The Dark Deliciousness of Working with Critique Groups by Shawna Romkey

Crit groups can be really helpful for writers. Writing is generally a solitary experience and often, we as writers, don’t catch all of our mistakes. We need test readers to look at what we’ve written to see if the story logic we’ve laid out makes sense or not, if there are any gaps, if there are any inconsistencies and other issues that we may auto-correct in our own heads.

I tend to write a first draft, then go over it a few times. Then I’ll send it out to 3 or 4 beta readers and revise it again using what suggestions they’ve made. I submit the book for publication and go through the editing process. But even after that, one last time before I give my official approval on the final copy, I like to run it by 3 or 4 readers again just to make sure everything is caught before it goes out into the world.

I also have crit groups on a broader scale in a sense. I’m part of my publisher’s author group, a romance writers group in my area, and this blogging group. We use each other to help spread the word on promotions with our own books. So not only do my pre-beta readers and my post-beta readers come from these groups, my promo support people come from these groups as well. We share things, retweet things, read and review for one another.

When new writers ask me for advice, the first thing I tell them is to get a group. It’s for the reasons I stated above that I find they are an invaluable resource. They can not only critique but advise and help you promote. 

My most important tip for being a part of a crit group? Quid pro quo – it’s important. If someone reviews your book, review for her. If someone acts as a beta reader for your book, give her the same courtesy. If someone constantly shares and tweets for you, reciprocate. If you are only constantly taking from a group and not giving back, you may eventually find yourself out of that group.

Writing is hard to do on your own. Take the support given and help other writers out!

The Frustration of a Blank Page by Heather Reid

The cursor winks, mocking me as it looms above the blank page.

“Come on. Do it. Write something.”

Dark and evil it blinks, a beacon of my own inadequacy, each beat a challenge.

“I dare you.”

Fear grips me, anger too.  My mind is blank. I wipe sweat from my forehead with a sleeve. I take a sip of water, to ease the dryness in my mouth. Ideas swirl through my thoughts, I grab at them, one by one examining them in my mind, then throw each back into the ether. None of them are good enough. None of them worthy of the demands of that damned cursor. I curse. Damn you. I look at the clock. 12:20 pm. Time and the cursor are in cahoots with their taunts.

It’s Wednesday already and this week has been a train wreck of distractions, stress, and personal tragedy. My writing goals sit un-attained and all I really want to do is give the cursor the finger and escape into a game of Dragon Age and devour a bar of chocolate.

“Quitter.” The cursor sneers.

Heat rises in my cheeks. I grit my teeth. I am not a quitter.

There’s only one thing that can guarantee our failure, and that’s if we quit.–Craig Breedlove

The cursor stares at me, shocked.

Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I start to write.

Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until have accomplished a purpose – not the one you began with perhaps, but one you’ll be glad to remember.–Anne Sullivan

 Not my own words, at first.

Other people and things can stop you temporarily. You’re the only one who can do it permanently. –Zig Ziglar

I will not let the blank page, that blinking cursor, win.

All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right about-face which turns us from failure to success.–Dorthea Brande

Act as if it were impossible to fail, act as if it were impossible to fail, act as if it were impossible to fail…the mantra for today. The thing that’s getting me through this blank page is the encouragement found in the words and the works of others. It’s the friends that I’ve made online, the support from my peers and family and the belief that I have a calling. This passion for the written word isn’t for naught. There is poetry in my soul aching to be released. I must learn to trust it. I grab onto that idea. I hold it close and let it feed me the determination to never give up, to act as if it were impossible to fail. I open myself up and let the words pour onto the page, without fear, without limits. What is there to lose?

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.–Beverly Sills

What talisman or formula do you use to break the inertia and frustration of the blank page? I would love to hear your thoughts. Keep writing, all! Harness the poetry and the passion in your soul and never give up.

Happy Book Birthday to EXTENSION by L.V. Pires

 

  

So excited for the release of my debut novel, Extension.  This novel began with an idea about life after death, but soon evolved into something much more, but none of it could have happened without the support of my fellow writers, mentors, and Crescent Moon Press.  Thank you!!

