My Writing Journey

A Few Writing Updates

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Two weeks ago I shared a post about a new literary journal that would be published soon, encouraging you to submit writing to it or subscribe to read it. I am sad to now announce that the Editor in Chief emailed my submission back to me and informed me that she was shutting “Echo Literary Journal” down before it has even begun due to lack of subscriptions and publishable quality submissions. This is very sad because so few magazines of this type, looking for actual short stories in almost every genre and poetry, still exist and accept submissions now. It’s also sad because the Editor in Chief’s dream ended before it began. I do hope she will try again sometime in the future and find success.

As for my writing, I am doing well, though this past week was very busy and I didn’t get to write as often as I would like, but we did get our oldest son settled back at college. However, I have finally found the writing schedule that works for me. I homeschool our youngest son first thing after breakfast until we are finished. Also, during that time, I strive to get the laundry completed on Mondays, sometimes having to finish it on Tuesdays. After homeschool, if we have time, now that the weather is my favorite kind of weather–no heat and humidity and comfortable temperatures (65-82 degrees), we take a walk, then I have time for critiquing/editing before dinner. I cook simple meals that don’t require a ton of time but are tasty and healthy. Then after dinner, I have two to four hours to write and still allow myself at least 1/2 to one hour to read or listen to relaxing music so that I can then go to bed and sleep. This schedule works great for me because I am not a morning person, so my brain struggles to write if I try to do so in the morning. However, I am a night owl. Therefore, on this schedule, my brain kicks in and I’ve been writing between 600 — 1,200 words every evening that I am able to sit down at the computer, which is most evenings. So, I am making great progress with my novel that needs to get finished, and I am writing some short stories as well.

How’s your writing schedule working for you?

A Great Adventure at the Writer’s Conference

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Well, I prayed about the Greater Philly Writer’s Conference for two weeks after I found out I would be going. I wanted to go with God, allowing Him to lead me and show me why He had provided for me to go, and boy, did He!

We arrived last Wednesday afternoon and by Thursday evening I was feeling a bit discouraged. I’ve never been real strong on patience in certain areas of my life — namely the areas that have to do with things I want, and I hadn’t seen any sign of why God had led me to the conference by Thursday evening. At least I didn’t think I did.

However, I did feel a need for time with God Thursday evening because, as mentioned above, I had been spending time with Him daily for two weeks prior to this, and Wednesday and Thursday had been so busy I hadn’t taken the time to spend in prayer and waiting for Him to speak to me. (No, He doesn’t speak to me in an audible voice, but I do receive His messages within my spirit, and not every time I pray.) So before going to sleep Thursday night, I sat in my bed and prayed and listened. He reminded me to trust Him.

Friday, God made it crystal clear as to why He had led me to that conference — for more than I could have imagined. Prior to the conference, I had scheduled one-on-one appointments with just two people — a publisher and an editor. Thursday afternoon, I had asked about an appointment with an indie published author and was given one, so now I had three appointments scheduled for Friday.

First I met with the publisher; one sheet, synopsis of my novel, and first three chapters in my hand. I sat down and told her a bit about my story. (I still need a lot of work on giving a good pitch.) We talked about the fact that my main character is a Pony Express rider, but he’s twenty-five and Pony Express riders were preferred to be eighteen and under, and most were. I explained how my audience is adult women, therefore, my main character had to be over eighteen. She began to look at my chapters and noticed that I addressed the age issue right at the start, so she was satisfied with that.

As she continued to look through my paperwork, I became more nervous. Then she asked me if I had had an editor look at the story already. I told her I had not. Only my three critique groups had seen it and I had made changes based on many of their suggestions. She then told me that “my writing is good and clean, I use strong verbs, and I have no wasted words”. Now for the heartbreak — I told her the novel isn’t finished yet, and she said, “That’s a problem.” Bottom line: she would have taken my paperwork back to her boss if I had a completed manuscript, but since I don’t, she said her boss wouldn’t even look at it if he knew it wasn’t finished. I took a deep breath and asked if I could send it to her when it is finished. She pulled out a business card, handed it to me, and said, “Yes”. Just a few minutes later, I saw her in the bookstore and she patted my arm and said, “Keep doing what you’re doing.”

