Tag: The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide

Posted in Celebration

What I Did on Launch Day & Book/Chocolate Winner!

Posted on by beckylevine

Okay, guys, I’ve been waiting over a year to get to put up this post! I love reading launch-day reports from other writers, and half the reason I got myself out from behind my desk and into the real world (okay, the real BOOK world, anyway) was so that I’d have something to write about.

Yes, fantasy can create reality. 🙂

Before I start the report. I want to thank everyone again who has helped and is helping me launch the book. This includes not just the bloggers who are talking about me so kindly, but also local friends and family who are just working to keep me (relatively) calm and sane. Hugs to you all!

There are still a few contests running, chances for you to win a copy of The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide. Check these out:

And I want to announce the winner from my own contest, who gets both a copy of my book and a bar of Lindt’s Intense Pear Dark Chocolate. Drum roll…

  • Susan R. Mills!

Susan, email me at beckylevine at ymail dot com, and I’ll get your prizes out to you!

Okay…back to the day!

I did write. Well, I tried to write. I sat down at my computer for an hour and took notes on an upcoming scene. Okay, it wasn’t until two days later that I got my brain together enough to actually start the scene, but the effort was made. I believe, on launch day, that more than counts!

And then I went out. My first stop, with the simple goal of ordering mini-cupcakes for my launch party, hit CUPCAKE FAIL. My favorite bakery does not make the mini’s. I have to say, as seriously intense as modern cupcakes are, I believe the regular size are overkill. So…back to the drawing board. Let’s skip over the control-freak anguish and just get to the result. Mini-cupcakes will be provided by Kara’s Cupcakes in Palo Alto, where the woman who took my order was kind, patient, and quoted Occam’s Razor at me.You really can’t beat that kind of service!

Okay, then came the big moment. I had tried, a few times earlier in the week, to see if my book was on the shelves of any local bookstores, but no luck. I took this as fate, or at least as a positive indication that I might very possibly show up at one of those stores on launch day and NOT have to push past my shyness/nervousness (yes, really) about approaching a bookseller & offering to actually sign my books. So I strolled casually to the back of the Barnes & Noble in The Pruneyard Shopping Center, pretty sure that I’d just be browsing the writing section for other people’s books. At first glance, I was right–nothing in the craft section. So I browsed and looked for a few other things, when…BOOM!

They’d stocked it among the marketing & getting published books!

Well, probably, being next to a book on getting an agent is not such a bad spot. 🙂

It didn’t matter, though, because after I took my breath and hunted down the incredibly nice salesperson and asked if they’d like me to sign the books, they ended up in an entirely new spot. And, look-proof that I DID ask and that I DID sign!

It felt good, weird, and silly all at the same time. But I do love the stickers!

Finally, thanks to my husband’s back being on the mend and sitting in a chair being not quite so painful, I took him and my son out to dinner to celebrate. We went here and ordered only from the appetizer menu–one of our favorite things to do. Even my son, pretty much a burger guy, was able to find a delicious set of Sliders. Then home to pajamas, Ben & Jerry’s Karamel Sutra ice cream, and a few episodes of Battlestar Galactica. Yes, geekdom reins over glamour in our house!

All in all, a wonderfully happy, exciting day. The perfect way to step briefly out of life’s regular programming. 🙂

Posted in Blog Contest, The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide

Just for Fun: What Kind of Chocolate Should I Buy?

Posted on by beckylevine

So…my launch party is in 24 days. Me, counting?

There will be cupcakes. There will be Dove bars. Perhaps cookies. There will be a wonderful bookstore location where, before and after the launch, you can browse to your heart’s content. See what I’m offering?

There will also be a raffle.

I’m having a lot of fun putting together the package. No, I’m not telling you all what’s in it, but just think about the tools of critiquing, and you’ll be able to imagine. (Use your little grey cells, mon cher Hastings!)

I’ll tell you one thing, though. The raffle package will, of course, contain some chocolate-one of life’s, and critiquing’s, necessities.

So here’s today’s fun. The chocolate is the one part of the raffle package I have not yet bought. Why? Well, because–as I mentioned–the launch party is 24 days away, and by that time, the chocolate would get…eaten! And I haven’t yet decided what kind of chocolate to buy. My new favorite is Lindt’s Excellence Intense Pear Bar. One square of that and I’m writing (or critiquing!) productively for the next hour!