About the Book:

Everyone has a soul, right? What if two people shared a soul? This is the case in Extension. During a fierce game of basketball, seventeen-year-old Oliver has a heart attack and dies. His parents take his body to Velcron Technologies and he is cryogenically preserved until the technology is created to bring him back to life.

Flash forward eighteen years. It is now 2032 and the technology arrives. Oliver is revitalized and sent back into the world to live out his second chance.

But the revitalization technology is not perfect – in fact, it’s tragically flawed. When Oliver died his soul was reborn into a new body, Colby Patterson’s body. Now that Oliver is alive again, the soul is violently ripped from Colby and returned to Oliver, its original owner, leaving Colby a vacant, soulless, psychopath hell-bent on destroying everything around him including Oliver Conroy.

It’s a battle for the ultimate prize – ownership of the soul.

www.crescentmoonpress.com

About Me: 

Young Adult author L.V. Pires lives near Baltimore, Maryland.

She graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Master’s in Education and the University of Maryland, College Park with a Bachelor’s in English. She is currently working towards her MFA in Creative Writing at Spalding University.

Her work includes “The Portrait” (Gypsy Shadow Publishing), “Summer of Winged Creatures” (Saturday’s Child Press) and EXTENSION (6/15/14, Crescent Moon Press).

Follow her at lisavpires.com or on Twitter at @lisavpires.

Tuesday Teaser: SHADES OF AVALON by Carol Oates

The Shades Series (book #2)

Publisher: Omnific Publishing

Paranormal Romance

Summary

Ben Pryor grew up as an average kid in Camden, Maine, unaware of the supernatural storm brewing in his Celtic blood. However, at nineteen, as the last born in the royal line of the beings that once ruled Atlantis, Ben has eagerly embraced his newfound abilities and birthright.

When Caleb, his sister’s mate, goes missing under suspicious circumstances, the prime suspect is the last remaining member of the overthrown corrupt Guardian Council.

With the discovery that an old acquaintance has been keeping secrets and the future Ben was so sure of shifting before his eyes, the situation becomes more complicated, the ransom for Caleb too high.

In the sequel to Shades of Atlantis, Ben will delve deeper than he ever imagined into the magical old ways of the Guardians, the secrets of Excalibur, and the truth behind the legend of King Arthur.

Goodreads

Excerpt

“I can teach Amanda how to use a bow,” Emma suggested. “Two weeks isn’t much time, but we can do something with it. I can throw a sword about too if I have to, but my strength is archery.”

“You can use a broad sword?” Amanda asked, wide-eyed. We didn’t have much call for using swords growing up in Maine.

Emma shrugged. “I guess everyone has something in their blood. John showed me a few things when I was a kid. I know there’s more to it, but stance and keeping the sharp end away is a good start. I guess I gravitated more to Robin Hood than King Arthur. No offense.” She raised an eyebrow and wrinkled her nose when she addressed Arthur.

He bent his head respectfully. “No offense taken.”

I was partial to the idea of Amanda with a bow in her hand if it meant keeping a distance from any hand-to-hand combat. Like Emma, she didn’t possess the speed and agility to match a Guardian.

“The mist thing,” I said, thinking about the guys in the park. If they travel as mist, why couldn’t we?

“Is there more to that particular statement?” Guinevere prompted helpfully.

“Well, yeah,” I replied with the obvious. “I want to know how to do it.”

“I can teach you,” Merlin offered without missing a beat, although he continued to watch his dancing fingers. “Forgotten ways are not lost ways. As I told you, mountain, you have no idea what you are capable of. None of you do.”

 Goodreads

Omnific Publishing 

Amazon.com

Amazon uk

Barnes & Noble

 

Find Carol Oates

Website      Twitter      Facebook     Goodreads

The Darker Side of Controlling your Characters, by Katie O’Sullivan

You get to a point when you’re reading a book when you understood all the characters. Who’s the hero, who’s the heroine, who are the bad guys… You’ve got them figured out. Then someone goes and does something you totally didn’t expect. That completely changes your perception of them.

That happens to authors too.

At least, it happens to me.

In the second book in my Mermaids of Cape Cod series, one of the key characters is the sorcerer Zan. He gets a mention in the first book, but all of his scenes were cut from book one during the editing process. Even though he’s part of the inner circle of evil guys trying to overthrow the Atlantic kingdom in Son of a Mermaid, we never actually meet him in the first book.

