I spent the night in Orlando last night so I could help a friend buy a car canopy and get it home because her car was not big enough to carry the thing. Of course, B. J.'s only had the one and it had been sold. So after grabbing a bite, I headed home. When I got here, there were four large, male peacocks on my back porch. Now, I love wildlife just as much as the next person. You don't live in the woods and not like wildlife. HOWEVER, this does not mean I like Peacock poop on my porch.
Don't get me wrong, they're beautiful birds and I was enchanted to find them strutting around the porch and yard, proud as they could be of their inherent beauty. When I first saw them, I thought: I need to get me some peacocks. Didn't take me long to change my mind when I saw the state of said back porch. And for those of you who've never been up close and personal with a peacock...peacock poop smells like you might imagine someone would smell if they'd worn the same underwear for a week in 100 degree heat. Yum...not. So, any tips on how to discourage a peacock from taking up residence on your porch?
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Critique Partners
It's that time again. You've finished your masterpiece. It's good, you think you really have something here so you send it off to your critique partners, anxiously anticipating her/his/their response. It's brilliant! It's fantastic! Well done! It's the whole "visions of sugarplums" thing, which as creative people, we all need. It's also important to keep in mind that the reality is...well, not so sugarplumy, and you knew that going in. So, I get the critique back from my partner...and I have to say here that I require brutality and she never disappoints...and she loves the story but: wow, dropped threads, no real followthrough on the suspense aspects I set up at the beginning, and little to no history on the hero. And I knew I'd dropped the ball on the hero's history. Had an inkling that I hadn't done enough with the suspense aspect, and the dropped threads weren't as bad I thought they were going to be. I love my critique partners.
If you write and you don't have a critique partner...find one. And not somebody that's going to read your stuff and say...oh, that's great, I love it, it's so good...yadda, yadda, yadda. No. You need someone like me, the woman lovingly known by her crit partners as Bloody India. Sounds like I'm mean, doesn't it? But I'm not. What I am is honest, and that's the most important component in a good critiquing partnership. Honesty. The second most important is being able to accept criticism without getting your feelings hurt. The writing world is no place for the thin skinned. If I trust you enough to read my work and ask for you to be honest about what you see on the page, you need to be honest because I'm going to be honest with you. This does not mean you're nasty, rude, derisive, scornful, or any number of other adjectives used to describe someone who's just being mean. It means you read - carefully. You make notes via track changes in the manuscript and you explain the problems you see and even make possible suggestions - why is a certain scene not working, why it doesn't fit with the character arc, how to tighten up the conflict...and so on and so on.
I've had the same two critique partners for years and just discovered a new young writer and asked if she was interested in partnering up. Personally, I think you need a mimimum of 2 crit partners, people who write in a different genre than you so that when they look at your work, they can be objective.
If you're just starting out, find a writing group online. Yahoo has a ton of them. The good thing is that you'll have several pairs of eyes looking at your work. The bad thing is, you have to return the favor, so if you have half a dozen people critiquing your work, you're going to be doing 6 critiques. People who sign up, drop in for a critique or two and then disappear until they need another one are only tolerated for a short period of time. If you don't deliver, you don't get. Period.
But really, the only way to know if you're missing some really critical points in your work in progress is to have people who are objective critique it. Anybody who crits your work with pat phrases like - that was really great, send more...not someone you want for a long term critique partner cuz - really - what are they telling you? Nothing. And as a final note...let your critique partner know what it is you're looking for. If you know there are some issues in your manuscript but you can't quite put your finger on what it is, tell them that. I always let my cps know what I want them to focus on. Anything else they give me is just gravy.
And in closing let me just say: Alvania, Ella, Julia...I love you guys!
If you write and you don't have a critique partner...find one. And not somebody that's going to read your stuff and say...oh, that's great, I love it, it's so good...yadda, yadda, yadda. No. You need someone like me, the woman lovingly known by her crit partners as Bloody India. Sounds like I'm mean, doesn't it? But I'm not. What I am is honest, and that's the most important component in a good critiquing partnership. Honesty. The second most important is being able to accept criticism without getting your feelings hurt. The writing world is no place for the thin skinned. If I trust you enough to read my work and ask for you to be honest about what you see on the page, you need to be honest because I'm going to be honest with you. This does not mean you're nasty, rude, derisive, scornful, or any number of other adjectives used to describe someone who's just being mean. It means you read - carefully. You make notes via track changes in the manuscript and you explain the problems you see and even make possible suggestions - why is a certain scene not working, why it doesn't fit with the character arc, how to tighten up the conflict...and so on and so on.
I've had the same two critique partners for years and just discovered a new young writer and asked if she was interested in partnering up. Personally, I think you need a mimimum of 2 crit partners, people who write in a different genre than you so that when they look at your work, they can be objective.
If you're just starting out, find a writing group online. Yahoo has a ton of them. The good thing is that you'll have several pairs of eyes looking at your work. The bad thing is, you have to return the favor, so if you have half a dozen people critiquing your work, you're going to be doing 6 critiques. People who sign up, drop in for a critique or two and then disappear until they need another one are only tolerated for a short period of time. If you don't deliver, you don't get. Period.
But really, the only way to know if you're missing some really critical points in your work in progress is to have people who are objective critique it. Anybody who crits your work with pat phrases like - that was really great, send more...not someone you want for a long term critique partner cuz - really - what are they telling you? Nothing. And as a final note...let your critique partner know what it is you're looking for. If you know there are some issues in your manuscript but you can't quite put your finger on what it is, tell them that. I always let my cps know what I want them to focus on. Anything else they give me is just gravy.
And in closing let me just say: Alvania, Ella, Julia...I love you guys!
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Ah, Technology
The other day I realized two of my email addresses had been hacked and I'd inadvertently spammed almost everyone on my contacts list. This has happened so often with one of my email providers that I took the drastic step of printing out my contact list, opening an account with a different provider, and inputting my personal and professional contacts by hand. Then I deleted all my personal contacts from the other two and am keeping them open only for the groups I belong to...after changing my password..AGAIN. Is there anything more annoying?
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