A little while after that I met with an editor. I gave him my first chapter, told him I’d like him to look at it and then answer some questions I had about editing. He began reading my chapter, pen in hand. When he got to the first page break, three-and-a-half pages into the chapter, he stopped and had not made a single mark on the pages. He looked at me and asked, “Do you want me to read the whole chapter?” I replied, “Not if you don’t think you have to.”

He didn’t read any farther. Instead he said, “Your writing is good and clean. You captured my attention right from the start. I knew your character was going to lie about his age. I knew what time frame and where, in the world, I was. When I got to the page break, you had built enough tension that I wanted to keep reading, but not because I had to as an editor. I simply wanted to as a reader.”

Can I just say that now I was over the moon with happiness? Next I attended an agent panel, where agents introduced themselves and the agencies they represent. Then we could ask questions. At the end I approached one of them and asked about appointments. She said she was open at that very moment and took me to a little lobby sitting area. We sat down and, because I had been caught off guard that this meeting was happening immediately, I completely forgot to “pitch my story”. I simply handed her my paperwork and told her a publisher was already interested and that the book wasn’t finished. She gave me her business card and had me write specific directions on the back of it. Basically, she told me to go home, write a book proposal and send it to the agency.

My one-on-one with the indie published author was not as much fun. I sat down and told her I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to talk to her about. I told her I had come to the conference intending to indie publish, but that God had led me in a different direction. She was a bit rude, and when I told her a publisher and agent were interested in my work, she said, “If a publisher is interested in your work, that tells me you have something good.” She advised me to go home and finish the book and said if I have a traditional publisher interested, I should try that before going indie.

In addition, we had the most powerful keynote speakers throughout the three-and-a-half days. Several things I heard from these speakers were: Trust God, Be Courageous, Obey God — Say “Yes” to His assignment for me; follow His leading in my writing. These messages challenged, encouraged and inspired me.

So, I left the conference full of excitement, amazement, and encouragement — praising God for opening so many doors, even though I know none of them are guarantees, I am so much farther then when I left for the conference. I left the conference with some information and ideas for writing more than just novel length books, and how to market my book using social media and other things. I also left the conference with some new friends who are wonderful people whom I will be continuing to keep in contact with, thanks to the wonders of current technology. I also left the conference with the knowledge that seeking God and following His leading is something I don’t want to stop doing, and the most surprising thing I left the conference with, is the fact that my plan is not God’s plan, and instead of indie publishing, I will be trying traditional publishing first.

Now I need to write, write, write! So, now I pray that God gives me the time to write, in addition to schooling my last school age son and taking care of my household.

What journey are you on?

 

A Blessing and a Writer’s Conference

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On Wednesday, I will be leaving to attend the Greater Philly Christian Writer’s Conference. It will be the first multi-day conference I have ever attended. I’m so excited, I’ve been counting the days.

My excitement is about more than the fact that I LOVE to write and to connect with other writers. My excitement is about seeing what God has in store for me at this conference. You see, the reason I have never attended a multi-day writer’s conference is because they cost a good deal of money — for food, shelter and to cover the cost of the speakers/teachers. Some conferences do have partial scholarships you can apply for.

However, the money hasn’t been the only thing that’s kept me from attending one of these conferences. The other is my family. We still have one child at home who is too young to be alone all day and we’ve never wanted my husband to use his vacation days for me to go away because his vacation days should be for him or for family vacation.

Well, this year, God made it clear that He wants me to go to this conference when he provided the finances from someone who was a complete stranger (I have since met this person briefly). This generous donor likes to let God use them to bless others, and they see it as an investment in my future. I was in complete shock at first — I couldn’t find the words to express my gratitude. Eventually the shock wore off and I was able to find out the details of what attending such a conference entails and get the registration taken care of, and to say, “Thank you”, though that still seems inadequate to me.

Also, the way this conference is scheduled and the availability of our older sons, my husband only needed to take two vacation days from work. So, God has provided and removed any roadblocks for me to go to this conference.

