Critique Group Update

The group did the second critique today. I don’t know how it went to be honest. There were so many conversations going on that it was hard to differentiate or even hear the things I needed to. It doesn’t help that I have lost most of my hearing in my left ear. Nor was it good that the place we meet at was crowded today. Most of the people who critiqued my work wrote notes for me. I’ll read them in a little while and I’m hoping they were detailed.

I have a dilemma now. I have to decide if continuing to attend this group will work for me. I’m sad at the thought of leaving but I may have to.

On a lighter and better note, I’m getting better at giving critiques. Receiving them was astoundingly easy. I thought I would freak out the first time but I was never uncomfortable and I haven’t gotten my feelings hurt yet. I still think it’s a necessary step for me. Hopefully the good will outweigh the bad. We shall see.

Critique Group Update

I went to the second critique group meeting. It was the first time we actually talked about our work since the first one we went over rules and handed out our stories. It went really well. I was extremely nervous before it started but I got over it much quicker than I thought I would. The critiques I got were helpful. I knew I needed to add description but I didn’t realize that I never indicated the age of my characters in the scene. It’s a silly thing not to notice but this is my nanowrimo rough draft we’re talking about. I was so busy trying to reach my word count goals, I went right past it. Today actually verified a developing opinion of nanowrimo. Concentrating on word count sucks. I would have quality over quantity. Tangent!! Anyway, luckily for me, the others in the group weren’t afraid to tell me about bad punctuation and incorrect word usage. It was also really nice to hear the good things about what I wrote. Sometimes I concentrate on only the bad stuff and forget that there can even be good. Maybe I really am as funny as I think I am 😉

Reading the other writers’ work was interesting. It’s nice to see different styles and other levels of writing. I’m super curious about what happens next in each story. I’m glad I joined this group and I look forward to all that I’m going to learn.

On that note, Ray, if you read this, I want to smack you for not bringing chapter two today.

Critique Group

I attended my first critique group today. It went well. This was the first time the group was meeting so we handed out what we wanted critiqued, in this case a chapter, and then went over expectations. I am pretty excited/terrified about this. I almost didn’t go but I sucked it up and did it. The first rule we talked about was: be nice. Best rule ever! Most of the people in the group are also in the discussion group I go to. This means some very important things:

1. I am very comfortable. This matters because if I get too nervous in the situation I’ll look for an escape. I’m going to make this my comfort zone.
2. I’ve been hearing about the other people’s stories for a while now but not read any of them. It will be great to really dive into these amazing worlds.
3. While I think everyone will be nice about it, no one will be too afraid to tell me if something I wrote is awful. Sometimes it’s easy to get too close to a project and lose objectivity.

There are more benefits of course.

1. Osmosis. You can’t be around super creative people without having your own creativity stirred.
2. I might be in a position to truly help other writers. That’s something I think every writer should strive for.
3. Each of us will only get better.

This won’t be the first time I’ve been critiqued but it will be the first time I’ve done this in a group setting. Wish me luck and I’ll post an update next week on how it goes.