But I want to hear what you think. What’s the best chocolate bar you’ve ever tasted? What’s your regular fix? Let’s skip anything with peanuts, because I’m not risking an allergic reaction to my raffle goodies! It should go well with tea and the smell of ink, and it should contain the capacity to inspire brilliance.

Leave your “vote” in the comments. I’ll tell you what! Everybody else is running contests for me this month (check out Solvang Sherrie’s that ends today and PJ Hoover’s that just went up). Let’s get one started here. This contest is now officially open until Launch Day, January 15th. I will pull one voter’s name from a hat (or I might just ask Solvang Sherrie how she does that cool, random-name-generator thing), and I will send the winner a copy of The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide (print or PDF) AND a bar of the Lindt’s Pear Bar. How can you pass that up?

Ready, set…think chocolate!

Posted in Blog Contest, Blogging, Blogs, Marketing, Promotion, The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide

Marketing Monday: Setting Up a Blog Tour & Adding a New Blog Feature

Posted on by beckylevine

Before I get down to business today, I want to show you a few of my favorite books.

Wait, what’s that one out in front? Is it…? It is! Yes, two copies of The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide showed up at my house this weekend. Did I mind the rain and gray skies? Not after that delivery, I didn’t!

Okay, so if the book is here, this means I should get back to my marketing to-do list and get some things checked off. The book is due out January 15th, but I’ll have some copies before then that I can, and want to, use for marketing. I’d like to set up a blog tour for January…with giveaways! I’m keeping this simple, just hoping to visit a few blogs and let people know about my book, share some thoughts about critiquing and critique groups. If you’d like your blog to be a stop on the tour, I’d love to come by. I think interviews are fun, because I can talk about what you and your blog readers want to hear, but I can also do a guest post if that’s easier for you.

If you’d like to host me at your blog, please send me an email at beckylevine@ymail.com

The other thing I’m looking to do is add a new, probably monthly, feature to my blog in 2010. I’d like to host you, if you’ve got a story about a critique group or experience to share. (Obviously, I don’t want posts that are just rants or vents, but I’m definitely open to learning-experience stories as well as the more positive kind!) And if you’ve got a book out or coming out that you’d like to promote, I’ll include pictures and links to let people know about it. You can also donate a copy of an ARC or published book, if you’d like me to run a contest.

Again, if you’d like to guest blog here with your critique story, please email me at beckylevine@ymail.com

Next post, back to our regular, random programming.

Posted in Blog Contest, Mysteries

Stop by Killer Hobbies & Enter to Win THE WRITING & CRITIQUE GROUP SURVIVAL GUIDE

Posted on by beckylevine

My friend Terri Thayer is having an incredibly, wonderfully busy month. She’s already been to one long-weekend writing workshop, a quilt workshop/retreat, and is off again to a writing retreat in the Southwest. So, when she asked me if I’d like to guest blog for her this week, I said, “Sure.” I also said, “Can’t you sneak me into a suitcase,” but that’s beside the point!

Anyway, the ladies over at Killer Hobbies, decided to make their posts this week all about writing. If you haven’t stopped by this blog before, it’s a group of six mystery writers who, as they say, “are dying to discuss the hobbies that drove us to murder.”

This week at Killer Hobbies is Writing Workshop week. Each blogger will talk about a different element of the writing craft, with me chiming in on Friday about critiquing. When I heard about the idea, I decided this would be a good time to start my plan (yes, a bit early) for 2010, which is to do guest blogs & interviews and get some copies of my own book out to readers.

So…the first contest! Leave a comment at Killer Hobbies this week, and you’ll be entered in a drawing for The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide. Small caveat: if the winner wants  a print copy, they’ll be first on my list to send out once I HAVE those print copies! If the winner would like a PDF for your Kindle (or other e-reader if those take PDF!), I can get that to them shortly after the contest, because I already have that in my hot, little hand. Well…in my computer.

We’re keeping this simple, each commenter gets one copy of their name in the hat, no matter how many comments you leave. Stop by all week & check out the posts. These writers all know what they’re talking about!

Posted in Critique Groups, The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide, Writing Groups

Contest Winner & a Few Links

Posted on by beckylevine

Last week, I interviewed Martha Engber about her book The Wind Thief and ran a contest for an ARC of the novel. Today, while my son lay on the couch with another book in hand and a cat on lap, he reached into the bowl for me and drew the winner’s name.

Tara Lazar, Come on Down! Email me at beckylevine at ymail dot com, and send me your snail mail address. I’ll pop the book in an envelope and send it on its way!