In addition, I have since learned that this is the last year that this conference will be offered in its current venue. Next year, the organizer will hold smaller conferences with specific focuses.

So, I am going to this conference with an expectant heart (as I learned in The Story of With by Allen Arnold), and I can’t wait to see what God has for me, whether it be a small blessing or a big blessing. No matter what, I know I’ll come away with a lot more knowledge about certain aspects of writing than I have now, and I will also come away encouraged and inspired, and probably, with a few more friends.

I’ll report about it when I return.

Enough Time to Write

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If you’ve been visiting or following this blog for long, you probably already know that in addition to being a writer, I am a homeschool mom and I am doing my best to live a healthy lifestyle – eating the Trim Healthy Mama way and exercising.  This means making everything from scratch, no processed foods. It also requires protein at each meal, low carbs and no sugar. It’s going well, but it can be time consuming to make everything from scratch, though not overwhelming.

My family has to take priority over my writing during this time in my life, which I know is the right thing, but I sometimes get frustrated because I WANT to write everyday, but that is just not possible right now.

Then, when I attended the Super Saturday writers’ conference this year, the keynote speaker, Mike Dellosso, addressed this very issue. He works a full-time plus a part-time job, is the father of five daughters in a homeschool family and writes books, and, like me, his family comes first, so his keynote speech was of great encouragement and help.

You see, I’ve been frustrated and feeling guilty because I’ve had so many people say, “If you really want to be a writer, you need to write everyday, AND, you need to treat it like any other job, which means you can’t NOT do it. You have to schedule time and park your behind in your seat and write — no excuses!”

Well, that’s fine for those whose children are grown and no longer living at home, but that is not where I am at. Therefore, when Mike talked about how we have a dream for writing much more than we do, but that might not be God’s plan for us right now, that made sense.

Mike reminded us of the story of Joseph from the Bible and how he had dreams that took twenty-two years to come to fruition, but that during that time, Joseph kept his faith and remained patient and made the most of each and every circumstance. (This was both encouraging and a bit discouraging to me because as a 50+ woman, I want to complete as many books as I possibly can before I am either unable or unavailable to do so anymore.)

However, Mike went on to say that wherever we are on the road in our writing, that’s where God’s want us at this time, and we should simply be content in that AND do our best with the time we have.

So, that is what I am trying to do in my writing life right now. I am trying to be content with the time that I have to write and use it to the best of my ability. I am working on cleaning out our spare room to organize my books on the bookshelves in that room and put my little desk up there, so that when I have time to write, I will have a place where I can go and not be distracted by other things that might need doing, or by interruptions and other distractions, so that my writing time will be as fruitful as possible. I am also trying to write at least twice a week and the first chance I get at the beginning of each month, I try to write and schedule a month’s worth of blog posts, so that I can concentrate on my WIP for a month at a time, since I normally get about four hours of writing time twice a week for the most part. That plan seems to be an encouragement for me as I actually feel like I am accomplishing something and making progress.

What about you? Where are you at in your writing journey?

The Great Debate: Traditional vs. Indie (Self) Publishing

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I’ve been back in the writing world for three years and seven months being part of a local writers’ group that meets monthly and has critique groups that I have participated in, and an annual writers’ conference. I’ve also attended two writers’ luncheons, put together my own little group of writers who meet weekly, and in the past two years have been involved in an online writers’ group as well as being involved in a critique group for the past two years that meets every other week. I have also been reading books on the writing craft.

During the past two years, I have been researching and exploring the publishing possibilities, and I have found, as the title of this post suggests, that there is a Great Debate among writers: to publish traditionally or indie (self) publishing.

