BLOG CHAIN: Thick Skin is Scar Tissue

Alyson asks: Have you developed thick skin as a writer? How do you handle having your work critiqued? Do you love revising? Hate it?

Cartoonist

I think I've developed a pretty thick skin (a nice way of saying scar tissue), but there's still a sting when I'm criticized, especially if a reader didn't get my character at all. 

My favorite critique partners mix the praise with the critique, and that goes a long way toward soothing the sting. When I receive scathing reviews someday (still unpublished), it'll probably be really hard for me to take. I plan not to read them whenever possible.

As far as revising to critiques, I love it, especially when the suggestion jives with me. Like a, "Why didn't I think of that before?" sort of thing. If it doesn't make sense like that, I'll generally skip the advice or else try to solve the lump in the road in some other fashion.

Revising by myself is the bane of my existence. I think creativity is a cooperative process that needs to involve at least one other person. I'm cognizant that not all writers feel this way. But then again, most solitary writers drank heavily and/or killed themselves.

How about you? Thick skin? What types of critiques sting the most?

Catch up with Christine Fonseca to see yesterday's blog chain post,

and check out Demitria Lunetta's tomorrow.

Afterglow Book Reviews: Jessica raves about SNARK AND CIRCUMSTANCE by Stephanie Wardrop

Blog Chain: All the Help I Can Get

Sarah asked...

Do you work with critique partners? How did you find your crit pals, and what influence have they had on your work?

Which is a great question. I've blogged about my critique partners before and how I met them. In fact, when I did a search for keyword "critique" all of these came up:

The Joy of Community

WIP it good: Share your reading and writing adventures

You want me to change WHAT?

More Gushing About Operation Awesome

Would you keep going? (if you were the only writer in the world)

The Perks of Fellowship for Novelists

Celebrate Michelle, Operation Awesome's Newest Member!

Writing Enablers: Who's Enabling You?

As you can see, my critique group is pretty important to my writing process. Both they and the online writing community are a big reason I don't just give up writing when life gets busy or the craft gets difficult. 

I had just written my fourth novel when I met Amparo in absolute-write forums. Agent Mandy Hubbard had held a query critique workshop thingy (technical term) and liked my query enough to request pages, even though mine was an MG boy book and you can see from the pink on her website that it's not her usual thing. To polish up my work, I requested help on absolute-write and a few people responded. Amparo was the one who got back to me a) the fastest and b) with the most helpful, thorough feedback. Not only did she point out when something didn't make sense. She also put in her funny little comments, like "Grr!" when somebody was mean to my protag or "LOL" when something made her giggle. After that, I was hooked on exactly her kind of feedback. 

But I didn't really know what it was like to be a critique partner. It wasn't, at the time, a reciprocal deal. Separately, I posted about a partial request I'd gotten on the same book (my so-close-but-not-quite-competitive-for-the-market book) on the query tracker forum. Kristal saw me there and was interested in forming a critique group, one that hopefully wouldn't fizzle out like the last one she'd been in. I didn't respond right away. Like I said, I didn't know what it was to be a critique partner. It sounded like a big deal. 

But eventually, I did write her back and we started the work of forming the group. She invited two people (Kelly and Angela) and I invited the one person I knew (Amparo) who invited someone else (Lindsay). We emailed about a group name and came up with Operation Awesome... which I have to confess I thought was a really silly name at the time. Now I can't imagine it any differently.

When one member got too busy to do the critique end of things, we sifted through a few people's pages to sort of try out different writers, see if they fit with our group. That's how I met Michelle, and also how I ended up part of this blog chain. Without Michelle, I'd have forgotten to do Blog Chain completely! Thanks, Michelle!

Each member of Operation Awesome brings something unique, whether it's an eye for grammar and punctuation, an understanding of what makes literature feel realistic, an affinity for beautiful descriptions, or an ear for authentic teen voice. Sometimes it's tricky having five people's work to critique, especially because we are typical writers, switching up projects like we change clothes. But I can't imagine who I'd do without. I hope we'll be together for a long time.

How did you find your critique partners?

Make sure you also read Cole's post before mine and Michelle H.'s tomorrow.

How Critiquing Makes You a Better Writer

The other day I was reading somebody's unpublished book and I was like, "Wow, this part is beautiful and amazing and makes me want to weep."

Reading that made me a better writer (and probably a better person).

In the same manuscript, I spotted:

a) purple prose, where the writer takes originality an nth of a degree too far and ends up sounding artsy fartsy
b) an abundance of adverbs (is there a book with this title? because there totally should be)
c) run-on sentences that made me truly appreciate our good friend the period (.)

