Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Wednesday Wondering

Today's thoughts? All about critiques.

I had an epiphany yesterday. It stemmed from a critique I received.

Now, many people will say that close friends (and family) will not usually give you full-out honest feedback. Uh-uh. Not J. She is very good with the red pen. In addition to that, she usually gives me thorough and thoughtful suggestions overall. So now she has me going in for round umpteenth of revisions on my current wip (henceforth known as JM). Thanks for the feedback, J!

So this leads into the other thing I've been thinking about: Well, I feel a bit new to this whole 'net writer's universe and when I initially started blogging (June 2008), I wasn't very good at it. I would forget. I got too wrapped up in my writing and I guess that's a good thing, but I didn't realize the universe that was out there. Now that I've succumbed to this alternate universe, though I still find it completely overwhelming with information, I have found some great advice from other writers, published and not, agents and publishers.

My wondering, you ask? Critique groups are a close knit bunch and finding one to participate in can be tough. From some of my reaching out, I've found that most groups have been together for a while and are pretty swamped with their own projects as well as the critiques of others already in the group. Being a newbie, I understand their hesitancy at taking on one more person in the group, especially with not much knowledge of said writer's abilities, etc.

So now I ask you, what kind of writing groups do you participate in? What are the best ways to find crit groups? Any suggestions for a newbie are welcome!

1 comment:

Michelle D. Argyle said...

I noticed that you follow my blog, thank you! I live in Orem, so we're not too far away from each other. :D

As for critique groups, I belong to a critique group online called Critique Circle. It is as busy or relaxed as you make it, and is based on a credits system so you should get honest, quality feedback from serious writers. I certainly have!

It's free to use, and if you join, I'll invite you into my forum and help you around. It's not for everybody, but you can always try! I have made some great friends and critique partners on there.

Aside from the online group, I've made some great friends through blogging who offer to be beta readers for my novels. Their feedback is invaluable. I find that getting feedback from a wide variety of readers is very important - but there are always those other few that are willing to trade work and give me the feedback I can count on.

I think the best critiques come from people you know who are willing to be honest - who are also writers - and who know the kind of feedback you're looking for. Finding those friends can take time and patience. :D

I just wrote a post yesterday about Reading and Critiquing in Layers Different readers will give you different feedback because I think they focus on different layers.

Wow. This is a long comment, sorry! Hope to see you around! And good luck with the critiques.