The Sounds of Revision

Revisions are hard work. Anyone who doesn't agree may need to get their head checked! I'm in the middle of revising my book, Parlor, and it's slow going. I've gotten to the point in about half of the chapters, where I've revised the stuff that just doesn't work out. That's the easy part! Now comes the hard, trying to make the words that remain better. I have trouble getting it to the sparkly point, but maybe I'm not alone.

This is where good critique partners come in. Each person reads a story a little different, offering small tidbits of amazing advice to push you to see your work in another way. I know both of my crit partners do an awesome job! Once they've read and given their notes, I go back to each chapter and revise again.

A few weeks ago, after my crit partners took their turn, I followed my usual steps. Read their notes, revised, read over the chapter and then fixed anything odd that didn't flow. I still felt like the chapter wasn't quite there, so I was a little down. I didn't know what it needed, but it was definitely not up to my standards for how much work I had put into it.

Normally, my husband doesn't read what I write until it's practically finished. I don't know why, but that's how it worked with my last book. I didn't let him see any of it until it was time for me to query. I had an idea recently and I can't even explain how helpful it was. I sent him the first chapter, asking him to just look over it and give his initial thoughts. I'm always nervous when he's reading something I've written, and this wasn't an exception. In fact, it was worse. I knew it wasn't very good, and like I said, he was used to reading my work in a pretty polished state.

I thought he would just tell me quickly what worked and what didn't, but he went above and beyond. We sat for three hours, breaking down each sentence. After about twenty minutes time, I was having trouble typing as quickly as he was talking, trying to get each little note down. Then we got the idea to record it! That's right, we audio taped the whole thing. It was amazing because I didn't miss a single thing we said and I was able to wait until Monday (we did this on a Saturday) to make changes based on our discussion. I could edit at my own speed and could just rewind when I needed to hear something a few times.

It was great because he reads enough YA to know what works, but also has a different viewpoint than myself or my crit partners. I would totally recommend talking through your work with someone and recording it for playback later. At least, if you can stomach having to listen to yourself talk for hours on end. Now THAT was harder than the revisions.

Through the Good and the Bad: Crit Partners

This post is going to be a little short, because I totally lost track of the week and now work from my day job is waiting to be done. Despite its length, I think it's an important post. We've all felt overwhelmed in our lives. Once I hit the "publish post" button, I will have officially put my fears, apprehension and doubts away. We'll, at least for awhile.

Recently our crit group took a hiatus. It was much needed for the three of us. Between our personal lives, jobs and book launches (YAY Kitty and Tracy (ahem, I mean Judith!), we found that the group wasn't doing what we set out to accomplish. Instead of it being a safe haven for us to let down our guard as a group and go through our work with a fine tooth comb, it became stressful. At least, that's how it felt to me. We weren't consistent, weren't active enough to be helpful. I found that I would put off the crits and my chapters (we try to crit a chapter a week) until the last moment, because other things in my life were swallowing me whole. I wasn't enjoying it like I used to. In the past, I looked forward all week to their new chapters, waiting to see where their stories went. I sat at the edge of my chair, waiting for their critique of my new words, biting my nails in anticipation whether good or bad. Sadly, that went away.

I was working on two project at the time of our hiatus, but instead of feeling refreshed and creative when jumping back and forth, I just felt overwhelmed. It was like I didn't know if I was coming or going. I thought that I could take a break for a few weeks and then jump back in. To a certain extent I did, at least for awhile. I wrote a VERY rough draft (minus the last few chapters) of one of my ideas. I had fun, but it didn't have the spark I wanted it to. I didn't know why it had lost its whimsical feel that the synopsis, lore and first chapters had. Shrugging it off, I jumped into my other story hoping that I just needed to step back from the first one to get a new perspective when we went back. Writing the second story wasn't as easy. I struggled, and instead of working through it, I put it down. Stupid I know.

After a few months of reflection, I realized what was missing. It wasn't anything that changed with me specifically, it was that I didn't have the safe haven of my crit group to talk me through the bad times, cheer for me through the good. I didn't have them riding me when I didn't write, reminding me why I love to write and read every day. The last few months have been a nice getaway, where I can focus on other things in my life, but now I'm ready to jump back into it. I'm happy to saw that we will be back together starting this Sunday! I look forward to the roller coaster ride that is a fun crit group.

Thanks girls for making me a better writer and making sure that I stay on top of everything. Without you, my work wouldn't be where it is at today. It's all because of you.

(Okay, so I lied, this post isn't that short).

Commitment: What it Means to a Writer

The definition of commitment is a pledge or promise; obligation.

Commitment is something all writers need; to themselves, stories, characters, and of course, their critique partners. I’m writing this post, as I sit at my desk at work after hours, several hours late on this post. This week has been crazy for me, and I’m looking forward to the much needed weekend ahead. Being busy doesn’t mean I can put the blog aside; I have an obligation to both my blog partner and the readers. This got me thinking about how big of a commitment writing really is, so I decided to break it down, at least what that word means to me in my writing life.

Commitment to story: Committing to a story can mean many things. Vague, I know, but hear me out. A writer has a certain duty to keeping with the plot of their story. Of course changes come as you complete your story and also in rewrites/edits. Most of the time, once you’ve done research and outlining/plotting the theme of your book will stay the same.
On the other hand, a writer has to commit to a story to be able to rip it apart in edits. You have to know yourself and your story enough to know what you have to do (possibly rewrite the whole story) will be better for your overall story in the end.

Commitment to characters: Committing to characters is a must when writing a solid story. Writers has to dig deep within themselves and question exactly who their characters are, what drives them, makes them who they are throughout the story. Once those questions are answered, you have to be committed to listening to what those answers means to the characters’ actions.

Commitment to critique partners: We’ve talked too much on this blog about critique partners and how important they are to a writer’s improvement. It can’t be said enough. Being a part of a crit group is all about commitment. When agreeing to join a group, a writer has to understand the work that goes into it. If everyone isn’t to everyone within the group, it will not work.

Commitment to finishing: This has to be the most important. Without finishing the book, you have nothing. No matter how hard you commit to the items I listed below, if you don’t see your work to the end, then really you’ve committed to nothing.

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!