Month: March 2010

Posted in Critique Groups, Critiquing, Guest Blogger

Guest Interview: Wendy Martin on Critique Groups

Posted on by beckylevine

Wendy Martin is the author of several children’s books, An Ordinary Girl, A Magical Child (2005, 2008), Aidan’s First Full Moon Circle (2008), and Watchers (2008). She is the illustrator of those three books as well as Rabbit’s Song (2009) by S.J. Tucker and Trudy Herring, and Smoky and the Feast of Mabon (2010) by Catherynne M. Valente.


     
Wendy has a deep commitment to children. Walking her talk, she applied for and completed training to be a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for children of the St. Louis Children’s Division Court foster care system. She was officially sworn into this volunteer position on Sept 11, 2008.

Wendy currently resides with her husband and daughter in eastern Missouri when she isn’t on the road giving workshops at festivals or visiting schools. She claims the dubious title of Perpetual Project Lady and does her best to keep the house clean and the cats fed.

Read on for an interview with Wendy, in which she discusses critiquing for writing and art.

BL: Can you give us a brief description of your critique group (online or in person, how many members, what they’re writing, how you found the group, how long you’ve been together)?

WM: I belong to two crit groups, one for writing and one for illustration. Both are on-line. The illustration group is very informal and is more of a support group than for aiming for publication, although we can ask for specific project feedback. It is a public Blogger site where members post solutions to weekly prompts. The group is morphing in terms of membership all the time since it is so informal but there are about a half dozen “regulars.” I think the goal is 25 active members. I received an invitation via email when the group was being formed about 3 years ago.

The other group is very structured. There are 5 members and we are about 6 months old. It is online and crits are submitted via email. Every sixth week we “meet” in a chat room to just talk about whatever catches our fancy and any changes we’d like to see in the crits. The group is genre specific to MG although our subject matter is all over the place. I believe I also received an email invite for this one, but I don’t remember.

BL: What do you think are the benefits of your groups?

WM: With the illustration group, the benefit is to meet a deadline on an ongoing basis and illustrating a topic or theme we hadn’t selected ourselves. All members are supposed to be working in water media, although some of the newer members are submitting computer-generated art. I’ve been meaning to question the mod about that.

In the writing group, for me, the biggest benefit is finding the flaws in my WIP and having suggestions on how to fix them to make a stronger story. The entire group is serious about finding a publisher for their manuscripts, so this is helpful since we all have a similar goal in mind.

BL: What’s the hardest part of being in a critique group, for you? What makes that part worthwhile?

WM: The hardest part for both groups is meeting the deadlines. I am better at it with the writing group since it is so structured and I know I will be getting as much feedback as I give. In the art group, it is sometimes discouraging not to receive any useful feedback because either no one comments or all the comments are along the lines of “That’s nice, I like it.”

BL: If a writer’s goal is publication, do you think participating in a critique group can help the writer toward that goal? How?

WM: To achieve publication one must perfect one’s craft. Whether that is writing or illustrating is irrelevant. There are certain things that separate the hobbyist from the professional and being in a crit group can push anyone past their comfort zones if they let it. Once a creator has left their comfort zone is when true creation comes. And that’s when publication becomes possible. The work you are submitting to publish has to be strong enough and unique enough to stand out from the crowd. Plus, the creator has to have a thick skin because rejection is a normal part of this business. There’s a lot of rejection, even for the people who achieve publication. Crit groups help to prepare people for the tougher aspects of the business by familiarizing writers and artists with criticism. Even a successful book will garner negative reviews. Everyone has an opinion and not all of them will be positive!

BL: What was the biggest surprise for you, about critique groups or the critique process, when you first started participating in a group?

WM: How often the groups didn’t work out or survive. Most groups I have joined or been invited to join petered out in less than six months. I often found that groups formed by newcomers rarely gave me any useful feedback. I have found that in order for a group to function fully, the members must be all at about the same place on their quest for publication.

Please answer the next questions quickly, without too much thinking time. 🙂

BL: Do you critique with: Red pen or NOT-red pen?

WM: Both.

BL: Favorite critiquing drink: Tea, coffee, or diet soda?

WM: Water.

BL: Do you prefer: Critiquing or being critiqued?

WM: Being critiqued. Love feedback.

BL: Who would you rather have run the house while you write/critique? Jeeves or Alice from The Brady Bunch?

WM: Alice

BL: Name one book that has blown you away in the last year.

WM: Wondrous Strange by Leslie Livingston.

Posted in Uncategorized

Thankful Thursday: The Basics Aren’t So Basic

Posted on by beckylevine

Life has had a few shifts lately, not for me or my immediate family, thank goodness, but for people in my circle and in their circles. Surprises that aren’t the good kind and losses that should not have happened. So, today, just briefly, my thankful Thursday is for those things I try very hard not to ever take for granted, but that still–sometimes–just need to be said out loud.

1. I am thankful for my husband and son, two gifts I barely knew to dream about all those years ago, who have added more to my life than I could have thought possible.

2. I am thankful for my wonderful parents, who never stop sharing or supporting, and my sisters–ditto–and their husbands and children.

3. I am thankful for the community I have built since I came to this area, writing and non-writing, in our hills and down in the town, the friends who I walk and talk with, who I call to check on and who call to check on me. I could not have a stronger support system.

4. I am thankful for the life that lets me write at home, on m piece of mountain with trees and animals around–the life that lets me panic about trying to fit so much into a week, and having all that everything to try and fit in.