I have found that many older people are quite adamant about traditional publishing but when asked why can’t really give me a satisfactory answer. I have also found that many writers who have already published books seem adamant about starting with a traditional published. However, I have also heard some of these already published writers talking about their desire to switch to indie publishing. (For the sake of simplicity in the rest of this blog post, I will only refer to traditional and “indie” publishing because, though “indie” and “self” publishing are quite similar, “indie” publishing is publishing completely on your own and most of these writers are determined to put out their best writing, whereas “self” publishing includes the writers who just want to put out their writing as quickly as possible and don’t spend enough time on edits, as well as those who publish through vanity publishers (these are publishers who allow you to keep all of your rights and maintain all decision making, but you pay them a fee to help you publish and do some marketing). “Indie” writers/publishers have a better reputation than “self” published writers.

I have found it quite confusing to speak with published writers about the publishing options because they stand firm in telling me that I should seek an agent and go the traditional publishing route first. But, when I ask why, they offer no real good, solid reasons.

I even know of a writer who insists on the traditional route, but after trying that route for a few years, and even gaining an agent, is preparing to self publish the book through a small publisher, which is what the agent found for this writer. To which my question is: will this writer still have to pay the agent for this?

Okay, so here’s what I have learned about traditional publishing: the first step is to acquire an agent who will most likely have you make lots of changes, and, possibly, rewrite your entire manuscript. Then the agent will help you find a possible publisher, who may require you to make more changes and, possibly, rewrite your entire manuscript yet again, and even change it for a different target audience, and then, that publisher may or may not actually publish your manuscript. The entire process can take two to four years for your manuscript to get published, maybe even longer, if ever. If you are blessed enough to get the manuscript published, first of all, it may not be the story you originally intended in the first place. Secondly, your agent and the publisher get a cut of your sales, and you will be extremely blessed to receive even 10% of your sales. Also, you will be required to do as much of your own marketing as possible, which used to be the traditional publisher’s job. Finally, if your first book is part of a series, depending on the sales of the first book, the rest of the series may never get published, and if it does, traditional publishers stop publishing and remove your book from the market after just four years.

Now, here’s what I’ve learned about indie publishing. Yes, you must do ALL of the work yourself. You write the manuscript, AND, if you’re devoted and committed to doing the absolute best work you can do, you will have it critiqued; you will make appropriate changes based on those critiques; you will self-edit and do several rewrites; you will hire a professional editor to give you feedback and then rewrite yet again; you will have beta readers (if you don’t know what beta readers are, read this post), then you may make changes again. Then you will finally publish it through an indie publishing venue like Amazon’s “Create Space” or “Book Baby” or one of the other indie publishing outlets. While you are still working on your manuscript, you may want to begin to think about building a group of followers who would be interested in reading your writing. A good way to do this is to start a blog and share things about your writing and about yourself, as well as becoming active in other social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram, etc. When your book is published, it’s a good idea to do a Book Launch (next Monday’s post will be about Book Launches). You will also want to put the information out on your social media, do book signings and/or speaking engagements. Get creative about how and where you can promote your book, but don’t over-saturate your social media or you will turn people off because they will think the only reason you’re on social media is to promote yourself and your writing. Your readers want you to be real and to care about them.

Another thing I want to share with you here is some interesting information one of my writing friends recently shared with me on this subject:

One of my other writing friends has also been researching these options and questioning other writers about their opinions. She shared with me that she recently spoke with some writers who have had books published through traditional publishers and tell newbie writers that they should go the traditional publishing route. She began to ask them: “How did you find an agent or publisher?” She said that most of them said that they found their agent or publisher through a friend. What she realized is that all of these already published writers are telling newbie writers to go the traditional publishing route, but they aren’t offering to introduce you to an agent or publisher. They don’t even tell you that they found their agent or publisher through a friend unless you specifically ask that question. Her thought is “so these already published writers are telling all of us newbies to go the traditional route while they are trying the indie route, like they want us to try the traditional route while they flood the indie market with their works.”

I apologize for such a lengthy post, but I hope you have found it informative and that it gives you something to think about and consider in your own writing journey. If you have any thoughts or questions, please leave them in the comments section and I’ll do my best to answer or point you to where you can find the answer.

Writers’ Conference Fun

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I attended the Lancaster Christian Writers Super Saturday one-day writers’ conference on Saturday, April 8, 2017. It was so much fun because the speakers and seminars were extremely helpful and informative and because I was able to connect with some old friends and make a couple of new ones.

