Challenge Yourself: Critique Groups

I had a try-out, of sorts, for a local critique group today.

That probably makes it sound weird. It wasn't. They invited me to their group to see how they work, then asked me some questions at the end (and I got to return the favor). Overall, I think it went well, and I hope they invite me to join. It seems like a good group. The process, of course, got me thinking about writing groups and critique groups.

How many writers out there are members of such a group? What benefits do you get from it? In turn (and more importantly, in my opinion), what do you bring to the group?

The group I might be joining comprises writers who write in a variety of genres. I think that's better than a group dedicated to one particular genre. (YMMV on this one; I acknowledge that it's personal preference.) I've mostly written mysteries for the last few years. In that time, I've also read a lot of them. However, the publishing world is populated by people who love all genres, and those who challenge genre conventions. Reading works that differ from what I would normally pick up exposes me to a wider variety of styles, word choices, scene structures, etc. Every genre has its conventions. If I read something for the group that takes my outside of my reader comfort zone, if you will, then I think that ultimately benefits me as a writer.

There should be something to learn in every book or story we read. That includes the ones that are outside our usual preferences. If we challenge ourselves as readers (and critiquers), then I think that expands our bags of tricks as writers.

Consider joining a critique group. You might find yourself challenged, and that's a good thing.

Happy writing.

Happy 2014

It's 2014. Do you know where your stories are?

Hopefully, they're on your pages, e-pages, or on a bookshelf somewhere. 

In my last post, I talked about setting realistic writing goals for yourself. It's common for people to come out with all manners of New Year's resolutions around this time of year. I'm only going to share two of my writing-related goals here (for now).

1. Update my blog more often. Ten posts in 2013 is not enough. I'd like to update this at least biweekly, and potentially more often depending on what I have to say.

2. Have something published. This would include the traditional route or self-publishing. I've written a lot. I've revised a lot. I need to get off my hindquarters and get something out into the marketplace. That's a goal, and a strongly-worded one. Feel free to word them as strongly as needed to motivate yourself. Curse at yourself if you have to. Whatever works.

We'll check in on these goals (and maybe some others--remember, you need to write your goals down or they're just ideas in your head) throughout the year. For now, I want to leave you with a quote I saw today.

"If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it." — Elmore Leonard

Formal writing is for college papers and nonfiction. People speak colloquially. Dialogue shouldn't be stilted. Your narrative should sound natural, not . . . well, not "like writing" as the great Elmore Leonard said. 

I hope everyone has a good 2014. What are your writing goals for this year?

I'm a Loser, Baby

When it comes to NaNoWriMo, at least. At the rest of life, I'm #winning like Charlie Sheen, just without the tabloid shenanigans and drug-aided psychoses.

I didn't get to 50,000 words this year. This marked the eighth year I've done NaNo. I've won four times (most recently, 2012). I suppose I should be happy with a .500 batting average.

On some level, I am. I realize that the stated goal of NaNo might be penning 50K words in 30 days. The real goal, however, is up to each person who attempts it. Some people just want to see if they have the discipline to sit down everyday (or almost everyday) for a month and bang out a bunch of words. Others might want to finish a novel for the first time, or use NaNo as a springboard to finish something they had started and put aside. Some writers may be even more ambitious and set a goal of 100K words, or more.

If you set a goal and hit it, you're a winner. It doesn't matter what the word-count bar on the site tells you.

If you set a goal and didn't hit it, then you need to come away with some lessons learned. Was your goal too ambitious? Do you need to improve your time management and find more time to write? Do you try to edit as you type and slow yourself down? These questions (and many more) are all things you can ask yourself if you didn't reach your writing goal. The next time you try to write a book, set a realistic goal and apply those lessons learned. See if your experience is different.

My boss told me that you have to write your goals down. Otherwise, they're just ideas in your head. I agree with him. I'll go one step further: you have to set deadlines for yourself. Want to finish that book you started on November 1? Give yourself a deadline. Maybe January 31 is realistic. Write it down. Set periodic reminders on your Google calendar (or online calendar or choice). Check your progress. Most importantly, stick to it.

This year, I learned a few things about my own goal setting and time management. What did you learn?

NaNoWriMo: Week 1

"Wait, wait," I can hear you say. "This is the 11th. Week one of National Novel Writing Month passed a few days ago."

Indeed it did, Dear Reader. You are as perceptive as ever.

However, your humble scrivener didn't start putting pen to pape... um, digital letters to screen until the 4th. So I've been at it a week. In that week, I've written 10,404 words, with about half of that total coming in the last two days. My productivity, you might say, is on the uptick.

You might also say I'm behind the curve (I should be over 16,000 by the end of day 10) and unlikely to finish. That would be uncharitable of you.

This is where NaNoWriMo shows its value, in my opinion: shaming me into writing more. I missed the first few days. Now I have to do a higher average per day to hit the goal of 50,000 words in 30 days. Despite the occasional hairy eyeball from my wife (happy anniversary, baby! <3), I'm determined to get this book finished. NaNoWriMo had compelled me to write, and write in volume, when I might have otherwise slacked off. That's valuable. That's worth something. It's one of the reasons I donate every year.