This person is a good writer, as evidenced by the above referenced awesome prose that made me want to weep. But they still had little drafting flaws that needed polishing. We all do. Finding those in someone else's work makes it easier to see them in my own.

And that makes me a better writer.

We're all learning and practicing by degrees, line upon line, precept upon precept (Isaiah 28:10). Critiquing helps with that. So if you're feeling a little stuck in your writing, read somebody else's work. It'll really help them out, and...

make you a better writer.



p.s. Sometimes feels like I'm preaching to the choir.


p.p.s. Matthew Rush has a new Afterglow Book Review up for Ghost Medicine by Andrew Smith (The Marbury Lens author's debut novel).


p.p.p.s. If you need a laugh, see this very brief but hilarious post by Kiersten White about an editorial note that made her day.

The Perks of Fellowship for Novelists

Who Could Say No to Perks Like These?

I'm having a great 2011 so far. It all started in 2010, really. Someone wrote to me on the querytracker.net forum wondering if I'd be interested in forming a critique group with her.

Best. decision. ever.

Coming out of the writer closet and joining the online writing community (and this is true of any writing community, really) started a snowball of epic sugary goodness. Here are some of the perks I've enjoyed:

• Having my work read by people who GET IT!
• Getting feedback that makes my writing stronger.
• Feeling less insane because everybody else is going through similar struggles (and blogging about them).
• Getting to read riveting stories BEFORE they're published!
• Being involved in making said riveting stories even better.
• Reading and writing a review for a friend's book (better than a backstage pass).
• Moral support during the query process (and when I get there, the submission process).
• Interviewing literary rock stars and generally getting to know some amazing writer people.
• Living vicariously through the successes of others.
• Being asked to contribute to a couple incredible writing blogs.
• Cyber-meeting literary agents and seeing how truly nice/savvy they are.
• Helping to match agents to writers through super fun contests!
• Brainstorming sessions with writers who love the same kind of books I do. 
• Getting a kick in the pants when I slack on my wordage or editing--motivation to keep going.

Is it any wonder I'm always extolling the virtues of a writing group? And hey, you don't even have to sell your soul. 

Celebrate Michelle, Operation Awesome's Newest Member!

Michelle McLean recently joined our ranks at Operation Awesome as critique partner & fellow bloggista, and, as if her bio tab doesn't already clinch it, she's proving further just how AWESOME she is!

WITH A CONTEST!

She's giving away a book for every five followers who follow her from her lovely blog to the group blog. And if OA goes over fifty new followers, one lucky winner will win a gift certificate for $20. It is an international contest and deets are on the contest page.

Come get to know Michelle and welcome her to Operation Awesome!

Thanks, guys!

Writing Enablers: Who is Enabling You?

These chubby birds are obviously junk food enablers, always turning a blind eye to the problem.

Enablers are usually a bad thing. 

A junk food enabler stands by or maybe even joins you in your weekend binge, with nary a word about how maybe you both ought to eat more healthily. 

My CP, Lindsay (a.k.a. Isabella), is my book-buying enabler (which is a favor I gladly return), and my amazon account thanks her, though my wallet does not. :)

There are friends who turn a blind eye to your Sims3 addiction, or your OCD need to run back to that last sidewalk crack so you can "make it even" by stepping on the crack with both feet. There are friends who enable you to badmouth your spouse or to continue buying stuffed animals from garage sales even though you have quite enough garage sale bunnies at home. 

And then there's my favorite kind of enabler: the writing enabler.  

The writing enabler knows all about your writing habit. He or she just chooses not to intervene. Or they do you one worse-- encourage the writing habit. These people are worse than drug dealers! They hook you with the first seemingly innocuous writing compliment and then....

Okay, they're not as bad as drug dealers. Actually they are awesome! Without writing enablers, we wouldn't have published books to read, because writers worth their salt all have inferiority complexes and require a little enabling in order to move past the first rejection. 

HOWEVER...

There is a bad kind of writing enabler who maybe is as bad as a drug dealer (okay, nobody is as bad as a drug dealer). The bad kind doesn't do you any favors, though. This is the person who gives you flowers-and-sunshine feedback without any criticism. 

They enable your pervasive passive voice. They enable your tendency to start every sentence of your YA fantasy with, "And even though I knew..." They enable your unrealistic dialogue and lack of interiority. And they tie it all up in a neat little bow with a tag that reads: 

THIS BOOK IS SPECIAL. 

