Blog Chain - Shreddage

Okay, this round's topic was chosen by the ever-fabulous Mary Lindsey. Here's her prompt:

Are you in a critique group? If so, at what point do you send chapters to the members of your group? How detailed are the critiques you receive and give? Do all members in you group write the same genre?

I've been participating in crit groups for about 15 months. And I wrote a couple of posts for the QueryTracker blog on this topic (more on how to start and how to participate in crit groups). These questions are completely different, and I think, ones that every writer should answer and contemplate in their crit groups.

Whenever I post my work for critique, I think of it as going through the shredder. Sometimes I can't wait to see what's going to come out the other side, and sometimes I'm just plain scared. (Hey, I'm human, too.) Sometimes that shreddage can be scary--but it's almost always scary in a good way. (Not like those people up there. They're shredding lettuce. Yes. Lettuce. I guess it's uber-toxic lettuce because why else would they need the lab coats, rubber boots and face masks?? They take their shreddage seriously. As should your critters in your group. Man, this was a long parenthetical.) You need good shreddage to grow and stretch as a writer. But enough about that. Onto the questions!

1. Are you in a critique group?
Yes. More than one. I have a live crit group that I absolutely adore. I also own a forum at RallyStorm exclusively for YA authors. It's pretty much me and a dear friend, because we're not really sure about adding anyone else to the group and upsetting our uber-yen balance we've got goin' on. I love my fellow YA crit buddy. And I also have a precious group of friends who will read anything I want at any time. Their input is priceless.

2. At what point do you send chapters to the members of your group?
After I've looked at them so much my eyes are crossing, I can push apple+F and type in the exact line I'm looking for, and I'm about ready to select everything and hit delete. I believe that you should really look at your own stuff and make it as polished as possible BEFORE sending to crit buddies. There's nothing more annoying that trying to crit a first draft of someone else's writing.

Of course, one of the groups I'm in, we have to post 15 pages a week. Sometimes I'm not ready for that, but I do my best to get my pages out and pasted in a new document by Wednesday (I post on Friday). I look at them. Tweak. Change. Rewrite. Save. Thursday. Look again. Re-read. Tweak. Change. This only takes a few minutes. Friday. Email to self (can't post from a Mac, grumble). Read on PC (hey, it looks different). Tweak. Post. Read in post (different still). Tweak. Post.

I think this tweaking cycle is common among writers. (Please tell me it is, even if it's not...'kay?)

3. How detailed are the critiques you receive and give?
I think it depends. If the writing is strong, I usually just have "big picture" comments. Sure, I might have places where I think a stronger word would work better, or where the structure of the writing falls away. I'm a hugely character-driven reader, so I find that my critiques are geared toward the relationships in the story, how the characters are acting (or not acting), and making sure their dialog and actions are consistent throughout.

The crits I get vary from person to person. Because every person has something different they bring to the table. Literally. And that's what makes crit groups awesome. (Look at those bales of shredded paper. Isn't that...I don't even have a word for how super-stupendous that is. That's what my novel looks like after my crit group has laid their claws into it. And that's amazing too.)

4. Do all members in your group write the same genre?
No. My live group is varied. We have YA, historical fiction, romance, and LDS fiction. My online group varies too, from YA to MG to women's fiction to nonfiction to paranormal romance. I do have the YA group and that is obviously YA.

I don't necessarily think writing in the same genre is important. I think having knowledgeable, honest people is what really counts.

So don't fear the shredder. You need it. Crave it. Will be better for it. See what Abigail had to say and Terri will be up in this chain of madness tomorrow.

Writing Throwdown a Go

Okay, so I got a lot of positive responses yesterday for the whole writing throwdown thang. So I created a forum on RallyStorm. You do have to sign up, but it's free and totally easy. I named it the Writing Throwdown! forum, but you have to use your imagination to see the exclamation point. Cuz it's not there. I'm going to have to get on Pat about not being able to use punctuation like that in forum names. Le sigh. Can't win 'em all. And you guys have awesome imaginations so I know you'll be able to picture the exclamation point on the title.

Click here to go to the forum. If you're not a member of RS, you'll need to join. I'm ElanaJ over there. (Of course. Who else would I be?) And you do have to request to join the forum, so it would be great if you would like, choose a name similar to your blogger name so I know who you are. This isn't just for everyone and their Shih Tzu. Of course, if you have a few writerly pals who you think would like to join the Throwdown, tell them about it and get them over there.

I can't wait to see what your goals and be able to post my progress for everyone to see! This is really going to help me stay on target and get EH done.

WiP Wednesday and...A Writing Throwdown Challenge!

Okay, so this past week I decided I really, really needed to buckle down and get some writing done on the ole NaNo novel (Elemental Hunger, hereafter referred to as EH). I deleted 27,000 words from the monster last week. That was about 95 pages.

Yeouch.

So I needed some lovelies to fill the now-blank pages. One day I wrote 1200 words and I was so proud! I hadn't written anything new in about two weeks. But I didn't write anything else for a few days. I needed some motivation. #wordathon came up on twitter. So I joined for the weekend with random strangers all over the world who were going to write.

And I wrote 9868 words!

Wow, it's amazing what I can do when there's a focus, a competition or someone else I have to report to. Or I can justify twittering...ahem.

But...there's always a downside with me. I haven't written a single word since 6 PM Sunday night. I'm one of those all-or-nothing girls. Or something.

So here's my (maybe not-so-) brilliant idea. Who out there wants to commit to writing with me? I'm thinking along the lines of Bobby Flay's Throwdown, where he claims he can out-do anyone's recipe. Sorta like that, where we claim we can write right alongside the best of them. We could be accountable to each other, report in on what we're doing, rally around to support, that kind of thing. I'm thinking of something I did with a group of people way back in the fall of last year. The challenge was to write 1000 words a day. We reported to each other (nearly) every day in a forum on Rally Storm (which is free and easy to join).

Now, 1000 words a day might be a little steep for me at the moment. Heck, anything over zero seems steep at the moment. But I'm thinking more like 500. Even people who aren't currently writing could join the fun. If you're editing, maybe your goal is to edit 10 pages a day. Or whatever. And maybe we can commit to this for the next 30 days.

The point is to get my own butt in gear and finish this darn thing up. I'm sitting at about 60 K and heading into the climax. Maybe if I have some of you to report to, I'll feel the pressure more. Cuz right now there's no pressure. I can read blogs all day without consequences, sit and wait for someone to post on my forums and then pounce, or read another 50 ABNA entries.

And we all know that's got to change. *snarf* No, really. It does.

So leave me a comment if you're interested. If the crickets show up today, I'll back away slowly to my safe place inside my head, 'kay? But maybe, just maybe, I'll create a forum on Rally where we can offer support and encouragement. And do some actual writing. ("Writing Throwdown" is sounding like a really kewl forum name...)

Yes?