whadda ya MEAN you don’t care if you get published?

This is the post where I make a lot of enemies.
Ready?

I read your ten-page chapter.  It is single-spaced, chock-full of typos, grammatical errors and syntax lapses.  I dutifully correct every single one.
I highlight every place where you tell, rather than show.
I help you role play your dialogue.
I reconfigure your story arc.
I replace your lackluster action [...]

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i hate to make you read this: critique guilt

I feel guilty.
Critique group yesterday.  Chapter 10 gallops along—pathos, intensity, drama.

Fearless leader reads with vigor and gusto.  Including the “fudge” word.
Only it wasn’t “fudge”.
And Lord, the name-calling, including, “baby-lick”.
Only it wasn’t “lick”.

And by golly, Fearless Leader read it like she meant it!
At first I laughed, but then, I was mortified at what I had done [...]

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Rip Me A New One #1

Critique Group.

It is tremendously easier–and faster–to evolve as a writer with a critique group behind you.  (Or around your neck.  Depending on your planetary federation.)  I improved my craft so much between the first chapter of my novel and the last that–well, I felt I had to issue an apology on our listserv for what [...]

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oh critique group, where is thy sting?

You travail…grind…you coax the keyboard late into the unforgiving night.
Cull…pinpoint…tease the perfect words from your brain.
You strategize.  You project.  You pluck the marionette strings.
Grip the sneering knife in your sweaty palm…plunge it into your howling heart  Blood
Spills through your printer onto the page.
But The Worst is tomorrow:
Critique group.
And that would be why I don’t write [...]

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