Got a Critique Group Together

One of the things many authors suggested at the WLT 2012 Agents & Editors Conference was to have a critique group. Their tips for a successful one:

1. Keep it small
2. Meet consistently
3. Do number 2...consistently

I met a friend at a publishing class I attended in the spring. She and I decided to read each other's stories and help each other along to publication. Then, I met another lady at the conference who was looking for a critique group as well. I introduced the two by email and we have our first meeting this coming Saturday.

And so, our critique group will begin. We're going to exchange story pages, query letters, synopses, whatever it is we want reviewed.

I feel very fortunate to have found these two ladies. Hopefully, all three of us will achieve our goals...PUBLICATION!

Hoodratz In Space Comic Coming October 2012

Hey all you comic book fans out there, have I got news for you! A hot new comic book series, Hoodratz In Space, is set to release later this year. It has been a long time coming, but it was well worth the wait.

Hoodratz In Space (HIS) is the creative brain child of highly talented concept artist, Erik Reeves. I met Erik at a comic book/sci-fi convention in Dallas, Tx, years ago. I wanted to get into writing comic books and he just happened to be looking for a writer. Since our meeting, we've worked on other projects and steadily improved our respective crafts and the time is now right. I absolutely love this project and can't wait to see it in print.

Stay tuned! And while you wait, you can follow HIS on twitter @Hoodratzinspace. Like HIS on Facebook - HOODRATZINSPACE and follow the official HIS blog: http://hoodratzinspace.blogspot.com.

Thanks!

Expand Your Writing

I love comic books, always have. I enjoy the visuals that comic books provide. I could definitely learn more about comics, and I try by visiting local comic shops and learning what's hot and new. So you can imagine how bummed I was to have missed Comic-Con 2012! I love G4tv and didn't realize that DirecTV doesn't carry the G4 channel until it was too late. So I had to catch up on g4tv.com. But it wasn't the same as getting those live reports. Wow! Point is, I've expanded my writing from novels to comics. I've had to learn the format of how to write comic books, giving direction to the illustrator (since I don't draw) and writing short, to-the-point dialogue. It's been a learning experience and a lot of fun.

So what am I going to do to continue expanding my writing? I have an idea for a sci-fi horror film script. Now I'm researching how to write scripts, lay out plots, develop log lines. There's a lot to learn. But it's giving me new insight into how to describe visually stunning scenes, so I believe it definitely helps improve my novel writing as well.

Branch out, expand your writing and see where it takes you. You might be surprised.

The Art of Editing, Again and Again and Again

When you first write words on paper, you're going as fast as you can to ensure you get as much as possible from your brain on to the paper before the words go into that vast realm of netherland where they'll never be retrieved again, which is about five seconds after you start writing. Once you've filled the page with everything you can remember, you go back and review what you wrote.

Ugh!, you say. All right. At that point, you either scratch through the whole thing because it doesn't even come close to relaying what you had in mind, or you start tweaking it. You change the first two words; insert a word, or two or three, on the next line; cross out the third line entirely and write its replacement in the margin vertical to your paragraph; the fourth and fifth lines you reverse for more impact; and so it goes until you now have two paragraphs sitting on top of each other. True, that's not bad if you're like me and have a supply of colored pens or pencils nearby which you use for editing. (Trust me, it's a life saver.)

Some people hate editing. I, on the other hand, can't stop editing. Editing is in my blood. It's what I'm good at. But as they say, after a time, you no longer see the mistakes of your own writing because you start seeing and reading what you know is supposed to be there instead of reading what's printed on the page.

So, for me, I do the best I can. I write. I edit. I rewrite. I edit again. Write. And edit once more. And hope the final product is as great as I can get it.

I had another goal in mind when writing this particular post today. One agent's advice was to lose those words that end in -ly. I caught myself wanting to write -ly words almost six times during this post. You be the judge. Did I miss any?

Let me know. I'll revise it.