When finished, this will be the seventh mystery in my series. Yes, I need to look into publishing them, either thru a publisher or by myself. I resolve to do that when I've finished the first draft of this book. There's something else NaNoWriMo has pushed me to do.

If you're doing NaNo this year, for the first time or the tenth, good luck. If you're not, look into it. It's good for getting you on a routine.

"Tom, you just wrote a few hundred words here," you might be saying. "They could have gone toward your book's word count." You are correct again, Dear Reader.

This time, however, I won't reply. That would be uncharitable.

Happy writing.

Five Weekends in August IV

Let's talk about reading.

We're all writers, so it stands to reason that we're all readers, too.

Is it possible to be a good writer without being a voracious reader?

For 2012, I set a goal of reading 35 books. I stopped counting at 40 with two months to go. This year, I'm ahead of that pace, and that doesn't even count the dry IT books I've read for my job.

Maybe you don't need to devour books, but I think you need to be a reader to have a real future as a writer.

It's like getting better at baseball by watching other people play it. It sounds weird, doesn't it? But think about it. We have baseball games in HD now, with a zillion different slow-motion replays from every angle. Never before have we been able to see grown men spit and scratch themselves with such clarity! But in terms of useful skills, you can still pick up quite a bit by watching.

Say you're a baseball player who wants to work on your swing. You can go to the batting cage or hit off a tee. It'll probably help. You can also watch some professionals play. Watch how different hitters hold their hands at the plate -- high, low, loaded back, etc. Watch their strides as the ball leaves the pitcher's hand. Watch the hitter's hips turn, forcing his arms to zoom through the hitting zone.

At some point, you have to get out there and swing the bat yourself if you ever want to improve. But there's value in watching the pros do it. The same is true for writing. If you take your craft seriously and want to get better, you have to sit down and bang out the words. However, there's value in reading what others have written. What POV do they write in? How does the setting factor into the stories? What action verbs propel the story forward? These are things you can learn while curled up with a good book. Just make sure you get out there and practice them.

Happy writing.

Five Frida... uh, Weekends in August III

I'm close to finishing another first draft. There are probably two more chapters to go. This will make six books in my mystery series, and eight overall.

Yes, at some point, I'm going to have to get around to doing something with them.

I just wonder whether I should go with the mysteries (which I've written more recently) or the spy adventures (which are older). Part of me wants to lead off with the spy adventures. They were the first books I stuck it out and finished, after all, and dammit, I want to see them in print (or e-print) someday.

But then I think that the mysteries are probably better because I wrote them more recently. At least, I hope they're better. I'd like to think I've improved at this thing we call writing over the years.

The key is to do something with something. If that makes sense. I just hope the publishing landscape makes sense to me.

Five Fridays in August II

"Ripped from the Headlines~!"

While I everything with "2" or "II" in the title really should have the subtitle "Electric Boogaloo," I wanted to be (semi-)serious about this.

This post was going to be about writing while on vacation, then we ended up not going away for a long weekend. Instead, I'm going to make it a follow-up to last week's post about our visit to the superhero exhibit currently at the Baltimore Jewish Museum.

The exhibit was great. (One of these days, I'll get an Instagram account to share them. Until then, all you kids get off my lawn.) We saw a lot of old and cool comic covers, sketches of internal pages, bios of the creators, and even some interactive exhibits. 

One really caught my eye and inspired this post. It showed a newspaper from around the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. Comics had shown a desire for the US to enter World War II even before Pearl Harbor. The caption under the paper read, in part, "During the Golden Age, many comic book stories were ripped from the headlines."

"Ripped from the headlines." I think I heard that about several Law & Order episodes over the years. "Based on a true story" is similar. But what do they really mean? How closely based?

For ages, fiction writers have been inspired by true stories. We change the names, fudge the details a bit, tweak the setting to fit our particular genre and locale, and voila! We have a story. I've done it too. A currently unpublished novel of mine was based on a news report of gang killings in my hometown of Baltimore. Another was based on a news report of a man who confessed to a murder (spoiler alert!) he didn't commit.

Here's what I'm wondering. We don't read the paper anymore, in general. Newspaper circulation is declining faster than the number of people who don't know J.K. Rowling wrote The Cuckoo's Calling. (Brief aside: I really wish "Rowling" rhymed with "calling." That sentence would sound awesome if it did.) Today, we get our news from the Internet and cable TV. Local newspapers are online and many charge a subscription fee. How many of you read your local paper online? The thing is, websites and channels like CNN tend to have a national focus. If you're writing thrillers where the fate of the country is at stake, that can be a fertile ground for you. If your stories are more homespun, you have to search deeper.

With the decline of newspapers, is it harder to "rip things from the headlines" these days? Do the Big Three cable news channels and websites still stoke your creative fires?

Things to think about. Happy writing.