, “You turn down this road here, and it’s quite a ways down, almost to the end, but they always have the best prices so it should be worth the drive.”
So I’m thinking it’s going to be a fifteen or twenty minute drive. Keep in mind, the Phoenix metro area is over eighty miles east to west and over fifty north to south. I’m used to driving long distances to get places. That’s not even considering that our house there was seven miles from civilization anyway. Here though, the closest store is half a mile from my house, and the entire town couldn’t be more than ten miles east to west. I’m not so sure about north to south, though it couldn’t be that much bigger.
Still, the clerk made it sound like it was SO far. Besides, they have little towns scattered everywhere, and he didn’t specify that it was actually in Idaho Falls, so it was possible that it was farther out. Yeah, well, it wasn’t. I turned the corner, drove two miles and there it was. Two miles. Not even a five minute drive. Like I said, it’s all about perspective.
This got me thinking about how a reader may perceive something in my writing. I’m notorious for being vague about distances and sizes. I’ve been trying to be more specific, but it’s difficult to slip the info in there without it coming across as boring. Besides, I have to wonder if half the stuff is even something my narrator would notice or care enough about to know the exact measurement.
To be honest, my descriptions in general are pretty vague. I’m working on that. That’s my major weak point that I was dying to use that BUT for yesterday. What? Motivational Monday is over. I’m free to be negative again for six more days. :)
So what do you all think? Is it important to be specific about everything in our writing? Or is it okay to be vague sometimes?
I know it may sound cliché, but I think we all see the world through our own special glasses, colored by our experiences. Whether this makes the lenses blue, green, orange, brown, or pink, we all have our own realities.
I recently changed over my vehicle registration from Arizona to Idaho. In Arizona, you only get one license plate and it goes on the back of your vehicle. In Idaho, you get two—front and back. Since I’ve never had a front plate, I had no bracket, so I headed down to the local auto parts store to purchase one. They didn’t have one that would fit my truck, but the clerk there was nice enough to give me directions to a local junk yard that would have what I needed. Everyone is SO nice here—like going out of their way to be nice kind of nice. Very strange for me. Anyway.
These are the clerks exact directions (as I remember them, anyway): He pointed to the nearest road, “You turn down this road here, and it’s quite a ways down, almost to the end, but they always have the best prices so it should be worth the drive.”
So I’m thinking it’s going to be a fifteen or twenty minute drive. Keep in mind, the Phoenix metro area is over eighty miles east to west and over fifty north to south. I’m used to driving long distances to get places. That’s not even considering that our house there was seven miles from civilization anyway. Here though, the closest store is half a mile from my house, and the entire town couldn’t be more than ten miles east to west. I’m not so sure about north to south, though it couldn’t be that much bigger.
Still, the clerk made it sound like it was SO far. Besides, they have little towns scattered everywhere, and he didn’t specify that it was actually in Idaho Falls, so it was possible that it was farther out. Yeah, well, it wasn’t. I turned the corner, drove two miles and there it was. Two miles. Not even a five minute drive. Like I said, it’s all about perspective.
This got me thinking about how a reader may perceive something in my writing. I’m notorious for being vague about distances and sizes. I’ve been trying to be more specific, but it’s difficult to slip the info in there without it coming across as boring. Besides, I have to wonder if half the stuff is even something my narrator would notice or care enough about to know the exact measurement.
To be honest, my descriptions in general are pretty vague. I’m working on that. That’s my major weak point that I was dying to use that BUT for yesterday. What? Motivational Monday is over. I’m free to be negative again for six more days. :)
So what do you all think? Is it important to be specific about everything in our writing? Or is it okay to be vague sometimes?
Monday, March 8, 2010
Motivational Monday—Embracing Success
What’s that supposed to mean, you say, embracing success? Of course I’d embrace success.
Yeah, well, I’m not talking about success in terms of getting an agent and publication. I’m talking about success in our writing. Yes, on some level it’s the same thing, but not for today. Don’t argue with me. :)
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I tend to focus on the negative aspects of my writing abilities—knowing exactly what my weakest points are. And if someone compliments me on one of my stronger points (deep down, I know I have strong points), my brain automatically writes off the compliment with a “She’s just being nice” or “She had to come up with something positive to say, so I wouldn’t smear all her critique marks with my tears”.
Focusing on the negative to try to improve is not always a bad thing, but it’s so easy to get bogged down in it. I just got a very helpful, very complimentary critique back. Probably the most complimentary I’ve ever received, and I know that I’ve improved considerably over the last year and a half, BUT—there’s always a BUT—it was almost like I couldn’t see the positive remarks.