5.  I am thankful for words–the ones on the books I read, the books I have yet to read, and on the pages I keep churning over. I am thankful for the eyes that let me keep seeing them, the fingers that let me keep turning and typing pages, the brain that somehow takes the mix of everything and sorts it into story.

Take a moment today and hug someone, spend 10 more minutes with a book, and just look around at your world. I”m guessing there’s something there that makes you smile. Hugs to all!

Posted in Uncategorized

Monday Mom Stuff

Posted on by beckylevine

Yesterday, Greg Pincus blogged about his dad, about his dad reading aloud to him, and Greg’s reading aloud to his kids. My own mom and dad were up for a visit this weekend, and…well, I was thinking about a “mom post” this morning, even before I read Greg’s post.

So…

This is my mom’s theme song. Or, rather, my theme song for my mom.

My mom is now and has always been honest with me. I have very distinct memories of going to her with my writing, when I was a girl, and having her read it, then say, “This is really good for your age.”

Okay, no, it might not have been exactly what I wanted to hear…then. But I knew she was telling me the truth, and I would have been able to tell if she were lying. ‘Cause, you know, she wouldn’t have been any good at it. 🙂

Recently, my mom has been working on her memoir. She started taking a class, then–when the teacher had to leave–she and some of the other writers decided to keep writing together. Voila…my mom had a writing group. And she’s using my book to work on her revisions.

Which would be totally cool enough.

Except there’s more.

She and my dad visited this weekend, to say “Happy Birthday” to my now-fourteen-year-old son (not sure when that happened!). And I asked my mom if she wanted to read the first scenes of my WIP.

She said, “Sure.”

One more thing you should know about my mom. She reads fast. Lightening-bolt fast. And, as I was to learn just this weekend, not a single expression crosses her face as she’s reading. Yes, I watched. And I had no clue. I mean, this is first-draft stuff. Mega revisions lay ahead. Was I going to get the decades-older version of “good for my age? Which, you know, at heading-toward-fifty just isn’t so much of a compliment anymore.

She turned the last page and said, “This is really good. I would read this book.”

So there we were, both tearing up and hugging, and talking about other historical novels, and I was emailing her the list of Joyce Moyer Hostetter’s books, because now she wants to read some YA historical fiction, and, well…

I have always believed that Caro’s story is one I want to tell.  Because of my mom’s honest lullaby, I now believe more strongly than ever that I can tell it.

Thanks, Mom.

Posted in Scenes, Tension

Tension: What Is It & How Do We Write it?

Posted on by beckylevine

I don’t write suspense thrillers. I haven’t (in a while) worked on a murder mystery. My characters don’t usually have guns, spaceships, or fast cars. (There were no fast cars in 1913!)

I still need tension. But if tension isn’t a chase scene or a shoot-out, what is it?

My dictionary has a lot of definitions. Here’s the one that’s probably the most accurate, for our purposes: The interplay of conflicting elements in a piece of literature. Honestly, though, I like this one better: The act or process of stretching something tight.

Tight. One of my favorite ways to describe strong writing.

Tight writing is where there are no extra words. Tight writing is where the layers are painted in with a few brush strands that have just lightly touched the page…perfectly. Tight writing is where the story pulls us through the words and pages, without us even noticing.

Because those words & pages have tension.

Those words and pages have us wondering about the outcome of the scene, wondering about what will happen next and how the characters will respond. They have us wondering what the characters will cause to happen. It doesn’t always matter if we’re wondering about blood and major injuries. We may be wondering if someone will laugh, if someone will say what they’re actually thinking, if someone will choose the dress that shows cleavage or the one with the high, lace collar.

We need to be watching, waiting, worrying.

How do we, as writers, make our readers do that?

I think we set a goal for the characters. We make it clear what they want, or–at the very least–what they’ve assumed will happen. And we create obstacles. Big obstacles that arc over the scene, and mini-obstacles that hit the characters like scatter-shot, all through the scene. Some of those obstacles come from other characters, some from the environment, and some from the character actually going for the goal. An obstacle can be challenging, painful, irritating or laugh-out loud funny.

It just has to get in the way.

This kind of set-up, these goals and their obstacles keep the reader busy, an active participant in what’s going on. They keep that reader from drifting away because we’ve just loaded them up with too much setting or too much dialog that’s not going anywhere. They structure the whole scene and keep things moving forward. Quickly.

With tension.

Posted in Research

Sometimes We Must Sacrifice for Our Art

Posted on by beckylevine

And sometimes, we just get to enjoy that sacrifice a whole lot!

Here’s what I’ll be doing this week:

 I have gotten quite behind in my research reading for my historical YA. “Behind” translates into, “Oh, boy, do I have a lot of books out from the library that can’t be renewed for much longer!”  So this week, although I’m hoping to get some scene plotting done as well, a big chunk of my time will be alloted to, if not reading all these books, at least reading through them to see if they have any of the information I need.

And, then, you know, I’ll put them back on my shelf and return them to their various library homes, until I get to another chapter and realize I need them again!

It’s supposed to rain on and off this week, so, honestly, I’m looking forward to quiet time on the couch, with the rain falling outside and the cat keeping me company inside. It’s been a fairly disjoined week or two, as well, so I’m also looking forward to refocusing, re-immersing myself in my story world—getting back into the time and setting, while I mull over what trouble my MC will get herself into next. The one thing I’ve learned about this character, is that—as much as there are times I’d like to—I can’t rush her.

Plus, it’s weeks like these, when I feel like maybe you’re stepping too far away from the writing, that I surprise myself by finding treasures to bring back to it.

What’s your project for the week?