But we see the deadly consequences of his magick. The tornado that destroys Shea’s home in Oklahoma. The storm that kills Shea’s grandfather and uncle. The poison that makes its way into food at the Solstice banquet. Prince Demyan may have given all those orders, but Zan followed through with their execution.

In Blood of a Mermaid, we meet Zan right from the get-go, with the first chapter in his point of view. We know he’s still in league with the evil prince and signing up for more dirty work. When I started writing Zan, he was pretty one-dimensional. A bad guy.

Originally, Zan was only going to narrate the very first chapter, to give the reader insight into what the bad guys were up to, setting the whole plot into motion. But as I was writing subsequent chapters, Zan’s voice kept popping up, asking me – begging me – to let him tell the scene from his perspective.

I decided to let him have a voice. And he surprised me!

Something happened to him when he went to kidnap Kae. Giving him one of the point-of-view voices let him show me what was going on inside of his head, and gave voice to his inner doubts.

Bad guys aren’t supposed to have doubts. But Zan did. He wanted to be better, to be worthy of a mermaid like Kae.

By the end of the book, he’d redeemed himself in my eyes. Even though he was originally going to die – yes, really, I planned to kill him off – I didn’t want to punish him at all. He’d done terrible things under orders from Prince Demyan, but I convinced Shea to let him off the hook… except a full pardon didn’t sit well with beta readers or with my editor.

Evil deeds demand consequences.

Zan’s character at the end of the book is not who I thought he was going to be. I gave up trying to control him and I like the way he grew up.

What do you think of characters who change and grow into something different? Or do you prefer to read characters who are black and white, with no grey wiggle-room for redemption?

 

About the Book: 

Mermaid blood.

When Shea MacNamara fell into the ocean for the first time, he found he could breathe underwater. The son of a mermaid, the sea is in his blood. Literally. The best part of Shea’s new life? His girlfriend Kae, who also happens to be a beautiful mermaid.

But darkness lurks under the sea. When evil mermen kidnap Kae, the king reminds Shea that having royal blood means making tough choices. 

 

An Arctic dungeon, a fiery plane crash, the legendary halls of Atlantis…and narwhals? 

Having mermaid blood just got a lot more complicated.

Grab your copy of Blood of a Mermaid on Amazon today.

The Dark Deliciousness of Working with Crit Partners aka a Love Letter to My Crit Partner

Writing can be so super lonely. You sit at a desk for hours at a time, no other voices or encouragement in your ears, type-typing away ALL ALONE.

When I started writing, this loneliness was one of the things that surprised me the most. I’m a pretty independent worker, but I found I missed being able to stop and bounce ideas off other people. And I liked being that springboard for other people, too--there’s such a great feeling in helping someone else reach the idea they want.

It was this feeling that drove me in search of a crit partner, and so one summer a few years ago, I logged onto my local SCBWI group, randomly emailed someone who said she was writing YA, and totally changed my life.

I don’t know what lucky star was watching over me when I connected with Natasha,* but I am so grateful for it. She’s smart, funny, insightful, and always willing to hear my many (many many) complaints about how this whole writing thing is going.

She’s been with me since my first, horrible, fledgling manuscript began to take shape, through some of the best (and all of the worst) moments of my writing career, all the way up to now, where she still encourages me, checks in on me, and tells me everything is going to be okay.

If loneliness surprised me when I started out writing, it’s the friendships I’ve made that surprise me now. I’m not sure what it is about writing that causes these friendships to be so strong and personal. Maybe it’s that you’re just with someone who gets it, but I honestly don’t know where I would be without Natasha and the other writing friends I’ve made.

Crit partners are so vital to this process. Not only for their editorial eye and their honest opinions but for the less-tangible things they give: friendship and support and membership in the tribe of writers. We really are all in this together, we can’t do this alone, and, thank goodness, we don’t have to.

Looking for your own crit partner? Check out SCBWI for fellow children’s writers in your area.

*Her name is Natasha Sinel (write that name down, people!) and I can’t wait until her amazing writing is out in the world and I get to stop strangers in the bookstore and say, “THAT’S MY FRIEND AND SHE IS AWESOME.”