I admit it, I do like Google Alerts. I like think that I’m not too obsessive about it, but it’s fun when one of the alerts shows up in your email, even if some of those links do seem to end somewhere in never-never land with no real source. Ah, the magic of the Internet. Sometimes, though, they take you a fun place.

Like finding out your book is available for pre-order at the Writer’s Digest online shop! In print and PDF version.

One more cool thing, and I’ll leave you to get back to work. Don’t you all have a novel to write or 30 picture book ideas to come up with?! 🙂

This morning, I got an email from Jane Friedman, at Writer’s Digest, telling me about a promotion they’re doing for the book. Every now and then I get these notes, and usually it’s just pretty exciting to think about a company like Writer’s Digest out there working to market my book. This idea, though, was particularly fun to hear about, because it comes with a freebie.

Which is always good.

Anyway, Writer’s Digest is setting up a critique-group registry, and any group that completes their form will get a free digital copy of The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide.

Really!

You can read about it here and, if you want, sign up your group.

Posted in Deadlines, Getting Organized, Page Proofs

Deadlines, Revisited

Posted on by beckylevine

Way back here, almost a year ago, when I was just getting started with The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide, I posted about how I seriously dislike deadlines.

Boy, that feels a long time ago.

Since, then I’ve met several deadlines, and all of them have felt pretty good. Probably because, as I wrote more of the book, as my critique group did their wonderful slicing and dicing, and as the book started taking it’s true, whole form, the nervousness I was feeling  about it died down. Which is good.

I didn’t expect, though, to find myself actually enjoying a deadline.

This week, I’ve been working on page proofs. In the “old” days, this would have meant the publisher mailing me (as in stuff envelope, apply stamps, drop in mail slot) the physical proofs, that I would have read through with red pen in hand.

Nope. My editor emailed me a PDF of the pages, with instructions for basically typing of a list of things I find that may need to be fixed. Because I can be slightly anal, I set up a table for this–just one column for the page number and another for “Change this to this.” (All dependent on my editor’s blessing, of course!)

This is what I’m doing for the next few days. This is all I’m doing.

And, you know, it’s kind of relaxing.

There’s something peaceful, for a small chunk of time, about having one project–one project only–asking for my attention. I’m not working on anything else, because this deadline takes priority. I take my laptop over to the comfy couch, get my tea, put the Internet on Pandora (wondering WHY The Rolling Stones are showing up on my Van Morrison station), and I read. I read, then stop, make a note, and read some more.

Soothing.

And, okay, it doesn’t hurt that I”m feeling a huge sense of relief and delight that–yes, many drafts after that first deadline–I’m still loving this book.

How do you feel about deadlines? What’s your favorite way to dig into the work that has to be done?

Posted in Critique Groups, The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide

Critique Partners–Why Start with One?

Posted on by beckylevine

In The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide, I talk about ways to find a critique group and ways to start your own. There are lots of reasons why you might build your own group–from not finding an existing group that works for you to wanting just a little bit more control over how your group is run.

If you’re setting out to grow a critique group, I really recommend starting small–with one critique partner. Why? Well, I’ll tell you.

  • It’s often easier (and faster) to find one other writer who’s looking to critique, than it is to find several all at once.
  • Building a critique group is a little bit like cooking. if you throw all the spices into the pot at once, it’s hard to tell–if the recipe doesn’t taste right–which spice might be the problem. If you get together with three or four other writers/critiquers at the same time, and the group is having some problems, it may be tricky to figure out which critiquers you fit with and which you don’t.
  • To carry on the cooking metaphor, once you’ve tossed in all those spices, it’s a little tricky to pull out the one that makes the recipe too bitter, or even too sweet. 🙂 Ditto with a critique group, if you invite several writers all at once, and one doesn’t click with another, you have some not easy choices to make and actions to take. If you and a critique partner aren’t a match, it’s simpler to back up and both start over on your hunts.
  • With one critique partner, you can test things out. You can more easily see what works for the both of you, from things as basic as what time to meet to deciding what to do when you don’t have anything to critique (Hint: You could always write!). You can set the group up so that the two of you are happy, then add another member.
  • You get a chance to find that one, at least, critique partner who is your dream. From then on, you have a core group. My “rule” is that, once you have a core group that works–whether that core is two critiquers, or three, or four–that core is what matters. If you interview a new writer and one of the core members isn’t comfortable with them, the new writer isn’t invited to join. If you add someone to the group, and one of the core members has a (consistently bad) problem with their critiques, the group talks to the new member about troubleshooting and, if necessary, asks them to leave. Again, starting with one good critique partner lets you establish this core.

