The Big Question 2

Okay everyone! Here is your chance to win a great YA book! All you have to do is answer the big question of the weekend. Please post your answers in the comments section of this blog entry by tomorrow, 6pm PDT. We will be picking our favorite answer! Good luck!

How was your room as a teen (or if you're a teen now) decorated? What was on your walls?

Basically we're looking for some awesome stuff. Be specific!

Just to get your mind flowing, here's a list of available books the winner can choose from!

How To Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier
ttyl by Lauren Myracle
Valiant by Holly Black
Golden by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Platinum by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
When Lightning Strikes by Meg Cabot
Lessons from a Dead Girl by Jo Knowles
The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart

1k-a-day Day 22

Well I had a most interesting night trying to get into see Twilight in Edmonton last night. We drove around for a few hours trying different box movie houses - all shows we sold out (except for the 10pm showings and that's a bit late for me...morning person, remember?). So alas and alack, (those are words, yes?) we decided to go to an afternoon show today instead. However, we did buy some great toys for the dogs at Petsmart.

I did zippo writing and am not sure how much I'll get done today.

Tracy's Day 21 WC: 0
Mindset: Twilight cometh!
Tracy's Day 22 WC: will update

How'd you do Tami? Have you seen the film yet?
____

Yep, all sold out here (though I didn't try and see it). I'm still going to have to convince my husband to go with me. I think I'm going to have to wait until most of the screaming fans have seen it, unfortunately.

I didn't get to write either. Way too busy at work and then just forgot last night. Can you believe it? Thanks for kicking off this post this morning Trace...again...forgot. Am I getting old?

Today we will have a big question! Stay tuned. Also, I'll be announcing the winner from week 3. WOOHOO!

Tami's Day 21 WC: 0
Mindset: Still coughing at night...such a bummer. I would pay to get a good night's sleep at this point. Will be writing this afternoon...hope my brain will work.
Tami's Day 22 WC: will update

Critique Partners and What They Mean to Me

Warning: This post might be a little sappy, but hopefully informative. :)

I don’t know how many people who read YAedge belong to a critique website or group. I wanted to blog about the few sites I’ve used and how I ended up with such a great group in the end.

When I realized that I was serious about writing, I looked into sites that promised my work would be critiqued by all sorts of people.

There are quite a few out there: Critique Circle, Critique Groups, Urbis. And those are just the few that I've tried in the past.

Most of these sites, you earn credits by the number of crits that you give. With those credits, you can open up the critiques that you get from others. At first, these sites worked great for me. I would post a few short shorts, a first chapter at the most. The critiques I got in the end weren’t too helpful for me. It wasn’t a line by line critique, something I realized I was looking for when going through the process. The feedback seemed to be based more on the overall impression that the reader got. Some would post questions, but there wasn’t a way to start a dialogue with them. I was frustrated and lost.

I turned to books. I scoured writing books, read blogs and plain ol’ read anything I could get my hands on. I was reading 2-3 books a week (which I still do) in the genre I was writing to get a feel for the point of views, settings, etc. of the books that were already out there.

When the critique sites didn't wet my whistle, I wrote in my little bubble. A friend would help me, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted a commitment that wasn’t one sided. That’s when it all changed for me. Tracy (who I didn’t know at the time) posted to TeenLit group on Yahoo (a great group if you write young adult fiction), asking for critique partners who wrote or didn't mind critiquing edgy young adult fiction. I emailed right away.

To be honest, I was nervous at first. Would I be able to keep up? Was my writing good enough for someone to spend the time reading it, going line by line telling me what was right/wrong? Could I make such a big commitment to someone I didn’t know? Would our personalities mesh? These were all questions that flew through my mind

Let me tell you, answering Tracy’s email was the best thing I could have ever done.When she contacted me based on my email, we swapped the first couple of chapters from our current WIP. Reading the first chapter of her book was awesome. I loved it instantly and knew that I could give a critique that would help her. We agreed the partnership was good to go and we would start criting right away. Tess came into the picture at this point and we decided that three could work. That gave us each two different points of view. Every person notices different things when critting. We agreed to critique a chapter a week from each member.

We’ve been a group for eight months now. In that time, I’ve had a full book critiqued by both of them, as well as eight chapters of my WIP. Not only have I become a better writer from their critiques, I’ve learned just as much by going through their work with a fine tooth comb. I look forward to reading their work and when I don’t have a new chapter from them, I find that I miss it.

I would have never guessed my writing would improve as much as it has. Not only have I gained people that I trust with my writing (which I think is one of the most important parts of the process), but I’ve added two great friends. Like I said, I can’t imagine where I would be without them.

Thanks girls for everything you've done for me in the past 8 months!

1k-a-day Day 21

9 more days...time flies when you're having fun. Don't forget, today is Friday so post those week end word counts to win this week's book. I'll post the books still available later today!

Also, look for a new big question this weekend!

Tami's Day 20 WC:
Tami's overall WC: 35,845
Music: Josh Rouse again
Mindset: If only I could count the word count I put toward a new idea I was working on today, as well as the blog post on critiques. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.
Tami's Day 21 WC: will update later!

