My goals for NaNoWriMo

I’m participating in NaNoWriMo this year! The point of National Novel Writing Month is basically to take one month to write one new full novel of at least 50,000 words. While I will be taking a novel I’ve already started (I already had 8,000 written of Landwalker, so my goal is 50,000 additional words), I’m hoping to use this time to actually finish a whole first draft. Since I’m pretty sure the quality of my writing when trying to make deadlines like this probably won’t be so great, I’ve decided to set some goals for myself so that even if I don’t end up “winning” I’ve still learned something.

1) Write every single day. — Pre-baby this wasn’t a problem, but these days finding time to write for more than say, 15 minutes at a time is very hard for me. This means I’ll have to start waking up early and probably not watch any TV. Groan. I feel like I’m making New Years resolutions or something, but I’m hoping that if I can figure out how to do this, it will carry over after the month is over.

2) Stay motivated. — The NaNoWriMo website has a lot of great “pep talk” emails you can sign up for and “videos”. Hopefully this will help keep things on track.

3) Have fun. — I love writing, so I want to keep a mindset where I think of this as something fun rather than a chore.

4) Don’t edit too much. — I don’t want my story to be crap, so I probably will be doing a little bit of revising as I go along (which they advise you not to do since it “wastes” time). But I really want to make headway with this project, so I’m going to try to keep revisions to a minimum and get the story down while it’s still fresh in my head.

5) Use the outline. — For the first time in my writing career, I actually made a full outline of my story, from start to finish. This allowed me not only to have a definite idea of where my story is going, but it also allowed me to do something I’ve never really done before–for this project, I actually started writing in the middle. This is definitely something new for me and using Scrivener really helped me with this. My biggest issue while writing start to finish (like I usually do) actually doesn’t have to do with plot consistency like many people say (that’s easily solved with revisions). It has to do with voice. That is to say, my main characters starts off with not much of one but as the book continues, I get to know them more and as a result they become more interesting, more likable, and their voices comes through better. It’s tricky (for me at least) to go back and fix that.

So that’s it! At the end of the month, I’ll let you know how I did. (Woah, I wasted about 500 words there. Yipes! Back to work,)

#landwalker #nanowrimo #writing

How to Form Your Own Critique Group: Step #2

Now that you’ve planned out your group, what’s next?

Step #2: Finding Members

If you are already part of a large writing group, it may not be too hard to find people to join your group. The now fairly well known Write Sisters actually were a spin off from a larger community group (a monthly meeting for all writers in a specific town). But if you are a complete beginner, you may need to do some advertising.

Here are some ideas: –E-mail writers lists that you are already a part of (or join some–check out yahoo groups or livejournal communities. I found one writer by posting an ad to a livejournal community)

–Contact your local author’s groups for help. Children’s writers should try their local SCBWI critique group coordinator. My local NESCBWI critique group coordinator was very helpful and mailed me a bunch of suggestions and resources for starting up a group. She also posted our ad to the NESCBWI website. I got a lot of responses to the ad and next time we’re looking for a new member (which unfortunately will be soon) I’ll definitely post an ad there again.

–Check out Meetup.com. I wouldn’t recommend trying to start a small, selective group on meetup.com (since they charge a fee), but if you want a large, free-for-all type group, this is a good place to advertise. Because I wanted a smaller group, I actually emailed someone else on meetup who was starting up a group, and she ended up abandoning her larger group and joining mine.

–Post your ad on your own blog/to twitter/to other social networking sites. This works better if you have a lot of followers.

–Post physical ads to local coffee shops, book stores, and other writer hangouts. I didn’t have a lot of luck with this one. I posted to my favorite writing spot and got nothing. I even sent a flyer to Grub Street (another writing organization I’m a member of) asking them to post an ad on their wall, but since most of their participants are writers for adults, I had a few responders who didn’t really fit our criteria.

Next time: Selecting Members

#critiquegroup #writinggroup #nescbwi #scbwi #blogseries #courtyardcritiques #grubstreet

How to Form Your Own Critique Group: Step #1

As many of you know, I’m the leader of a fabulous five-person critique group called Courtyard Critiques (including Peta and Livia). Many writers are reticent to join a writing group, but for me the experience has been wonderful. Maybe someday I’ll do a “pros and cons” post, but for now I thought I’d do a series on how to start one up in the first place.

Step #1: Planning

When I was starting up our group (or rather when we were starting our group since I started it with another writer who has since moved away), we weren’t exactly sure how it would work. We thought we would just figure out letter “a” below, and then play it by ear from there with people who were interested. This might be fine at first, but actually planning things out ahead of time makes things a lot easier for you when you’re recruiting members. Here’s a list of questions to answer for yourselves before you start:

a) When will you meet?

Morning? Afternoon? Evening? Weekends? Weekdays? Figure out a time that works for you and stick with it. Once you get to know people, you can always talk about changing times later. You don’t want to start negotiating times with people you don’t know who may not even stay in the group for long.

b) How often will you meet?

Once a month? Twice a month? Don’t just think about how long it will take you to get your own submissions ready, but also how long it will take you to read other people’s work. My group meets every other week and occasionally this can be challenging, but it is a good way to stay on task.

c) What type of submissions will you read?

Are you going to read adult novels? Children’s novels? Picture books? Romance? Starting up our group wasn’t my idea, but the idea of the other writer, who envisioned a “children’s-fantasy-writer’s-only” type of group. I had written fantasy, but the novel I wanted to submit to the group was actually historical fiction. In the end we decided to qualify the “fantasy-only” thing to say that one should be “willing to critique” fantasy, which we both felt was important to say since many people don’t like fantasy (especially high fantasy) and don’t think they can be nice about such a manuscript.

d) How many members will be in the group?

This is a very important question. Will you have a small critique group or a large one? This will effect the dynamics of the group greatly (and at what point you’ll have to turn people away). The size of the group also directly effects the next question…

e) How will your group work?

Will you take turns submitting your work ahead of time and discuss it during the meeting? Or will you each bring a small sample and read it out loud during the meeting? How long will submissions be and how many people get to submit at a time? There are many ways of organizing it, but have an idea how you want meetings to run before you get to the first meeting. That way there are no misunderstandings.

Next time: Finding and Selecting Members

Image Credit: Curt Carnemark / World Bank

#blogseries #courtyardcritiques #critiquegroup #writinggroup