It’s always fun to connect with other writers because they understand me. They think like me. It’s great to be able to share challenges and successes and to be able to support and encourage each other.

I know I’ve said this before, but if you’re a writer and you haven’t been to a writers’ conference, you really should go. I’m sure you would enjoy it. I know most writers are introverts (including me), but you know, even we introverts need to step out of our comfort zones once in a while, and I don’t think there’s any place better to do that than with other writers because you’re guaranteed to have a common topic of conversation.

Here are some highlights from the day:

My dear friend, Mike Dellosso, author of Centralia and Kill Devil,  was the keynote speaker. (I’ve posted a couple of book reviews of some of Mike’s books here in the past. I’ve done an author interview with him as well and included some of his books on several of the Top Ten Tuesday posts I’ve done in the past.)

Mike was the first published author I ever connected with in public in regard to writing and he has been a great help and encouragement to me, and I can always count on him to give it to  me straight. Last year he looked over a few pages of my WIP and informed me that it was “lifeless”. Yes, he said that, but then he said, “I’m sorry, that sounded harsh.” And he followed that up with suggestions and explanation of how to fix the problem.

Anyway, his keynote this year was very good and inspirational. One quote that sticks with me: “Wherever you are on the road in your writing, that’s where God wants you at this time. Do your best.”

I also attended two seminars presented by Roseanna White, author of Lady Unrivaled. She presented a seminar on “Fiction Rules and When to Break Them” — one example: “Show Vs. Tell”: The Rule: Do this as much as possible because it may take longer and consist of more words, but it makes the story vivid. Her second seminar taught what’s important in a book cover and how to be sure the cover of your book is both professional and eye-catching, as well as the fact that it should evoke emotions, questions, or interest, and convey something important about the book.

Laurie Edwards was a fun speaker. She did a seminar about “Adding Emotion to the Page: Surefire Techniques to Connect with Readers” as well as a seminar about “Information Dump or Dramatic Flashback? Using Back Story the Right Way”. She had us do some very intriguing exercises in each seminar that really drove her points home.  She told us a story about a conversation she had with someone who asked what she did for a living, to which she answered that she is a writer. The other person asked a few more questions, one of which Laurie answered with, “My characters talk to me.” After a pause, the person she was speaking to said, “They don’t really, do they?” We all laughed. Non-writers just don’t understand those of us who write.   🙂

There were also seminars on marketing, social media, organizing your WIP for effectiveness, and how to turn your life into award-winning fiction. I was not able to attend any of these seminars.

At these conferences, several seminars run at the same time and you have to choose the ones you believe will be most helpful to you where you are currently at in your writing. However, I did pick up a book about marketing and one about social media. I can always read and study on my own. I actually do this a lot. There’s something to be said for being “self-taught”. Some of the most successful people in history were “self-taught”.

Have you ever been to a writers’ conference? What was your favorite thing about it?

Increase Your Creativity

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Saturday, February 24th, I went to a writers’ retreat at one of my writer friend’s home. It was with a group of ladies whom I got to know through Lancaster Christian Writers. We always begin with a devotion and opening prayer. We follow that with a creative writing exercise, which, besides the free writing time, is my favorite part of the retreat because someone leads a creative writing exercise, and they have never failed me. They have always gotten my creative juices flowing and given me a wonderful day of writing.

Of course, lunch is always fun, too, because we get to know each other better and share lots of things about writing, healthy eating, and our lives in general.

Anyway, back to the creative writing exercise. This time, Mandy led the creative writing exercise, and she played three different pieces of music, one at a time, for a few minutes each, and we were to just listen and let our imagination flow and write whatever the music brought to our creative minds. I totally LOVED this exercise because I’ve always really enjoyed music, but I’ve never used it with my writing. But this exercise really worked.

The three pieces of music were all quite different, and have given me three new story ideas; not ideas for full-length novels per se, but they could very easily show up on one of my Friday posts as either a flash fiction or short story.

And, even though each of those gave me three completely different story ideas, it put my creativity in high gear and even helped those juices flow into my work-in-progress!