Were you able to write yesterday, Tracy? I know you mentioned you'll be on your way to Edmonton soon! Have a fun and safe trip!

____

Wow - I worked on a booktrailer project all morning and just now came up for air. Whew! Fun, but OMG the hours fly by when you're in the computer zone.

I didn't write a thing yesterday because of the book fair. But we're leaving for Eddy in a few hours, so I've got some time to write before the road trip. Let's hope it don't snow no more!

Tracy's Day 20 WC: 0
Tracy's overall WC: 18, 078

Mindset: Distracted, but hopeful.

Tracy's Day 21 WC: will update later

Gotta keep focused, people! We're in the home stretch.

1k-a-day Day 20

10 more days...can you believe it? The time has flown WAY too fast. I've had way too many days where I haven't written anything. I've also had the days where I hit the goal, but wrote mostly crap.

But, on the other hand, I also had great days. Days I felt confident with my word count. I hope to continue on this side of things for the next 10 days! I hope you can, too!

Tami's Day 19 WC: 1,0499,966
Tami's overall WC: 35,84534,658
Music: Josh Rouse
Mindset: Did okay. Don't love the new chapter, but don't hate it. I definitely have something to work with.
Tami's Day 20 WC: will update later!

Trace, how did the book fair go? Can you believe we only have 10 days left of November!?

____

Yeah, where did the month go? I'm going to be struggling to write over the next few days with us going in to Edmonton, but the goal is to push through these last few days with everything I can muster. We so have to do this more than once a year.

Tracy's Day 19 WC:1119

Tracy's overall WC: 18, 078

Mindset: I'll be skim reading a ton of books again today at the bookfair. Hopefully they will inspire me to get home and write all through the night. Or at least until 10pm. (I really do go to bed at 9:07 - sad, eh?)

Tracy's Day 20 WC: 0 - too busy living (or is that surviving) to write! ;)

1k-a-day Day 19

Wow, are we already to Wednesday? Is this seriously day 19? Where is my life going? Are you asking yourself the same questions? Don't worry...you're not alone!

Look for a new big question coming soon!

Tami's Day 18 WC: Somewhere my word count got screwy. I think I only managed around 200 today. I'm hanging my head in shame.9,966
Tami's overall WC: 34,79634,658
Music: no music :(
Mindset: So, i'm very disappointed in myself. I think the only thing that's going to keep my head above water in my goal to hit 30k is the hope of this coming weekend and Thanksgiving. Thank god for that. ;)
Tami's Day 19 WC: 1,049

Didn't make it to the exercise class, eh Tracy? Don't blame ya on that one!

_____

I too am hanging my head - cause I bailed on that class...but I'm going next week. Sure I am. ;)

Tracy's Day 17 WC: 587

Tracy's overall WC: 18 078

Mindset: Hopeful. I have to run a book fair for the next few nights until 6:30pm. I'll be bringing my laptop to try and write in the lulls. Also, our movie theatre is having a pre-showing of Twilight at 10pm tonight. I'm thinking I just might go - to be in the audience on opening night would be a blast. However, I usually go to bed at 9:07pm (I'm a hard core morning person - I get up between 4:30 and 5am - always have - always will). So...I might bail on that idea too. :)

Tracy's Day 18 WC: 1119 (Whohoo! And on a bookfair night, too.)

1k-a-day Day 18

Hope you all have a good writing Monday. Here comes Tuesday! The weeks are flying by!

Tami's Day 17 WC: 0
Tami's November WC: 8,9339,966
Tami's overall WC: 33,62534,658
Music: Listened to Firewater today, but unfortunately got no writing done.
Mindset: Okay, so here's the deal. The writing gods must hate me. I was busy at work today, and didn't get a chance to even put in my thumb drive and open my book. No problem, right? There's always after work!
Then my friend who is helping me with critting the book signed on and we were talking about chapter 11. Stupidly, with 10 minutes left of work, I put in the thumb drive. What happens next you ask? Well, we came up with some great ideas on how to expand the relationship between my two MCs. Of course, I would need a copy of the book to do this.
When I signed off at work, I wasn't feeling great and just wanted to get the hell out of there. I'm sure you see where this is going. I get all the way home (about 15-20 min from work) and realize my thumb drive is still hanging out in my work computer. Lovely...I didn't back it up on my computer this weekend. MUST WRITE DOUBLE TIME TOMORROW! Sadly, I was actually looking forward to coming home, laying in bed and writing, now I've lost all desire unless it's to work on THAT scene.
Tami's Day 17 WC: Will update ASAP!

How did you manage your Monday, Tracy?

____

Wow - Tami - I feel your writing angst. I know that today we'll both crank out the words and they will be divine. :) I attended a graphic novel/Manga workshop offered by my local public library last night. While most of the detaily stuff was over my head, I enjoyed learning just how punny certain Manga character names are if you understand Japanese.

Tracy's Day 17 WC: 723
Tracy's overall WC: 17, 491

Mindset: Bring on the exercise class today after school! I'm predicting lots of pain, but I need my body recharged so I can sit at my laptop all night.

Tracy's Day 18 WC: 587 Sigh. And I don't have the exercise class to blame because I didn't go!