My lovely negative brain tells me, “Sure, you did okay over there, Abby, but look at these red marks! And these are things you knew needed to be fixed, even if it was only subconsciously. How could you not get it right the first time?!”
Even when I’m able to accept the positive, there’s always that little nagging voice telling me I could do better. And we need that little voice, or our writing will never improve. For today though, we’re going to tell it to Shut up! and leave us alone so we can be happy with our successes.
So, I want to know what your strengths are. What areas of your writing are you particularly proud of? Or, if you’re not a writer, you can tell us something else about yourself that you’re proud of. No fair qualifying it with a “but it could be better” or “but this is where I need to improve”. And don’t try to tell me you don’t have strengths. We all have strengths, even if we’re blinded to them sometimes.
Okay. To get things started, I’ll go first. I’m good at writing dialogue. It comes very naturally to me. And I really want to put a BUT here, but I won’t. :)
Now it’s your turn. No chickening out. You’ll be happy you did it. You can even list two or three strengths if you’re feeling particularly awesome today. :)
Yeah, well, I’m not talking about success in terms of getting an agent and publication. I’m talking about success in our writing. Yes, on some level it’s the same thing, but not for today. Don’t argue with me. :)
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I tend to focus on the negative aspects of my writing abilities—knowing exactly what my weakest points are. And if someone compliments me on one of my stronger points (deep down, I know I have strong points), my brain automatically writes off the compliment with a “She’s just being nice” or “She had to come up with something positive to say, so I wouldn’t smear all her critique marks with my tears”.
Focusing on the negative to try to improve is not always a bad thing, but it’s so easy to get bogged down in it. I just got a very helpful, very complimentary critique back. Probably the most complimentary I’ve ever received, and I know that I’ve improved considerably over the last year and a half, BUT—there’s always a BUT—it was almost like I couldn’t see the positive remarks.
My lovely negative brain tells me, “Sure, you did okay over there, Abby, but look at these red marks! And these are things you knew needed to be fixed, even if it was only subconsciously. How could you not get it right the first time?!”
Even when I’m able to accept the positive, there’s always that little nagging voice telling me I could do better. And we need that little voice, or our writing will never improve. For today though, we’re going to tell it to Shut up! and leave us alone so we can be happy with our successes.
So, I want to know what your strengths are. What areas of your writing are you particularly proud of? Or, if you’re not a writer, you can tell us something else about yourself that you’re proud of. No fair qualifying it with a “but it could be better” or “but this is where I need to improve”. And don’t try to tell me you don’t have strengths. We all have strengths, even if we’re blinded to them sometimes.
Okay. To get things started, I’ll go first. I’m good at writing dialogue. It comes very naturally to me. And I really want to put a BUT here, but I won’t. :)
Now it’s your turn. No chickening out. You’ll be happy you did it. You can even list two or three strengths if you’re feeling particularly awesome today. :)
Friday, March 5, 2010
I Think My Brain is Overflowing
I’ve never had a problem with homonyms—there, their, they’re; your, you’re; no, know. In fact, it really makes me crazy when they’re used incorrectly. Lately though, it’s as if this information has just fallen out of my head.
I’ve counted three times in the last week that I’ve used the wrong word. If I go back and read what I’ve written, I know it’s wrong, but still, there it is, just as I typed it. It’s like my subconscious is rebelling against all the rules I’ve set up.
And I am one to follow the rules—obsessively. Well, except when I don’t feel like it. Like how I started that sentence back there with a conjunction. I try to give the rebellious side a little room to breathe. Apparently, it’s not enough.
I wonder what vital writerly knowledge I’ll be losing next.
Does anyone else do this? Consciously, you know the correct way to use or spell a word, but for some reason your fingers just won’t type it that way?
I’ve counted three times in the last week that I’ve used the wrong word. If I go back and read what I’ve written, I know it’s wrong, but still, there it is, just as I typed it. It’s like my subconscious is rebelling against all the rules I’ve set up.
And I am one to follow the rules—obsessively. Well, except when I don’t feel like it. Like how I started that sentence back there with a conjunction. I try to give the rebellious side a little room to breathe. Apparently, it’s not enough.
I wonder what vital writerly knowledge I’ll be losing next.
Does anyone else do this? Consciously, you know the correct way to use or spell a word, but for some reason your fingers just won’t type it that way?
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