Therefore, if you ever feel stuck or think you’re suffering from the dreaded writer’s block, try listening to some music and start writing whatever thoughts, actions, scenes, etc. that start going through your mind.

By the way, these were all instrumental pieces.

So, if you’re a writer, I know you’re probably an introvert, as most of us are, but I highly encourage you to step out of your comfort zone and attend a writer’s retreat, critique group or conference at least once because I am sure you will find value in it, and it’s always fun to connect with others who share your struggles and/or successes; who have things in common with you.

Writing Flash Fiction

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I hope many of you will or have checked out last Friday’s Flash Fiction story here on my blog. Writing flash fiction helps to strengthen a writer because you have to be able to tell a story in as few words as possible, so it helps writers learn how to really tighten their writing. Writing flash fiction also allows writers to explore other genres. All writers tend to write one or two genres of long fiction, but often wonder what it would be like to write a different genre, or just want to play in another genre, and flash fiction is the perfect outlet for that.

I’ve been writing the Flash Fiction Friday posts for almost a year now, and in all honesty, I have been disappointed that more people haven’t “liked” or “commented” on my flash fiction posts. As a writer, I really want to engage my readers, and I really want to know what you like and/or don’t like because that also helps me be able to improve my writing.

When I first began writing my Flash Fiction Friday posts, I did so because I saw them on Melanie Noell Bernard’s blog (she doesn’t do them anymore), and decided I wanted to try writing flash fiction too. I even left some comments on her flash fiction blog posts to which she responded to encourage me and offer me some tips. She, however, liked to leave her endings open, allowing readers to use their own imaginations to finish the story, which I thought was kind of cool.

However, friends and family, who have read my flash fiction posts and spoken to me about them face-to-face, have expressed dissatisfaction with incomplete endings. Then I began to run out of ideas for flash fiction posts as well. So, I did a little online research about flash fiction, and what I have read is that the actual rules of flash fiction say that flash fiction is to be a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end.

I’ve also been reading a friend’s blog, who has been writing flash fiction posts all centered around an interesting character she has created. Each flash fiction post is, indeed, a story in itself, but continues to follow the lives of this one character and his coworkers, and often, new, minor characters are introduced in one particular story.

Therefore, after studying more about flash fiction, I decided to try to try writing flash fiction that follows the rules, but I struggled for ideas, and I thought that if I could come up with an interesting character, like the friend mentioned above, that I could write flash fiction stories about, I might be able to come up with some good, fresh material. I continued to think about it, and I suddenly got an idea.

So, I have created a character who had her first adventure last Friday, and each week, she will have a new adventure. I hope you will read about Amelia Merchant and her adventures and don’t be afraid to leave comments telling me your thoughts. I welcome them!

A Productive Writing Activity and a Great Writing Resource

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If you are a writer, do you have a tribe? I do. I actually have a few and each of them is important to me. So, what do I mean by a tribe? Well, there are the two writing groups that I am a member of – one national and that tribe is almost all online and is useful for contests, helpful advice and tips, and some good critiquing; the other group is local and it’s great for connecting with other writers and learning new aspects of the writing craft on a monthly basis. Then there’s the critique group that meets every other Tuesday and that’s where I get lots of good feedback on my writing. But the tribe closest to my heart is a small group that I kind of grew on my own. I just shared with a couple of friends that I was writing and they asked questions and were very interested in writing as well. As we talked, we decided it would be a great idea to form our own group similar to C.S. Lewis’s Inklings group, and so we did. We meet once a week to just write, although we often share ideas, brainstorm together or ask each other’s opinions of something we’ve written.

The most fun thing that we do, though, is, we pull an all-nighter once or twice a year. That means we get together on a Friday evening and spend the entire night writing or doing writing related things. This past Friday night we did that and I prepared and scheduled four blog posts and revised and edited four chapters of my WIP, pretty much starting one of those chapters all over. I wrote over 1,000 new words on my WIP.