Of course, the next question is, where do you find this critique partner. Well, the same places you look for a group–in writing clubs, at conferences, by posting on craigslist or at the bookstore, and online. I’m not saying it’ll be an easy search, but I do believe your writing is worth it.

Posted in Agents, The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide, The Writing Path

Agent or No Agent: My Two Cents

Posted on by beckylevine

A few weeks ago, Shawna at Just Another Day in the Life gave me the Honest Scrap reward for my blog. I still need to pass this award on to seven other bloggers, which I am going to do soon, with pleasure. But I thought of the reward today, as I was coming up with an idea for a post. I’m still in recovery mode from the plague that has hit my house (which is why I was pretty much absent from here the second half of last week), so I was planning to just point you all to some other blogger’s links.

Then I thought of the reward, and I realized I’d better live up to it. Which is why I’m going to tell you, today, that–yes, I think writers should try to get an agent to represent their work. I know this isn’t always the most popular opinion, and that you can find an unlimited number of horror stories about agents on the blog and just by talking to other writers. My thoughts assume we’re talking about a good agent. And self-publishing is another conversation, with pluses and minuses, but obviously the agent question doesn’t come up there.

Here are the thoughts & ideas that have led me to look for and in one case, find an agent; in another case, not yet find an agent.

  • I want experts to do their work for me. I don’t do my own taxes, because I am lousy at math and legalese. I ask my critique partners to read my manuscripts thoroughly, because they’re better reviewers of my writing than I am. My husband trims our small trees, but we hire a wonderful tree-cutting company to climb around in and take out the really big ones. I now ask my taller-than-me son to get the dishes down from the high shelves.
  • I want to write. I don’t want to negotiate contracts. I want to be able to ask my contract questions to someone who isn’t creating that contract, but who is looking at it to get me (and them) the best deal possible.
  • I want my manuscript submitted to the right editors. I have NO way of knowing who those are. I can read their websites and submission guidelines, sure, but–what does “funny” mean? Humor, like so many qualities, is subjective. An agent will have worked with editors and know their senses of humor–and their senses of tragedy, suspense, edginess. I won’t have a clue.
  • I think that having an agent ask to represent me or my project means that my manuscript has reached a certain point. I know, what about my own self-confidence and my own sense of my strength as a writer? Well, let’s just say I’m open to a little extra reinforcement of that sense–especially from a professional who knows this business.

As I said above, one of my hunts–for a nonfiction agent–has been successful. And the experience of working with Jessica Faust on the contract for The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide gave me everything I’d hoped for. Jessica is professional and efficient. She answered all my questions clearly (and without making me feel stupid or naive once!). And–for those who worry about that 15%–I’m not going into details, but the negotiating she did .

The other hunt hasn’t had the same success rate, but I’m not ready to give up. My first novel, a middle-grade mystery, went the rounds to agents for about a year. I got lots of compliments, but no takers. I was struggling to decide what to do–whether to go on to submit to editors and hope for the best, whether to find a new revision path, or whether to put it aside and work on the YA historical that had been calling to me. And guess what–I got the best, most clear-sighted advice I’d had yet…from an agent. One of my last queries returned me a wonderful letter from an agent who explained why she thought my book wasn’t being picked up…and it was a market reason. I don’t think I was just grasping at happy straws (because she wasn’tsaying the problem lay in my writing!), but the reason made perfect sense with what I know about the kidlit market. The lightbulb went off brightly, and I was able to pick which direction to take on my writing path.

Agents know what they’re talking about.

I really believe this. Some agents make a lot of money, sure. So do some writers. Overall, though, nobody takes any job in this industry for the high salary; they take it because they love books, they want to work with words, and they want to help add to the pile of reading choices in the bookstores and libraries.

So what do I think this means for writers? I think it means that, along with writing our manuscripts, we need to be doing research about agents. We need to be reading up on who represents our kind of project, on who has a trustworthy record in the industry and with other writers, and on the standard of work we need to be ready to present when we make that initial connection.

Obviously, if I had a direct, clean path to an editor, and I had a project that I thought was ready, I’d be emailing them and asking if I could submit. And if they said yes and if they wanted the book, guess what I’d do? I’d go back to all the research I’ve done, and I’d contact my “top” agent choices and ask them to represent me in negotations. Like I said, I want those experts around who will make my life easier.

What about you? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this conversation.