In Which We Discuss Writing Groups

So at 4th street, the writing seminar this year focused on writer support networks.
Patricia C. Wrede said writing groups are broken down into 3 different types:

Critique Group
Support Group
Social Group

A crit group would be a group focused purely on getting everyone's stuff read and critiqued by other members of the group.

A support group is a group that focuses on commiserating about the difficulty of being a writer and supporting each other during the highs and lows.

A social group is a group where writers get together discuss gardening. Or movies, or anything they want as long as it's not really related to the business or craft of writing.


She went on to state that all writing groups have aspects of these three categories. You're not going to go to your crit group and get absolutely no social interaction or support, but it's not going to be the main focus of that group.

The key, she said, to being happy with your writing group, is to decide which one of those three categories you want and make sure you join or form the correct group.

If you want/need crits from people, you'll be frustrated by a support or social group. And if you want support, you may feel hurt if you join a crit group.


Regarding a crit group, Lois McMaster Bujold stated that it's very important to be in a group where there's at least one person who's better than you, so you can grow as a writer. But she also stated what most of us already know, that providing critiques for others also makes us better writers.

She said, in regards to reading someone's work who is way below you in skill/talent, or the work is just not good, the key thing to remember is to:

Be on the side of the story. To remember that there is something in the story that is worth being written.

And to focus on that if you're having a rough time with a rough MS.
And lastly, to remember that it is their story, not yours, so try to keep that in mind if you're thinking about all the cool stuff you could do with their MS.







So how about you? Are you in a writing group? And if so, which kind? Mine is 50% crit and 50% social, split right down the middle.

In Which I Request A Beta

Hi all!

How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun? We pretty much just sat around and played video games. Which was awesome, of course.

Also I did a bit of a blog cleanup so there's now a few more pages to visit if you're interested (and yes I know I've received more blog awards than that. I had them saved in a blog post draft which then accidentally got erased. Le sigh)

I didn't get much work done on Foxfire, but I did, however, get tons of revisions done on a favorite short story of mine, Hole Ridden.

It needed one more large-ish rewrite (well I thought it would be large but it turned out to be really easy). It had to be retyped because somewhere along the way I lost the digital copy (this was before I started using Dropbox). Good thing I still had a printed version. So I typed it up, gave it another line edit (since I've clearly grown a lot since the last line edit) did the rewrite, ran it through Wordle (genius, btw. Does anyone know how to save your Wordle word cloud? Mine looked so ominous that I wanted to keep it...) and then saved it.

So now, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in beta-ing it for me? Both Teebore and Palindrome have read it multiple times before, and though I'll probably shove it their way again (haha! Surprise!) I was hoping maybe someone who hasn't seen it before would be interested in taking a look at it?

I'd be mostly looking for a high level crit, mostly what works and what doesn't (though if you want to do a bit of line editing, I certainly wouldn't turn it down.I just don't want you to feel obligated).

It's not too long, just a bit over 2500 words, and you could certainly take your time.

Also it's in the Horror genre (as most of my short stories tend to be), though it's not gory or anything like that.

no vampires this time, promise.

So if you're interested, let me know either in the comments or via email.

Can you believe we're already into June? I can tell already the summer is going to go too fast.

In Which I Return

Hi everyone! I'm back from my small blogging hiatus.

How has everyone been? Anyone get an offer of representation or a book deal? (besides Elana I mean. And how awesome is that?!)

I had an enjoyable week off from work and it went too fast as usual. But now things should return to normal and since I tend to be a person of patterns that's a good thing. Especially since I got absolutely no revising done on Foxfire while I was mucking about.

But that's OK. Sometimes you need a little break to build the excitement for it again. It's a bit like a re-boot.

Also I have my writing group tonight with Palindrome and Teebore so I'm sure that will get me all jonesed to get home and get to work again.

Twin and I did a lot of gardening last week so I'll post some pics tomorrow for those of you interested in that kind of stuff (I know I am and was so jealous when I saw everyone who lives in a warmer climate gardening months before we could...)

Anyway I will be systematically working my way through everyone's blogs, catching up anything I may have missed while I was away from the interwebs.

Glad to be back!

In Which We Discuss Online Crit Groups

So back when we were discussing crit groups, quite a few of you stated that you have online groups.

I find this very interesting and would like to know more.

How did you find your online crit group?
How do you exchange work? By email? Through a forum?
How do you handle crits? Do you just use Word's track changes, or is there another method you use?

If you do have an online crit group instead of a local meet up crit group, are you glad? D0 you wish it was a crit group where you could actually meet each other or do you prefer the distance of the interwebs?

I've never been part of an online crit group before and am just curious as to how you go about it so any details you provide would be awesome.

In Which I Share My Love Of Palindromes

Over at Musings of a Palindrome, Hannah is having her first ever contest. It's an awesome contest with many books to be handed out as prizes. You should check it out.

Why, you ask?

Well for the aforementioned prizes of course.

But also because Hannah has an awesome blog.

Let me tell you about some awesome things about Hannah.


She loves her Snuggie.

She loves the same TV shows as I do (except Bones, though I'm still trying to convert her. DAVID BOREANAZ...need I say more?)

totally got more attractive now that he's older.

Also, I owe her FOREVER for introducing me to the mangst that is Supernatural. FOREVER

She likes dark-haired men (though I prefer blondes)

Dr. Daniel Jackson FTW?