Beware the bad writing enabler. The writing community is full of amazing, incredible, fantabulous people (links to critique group page) who can give you brutal critiques without being brutally mean. Find the writing enablers who encourage you to keep going while encouraging you to try harder. It's okay to be friends with the bad writing enabler, too. Just be careful when you're critiquing their work. ;)  

And now, back to writing. Go ahead. Write. You know you want to. I won't even tell anyone. *whispers* It will be our little secret. 

p.s. Kelly is talking about useful humility over at Operation Awesome, which ties in nicely with this talk about the necessity of critique partners. :)

p.p.s. Don't forget to polish your Twilight fan fiction for the awesome All White For Twilight contest.

Talking to Myself...Again

From zazzle.com

I love feedback. It temporarily silences the voices in my head.

My awesome cousin gave me some much-craved feedback on my latest complete novel yesterday, and it seriously made my day! I mean, I chatted with her in the morning, sent her the manuscript via email during the chat, and by evening when we came back from dinner, her thoughts were waiting in my inbox...

her thoughts on the entire. middle grade. novel.

You can't pay money for that kind of service! And she's a student at a competitive university, so I expected her to take her sweet, scarce time. Yeah, she's awesome! Obviously! I mean, we are related. ;) But I can't take credit for her awesome--that's hers alone.

Why did this make my whole freakin' day? Why do writers crave feedback so much?

If you're a writer, you're slapping your forehead in that 80s universal sign language for DUH!

We crave feedback because we get sick of talking to ourselves all the time. Writing is lonely if you don't have access to a community of writers for commiseration and encouragement. Sometimes family members don't understand why writing is so important to you. They assume you're just looking for fame and fortune, or can't keep a regular job. Even if you have a regular job, you're a dreamer. A weirdo. Well, I'll just give you the lyrics to one of my favorite Disney songs:

Look there she goes that girl is strange, no question 
Dazed and distracted, can't you tell? 
Never part of any crowd
'Cause her head's up on some cloud 

No denying she's a funny girl that Belle 

[Bookseller:] Ah, Belle.

[Belle:]        Good Morning. I've come to return the book I borrowed.

[Bookseller:]   Finished already?

[Belle:]        Oh, I couldn't put it down. Have you got anything new?

[Bookseller:]   Ha Ha! Not since yesterday.

[Belle:]        That's all right. I'll borrow . . . . . this one!

[Bookseller:]   That one? But you've read it twice!

[Belle:]        Well, it's my favorite! Far off places, daring swordfights, 
                magic spells, a prince in disguise -

[Bookseller:]   If you like it all that much, it's yours!

[Belle:]        But sir!

[Bookseller:] I insist. 

[Belle:] Well, thank you. Thank you very much!

Look there she goes that girl is so peculiar
I wonder if she's feeling well
With a dreamy far-off look 
And her nose stuck in a book

What a puzzle to the rest of us is Belle 

-lyrics from this site 

Sorry, got a bit carried away posting lyrics and dialogue. LOVE that scene. They should definitely do a live action film version of this musical.

So feedback. Yeah. It's important. Do you have a critique group yet? Why not?

The voices in your head are important to your craft, but feedback is worth all the socially accepted schizophrenia in the world. You can quote me on that. ;)
 

Critics Declare Operation Awesome Launch a Hootin' Success!

If you missed it, check out the pitches HERE.

Lindsay led us all in a one-line pitch contest, judged by our amazing MYSTERY AGENT (to be revealed along with the winner)! The launch was...

Well, I'll just let Lindsay tell it:

My voice is sore from all the excited squeeing done today. How will I be able to manage a cookie now :) A huge thank you to everyone who entered, tweeted, blogged, commented and made Operation Awesome's launch, well, awesome. The contest is full for this month, but stick with us because we've got more to come...this won't be your last pitch chance. Again, from all of us here at OA, hugs! 

Indeed, there is much more to come, and not just for MG/YA writers. We've got a full docket of awesomeness, including guest authors, interviews, and more contests (of both writing and goodies). In between--so you can catch a breath--we'll blog about writing, books we love, and how much we love Nutella.

Follow along at http://operationawesome6.blogspot.com/

More Gushing About Operation Awesome

I love my critique group! 

So far, I've received feedback from three of my five group members on my first twenty pages, and already I feel more confident about my WIP! This is a big deal because I was totally discouraged about it not a week ago.

The fabulous thing about their feedback is that it's so individual. I had to laugh at one point when one person suggested I cut a phrase that another person absolutely loved. Having both their perspectives at the same time really helped me to understand my own work better.

I could see how it was being received in general (where they agreed) and which parts would be loved/hated depending on the reader. For the latter, I go with my gut instincts. For the former, I happily revise according to their consensus. And it makes my book better.

