Tag Archives: critiquing

In the Blogosphere: 7/26-8/6

Posted in This Week in the Blogosphere by

“In the Blogosphere” is a series, which lists links to writing-related blogs I’ve stumbled upon throughout a given week (usually).

I’m admittedly behind with my Blogosphere posts—I have about 50 links saved, dating all the way back to May/June-ish (oh noes!)—but they are all still worth a look.  I’ll catch up eventually, right?

THE STRAIGHT DOPE ON CONFERENCES

There have been a ton of conferences this summer, but more are just around the corner.

Not sure what to bring to a writers’ conference?  Over on her blog, See Heather Write, writer/editor and aspiring YA novelist Heather Trese gives the basics on what to pack and what to leave home—via this vlog.

Have you never been to one of these events?  Check out this post at The Bluestocking Blog, which details one writer’s lessons learned from her very first conference.

This is an oldie-but-very-goodie post from guest blogger Leah Odze Epstein over at Adventures in Children’s Publishing.  Epstein took great notes at SCBWI Metro New York and was nice enough to share them in a conference round-up.

By the way—WriteOnCon, the FREE online kids’ lit conference, is next week.  Click here to register!

THE NEXT STEPS

So, I’m good on querying and getting and agent and everything—but what happens after that?

Sixteen-year-old Australian YA author Steph Bowe demystifies what happens after you get a book deal in this post on her blog, Hey! Teenager of the Year.

And, here, the ever-fabulous Rachelle Gardner of WordServe Literary explains what is in a publishing contract.

EDITING & CRITIQUING

My SW(IRL) group began critiquing this summer, and some of our members were a bit resistant to it.  I do hope they’ll check out these links!

Here, Jodi Cleghorn of Write for Your Life talks critique etiquette.

In her guest post at Genreality, debut YA dystopian author Jamie Harrington gives a feedback pep talk during which she explains what getting feedback means, why it’s important, and how we need to get over ourselves and get some!

Over at her fantastic blog, author Jody Hedlund offers suggestions of what to do with positive and negative feedback.

And at YA Highway, Amanda Hannah gives us a checklist of what we need in order to get cracking on those revisions.

HILARITY ENSUES

I believe this oldie-but-goodie post was the first I had ever seen of the now-infamous Tahereh (T.H. Mafi), over at Got YA—in which she tells us what the QueryShark herself, Janet Reid, is really thinking.

Shenandoah Writers: May 18 Meeting

Posted in The WriteBrained Network by

Last night, at the May 18 Shenandoah Writers (IRL) meeting, we covered several topics.

SWO LIVE CHAT

  • May 25—9-10P.M. on Shenandoah Writers Online
  • I’m open to topic suggestions.  If you have any, please let me know ASAP.

CRITIQUING

  • Changes to the critiquing schedule
    • We are going to cover one person’s work at each of the next several meetings, instead of two. This is because we don’t want to short-change the second person being critiqued at a given meeting (by rushing it, etc.)—plus, we don’t want to spend the whole time critiquing, when I’m sure there will be other things to discuss.
  • Page limit for critiques
    • When you’re up for critique, submit the first two chapters, not to exceed 20 pages.  For essays or short stories, just send the whole thing.

Awesome cartoon by Debbie Ridpath Ohi, from Inkygirl.com

  • How to send
    • Person being critiqued must e-mail the group a copy of his/her critique submission no later than one week before the next meeting (so, you have up to a week to get your crit submission together and then the rest of us have a week to read it/comment)
    • When you send your crit piece, make sure you are sending a .doc file, so we are all able to open it.
    • E-mail being sent to all members with everyone’s email addresses
  • How to critique
    • Dave brought in some awesome handouts of not only constructive ways to critique but also areas in which to critique.  When he sends me the files, I will post them in the forum on the SWO network, so we can all access them.
    • We agreed that all critiquers need to have a hard copy of the critique submission printed out & brought with them to the meeting. This means each person will need to print out his/her own copy prior to coming to the meeting.
    • Ideally, you will have read and commented right on the submission before each meeting.

    • At the meetings, either the author or someone else (I don’t mind doing this for everyone) will read the submission out loud, so the author can hear how it sounds/catch awkward or unwieldy sentences and so everyone can have the piece fresh in his/her mind. This will also enable critiquers to write down more notes as the piece is being read.
    • Each critiquer will discuss positive comments and constructive criticism on how to improve/clarify/etc.
    • At the end of the critique session, each member will hand in his/her hard copy to the author so he/she has something concrete for reference when revising.
  • Openings assignment
    • After we hammered out the details, we spent some time going through various novel openers and what we learned about the book from them.
    • This was a little awkward to do with just three of us, but I think it went OK over all.
    • I will post my handout to SWO, for anyone who wants to take a look.
  • Next meeting
    • The next meeting is June 1 @ Barnes & Noble (7PM)
    • Dave is up for critique
    • I would also like to discuss journalistic writing & freelancing a bit after we critique because I will be putting together my class on that subject for the Southeastern Writers Association at the end of June.
      • Anything you think I should include, I’m all ears.
      • I would also like to know what writers unfamiliar with or new to how to approach journalistic writing & freelancing NEED TO KNOW—so bring any questions you have as well.