Or the man who's bringing vampire sexy back?

She likes food (mmmmmm...food...)

Holy hell... I need to eat all of this food, like, right now...

She reads a lot. A. Lot.
She enjoys awesome movies

Anyone who hasn't seen this movie needs to rectify that immediately

She writes the best metaphors (for reals. I don't know anyone better)
Her blog is fun and funny and has a lot of pictures.


So seriously, if you haven't checked out her blog yet, head on over there and become a follower, not only for the chance at free books, but also for a good time.

In Which We Hang At The O.C.

So we had the writing/crit group on Monday. It was awesome, as usual. Ever since Nano we've been a lot better about meeting regularly (except over the winter holidays. We tend to go a few months without meeting around then).

We went over the first 10 pages of chapter one for me and hit chapter two for Teebore. Hannah (Palindrome) is in the midst of outlining a new (exciting?) project and didn't have anything to crit this week (though she'd thought she might be able to push something out, but she's been uber busy in the real life).

I was wondering where everyone else meets with their crit group?

We always meet in the bar of a local Old Chicago. It used to be our hangout when we all still worked at Barnes and Noble, so we're just used to it. I just wonder if meeting in a bar is unusual?

hanging out at the O.C.

Do other people meet at homes or libraries or schools?

I don't think we've ever discussed meeting elsewhere. It's pretty central to all of our homes, being as that Teebore and I live in opposite suburbs (northeast baby!)

Do you like where you meet?
Do you ever think about meeting anywhere else?

In Which I Interrupt My Revision

Well lookee lookee. It's Monday again. How great. I need like 6 months off from work. I think I'd probably spend the first half of that just trying to catch up on sleep.

I took a short break with my revision schedule this weekend. I'm still not quite done with reading through each scene and writing down larger aspects that need to be added/removed etc. But I put that aside to begin some line edits of chapter one.

I want to clean it up a bit before I submit it to Chimera Critiques so I don't look like a huge hack who can't type properly (soooo many typos...)

Also I have my writing group tonight (wOOt!) and they'll be looking at the first ten pages of chapter one as well. So I wanted to be a bit ahead of the game so I can just correct anything they find and then hopefully submit my chapter for my free critique (EXCITEMENT!)

While I was line editing I was wondering how many line edits everyone else does?
I do 2 or 3 line edits of a whole piece. I'll do one kind of early on (but not too early, I don't want to line edit a chunk that's just going to end up cut). Then I'll do one once most all of the other revisions are done. And then I do one last final one, where I read the story backwards so I can really just concentrate on each sentence alone.

How many line edits does everyone else do? It used to be that line edits were the only thing that I did to revise, just read over the story line by line, over and over again until I either thought it was done, or figured that I had had enough. But this time I'm trying something different.

How about you?

I hope everyone has a nice week!

In Which My Writing Group Meets

I got together with my writing/crit group on Monday after a few months off. We took a break during Nano and then the break just swelled to cover the holiday season as well. But now that we've started up again we'll hopefully meet every three to four weeks to crit work and talk about nerdly pursuits.

One of the BEST things about having a writing/crit group, at least for me, is that it gets me all jonsed to get to work writing or editing, etc. You know that funk I was in? Gone after meeting Monday night.

Since it had been so long since we met, only one member (Your Friendly Neighborhood Palindrome) brought anything to crit (because she's always on top like that and can pull something out at last minute. Also she likes to use writing prompts, where myself and Teebore are less than fans...)

Next time Teebore and myself will also bring something to crit (for him it will be the beginning of his Nano piece and for me it will be the prologue of Foxfire even though I plan on junking it...)

We meet at Old Chicago where there is often food and beer to be had (not typically by me, though, because I'm cheap and also we split dinner duties at my house). In fact our writing group was dubbed by a friend as UMWADS (United Midwest Writing And Drinking Society) and the title just seemed to stick.

I have to say that I, personally, enjoy meeting in person as opposed to online. I'm sure there are many benefits to an online crit group and I may look for one in the future to supplement UMWADS, but meeting a crit group in person is awesome, not to mention the fact that my writing group members are also my best friends so we always have a good time.

Do what about you? Do you meet with a crit group? How did you get started and is it in person or online?

10 Posts!

Can you believe I already have ten (eleven if you count this one) posts? I hope I can keep it up since I'd like to think blogging every day is something I can accomplish (with perhaps weekends off) but I'm just not sure. I guess I'll just keep at it and see what happens.

Also i'm excited about my followers - eleven in less than a week. Awesomeness.

One of my bestest pals in the whole world started a blog.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Palindrome started up Musings of a Palindrome where she will discuss things such as books, TV, movies and other awesome things. Check it out.

Palindrome is a member of my writing group along with Teebore over at Gentlemen of Leisure blog. We've been in our writing group (dubbed UMWADS (for United Midwestern Writing And Drinking Society)) for over 5 years now. Fun!

Also, since there have been a few questions (OK it was one question, but still...) here is a pronunciation guide to some of the things on my blog.

Falen - The first half (Fal) should rhyme with 'pal'.

Yvie - her name is pronounced like the letters EV. Though you can always just call her Miss B.

Ahiers - this is my real last name - it's pronounced 'Airs'.

And that's it for today class!