If you haven't found yourselves a critique group, I highly recommend putting one together yourself. Chat up one of your favorite twitterer-writers, or connect with somebody in a writing forum (absolutewrite.com or querytracker.com). The worst you have to fear is that they'll say no thanks. But once you find somebody you click with (preferably who writes in your genre, too), you will wonder how you got along without them!

Okay, I'm off to write my work in progress.

Stay tuned for news about our new collaborative Operation Awesome blog. It's going to be epic.

You Want Me to Change WHAT?

We all know how important it is to accept criticism of our work gracefully. After all, readers, critique partners, and agents are only trying to help us make our book the best it can be. We're all in this business because we love story! So why is it so hard to accept criticism? I think there are a few reasons:

• Deep down, what we really want when we share our work is for people to say it's perfect, because that would mean that WE'RE perfect, which is perfect. 
• Sometimes criticism is simply a matter of opinion. Therefore, it's easy to extrapolate that out to: all criticism is wrong opinion!
• We have an idea of what we're willing to change in our story (the protagonist's favorite color, a side character's foreign accent, the sequence of events leading up to the climax). When someone dares to suggest we change anything BEYOND that, it's horrifying. What?! You want me to change the point of view? The tense? The climax? The age--and therefore entire setting--of my characters? 

NO!! cries the inner delicate flower that is our writing soul. Say it ain't so!!

But it is so. That's why we submitted the book for critique in the first place. We knew there were imperfections that needed weeding out. We even guessed there might be structural problems. We just weren't sure how to fix them. That's where the critical reader came into the picture with advice we weren't quite ready to receive.

Did we shoot the messenger?

Today I vow to make a greater effort to accept literary criticism with grace and appreciation, with an eye toward improving the story at all costs--even if it means rewriting the whole darn thing! 

And above all, I will not shoot the messenger!

Want to join my e-pact? You don't need to sign your name. Just whisper the above vow to yourself (or say it in your head if your cat is giving you a look). Nobody will know but you. And you're the only one who needs to.    

The Joy of Community: a writer's haven from the cruel world

Didn't know what I was missing, till I found you...

I love my critique group. We just got started and my own work hasn't made the rounds yet, but the sense of community already has me smiling--and working harder on my writing. There are six of us in Operation Awesome, which is just the perfect size for a writing community that won't overwhelm its members. I've joined a few writing sites in my day, but have always been overwhelmed by the obligation of reading and critiquing dozens of other authors in order to receive critiques in kind. Writing novels is hard enough without adding that kind of unnecessary load. Of course I love reading other people's writing, but if you've ever tried the quid pro quo atmosphere of writing.com, thenextbigwriter.com, or authonomy.com, you see what I mean by OVERWHELMING. It's like this:

And only after climbing that stack can you actually get back to your OWN writing, which is kind of important if you plan on making a career out of this.

A well-organized critique group has writers taking turns submitting portions of their novels, or the whole thing one at a time. As a member, I have weekly "homework" of reading and critiquing two other writers' work (a chapter or two) plus working on my own WIP. It's manageable, it's fun, and it's educational. In between, we have discussion about each book in an online forum one of our members created. This model has already proven itself to be awesome (Operation Awesome, hee hee). We're only one week in, and I've been introduced to two very exciting books, done some serious revision on my own WIP, and had time to read some of the published books in my TBR pile. I couldn't be more excited to be part of this group.

How did it come about? It was magic. Well actually, it was Kristal's idea. :-)

I was hanging out on http://www.querytracker.net/forum/ --a very cool place to be! And Kristal mentioned needing a group to motivate her to write. Don't we all need something like that? It took me a while to get back to her because of summer vacations, but when I did, everything moved really fast. I invited Amparo, who invited Lindsay. Kristal invited Angie and Kelly. After some entertaining name discussion, we settled on OPERATION AWESOME and Kristal made our forum on grou.ps.

Two of our members are agented. One is multiply-published, and one has professional experience as an editor. All are talented writers, just from what I've seen so far! I'm feeling lucky/honored/unworthy to be part of this group, but I ain't gonna complain. Here they are if you want to check out their blogs/websites and support their writing journeys:

Angie, agented by Jill Corcoran of the Herman Literary Agency
Kelly, agented by Mary Kole of Andrea Brown Literary Agency
Kristal, in the agent market
Amparo, in the agent market
Lindsay, in the agent market
and then there's me, Katrina, also in the agent market. :-)

*whispers* We have a secret plot to take over the published world.