Now, for a great writing resource: if you do not subscribe to Writer’s Digest Magazine, I highly recommend it. I recently received my February 2017 issue and there are some great articles on ways to “Get Organized, Be Productive”. There are a couple of fascinating articles about some really good authors and so much more.

I have written the following quotes on index cards to post in my writing area to encourage and inspire me, and they came from the February 2017 Writer’s Digest Magazine’s articles:

“The job of the writer is to ignite a fictional daydream in the brain of the reader and then step away and become invisible so the story becomes the reader’s own. You don’t want them to even know you are in the room.” — Archer Mayor

“I have multiple goals to achieve in each paragraph. Sometimes it’s clarity, sometimes humor, content or giving the reader nuts-and-bolts information to take away.” (You can add or change any of these to fit your genre.) “I am trying to write the best-written __________ book the reader has read all year long.” (Fill in the blank with your genre.)                                                                                        — Archer Mayor

“There is no bad writing. There’s only writing that needs more revision. When staring at the incoherent shambles of an early draft, wanting to pour gasoline on my laptop and set it afire, I tell myself this and get back to revising.”    — Eric Scott Fischl

Good stuff, right? Every issue is packed with stuff like this!

Update on My Writing

/ kellyfbarr / 5 Comments

Yes, I’m skipping Flash Fiction Friday again this week. I’m sorry. I’m struggling with my writing right now, and here’s why:

I entered part of my novel in a contest that I felt was a worthwhile contest with a prestigious organization. I didn’t make it past the first level of judges, but that doesn’t bother me.

So, what does bother you? You may ask.

What bothers me is the fact that one of the judge’s feedback can be completely tossed out the window because the judge micro-focused on one thing that I had my character do that this judge felt was unacceptable without knowing how or if the character’s action would be redeemed by the end of the story,  and this judge ranted about it for most of the feedback and gave me a ridiculously low score because of it.

Now, I am not one who gets my feelings hurt about my writing very easily. I have learned how to be thick-skinned. I have been having people critique my work for two years. No, not this same manuscript. This is my second attempt at writing a novel in two years. The first one became trash when I tried to add 15,000 words to it in 30 days and it became so much of a mess, I felt it was just better to put it away and chalk it up as a learning experience.

The thing is, the other two judges who judged this same piece gave scores that were more closely related, and closer to what I figured I may score. They also offered some constructive criticism and neither of them mentioned the one thing the other judge couldn’t shift his or her focus from. I also had two different critique groups critiquing this WIP for months, and I have been working hard on revising and editing as I continue to work on the story itself, and I know that I have improved. Many of my critique partners have also pointed my improvement out.

However, the two judges who gave me worthwhile feedback made some good points; points that a couple of other people had also mentioned, which is a good thing.

So, you repeat, “What bothers you?”

What bothers me is how HARD writing is! So, if you are a newbie, be sure you understand WRITING IS HARD WORK — at least good writing; writing that readers will want to read; writing that you put your blood, sweat and tears into because YOU WANT TO BE THE BEST WRITER YOU CAN BE, not just a writer who writes a story and self-publishes without having anyone edit or critique the story just because they can. No, I WANT TO BE THE BEST WRITER I CAN BE, so I’ll be rewriting chapter one A-GAIN, and probably making a lot of changes throughout as I strive to complete this manuscript; to make it a story that READERS WILL WANT TO READ.

So, that means that this story will take me much longer than a year to complete. Yeah, NaNoWriMo may say you complete a novel in a month, but I got news for you, that’s just the ROUGH DRAFT! Then come the critiques and edits, at least one of the edits should be a “self edit”, and the critiques should be done by people you know and trust who know about writing. Then you should have an actual editor edit it and this all leads to MULTIPLE REWRITES! Then, if you really want your manuscript to be the best it can be, you send it to Beta Readers for feedback, and then revise and rewrite one more time! And then, if you’re lucky, it will finally be the best it can be and you can then publish it.

And, no, I did not participate in NaNoWriMo. Maybe some day I will, but right now, I have enough hard work to do on my writing without having to meet daily writing goals to finish a novel, that won’t be publishable in a month anyway.

How about you? Have you learned that WRITING IS HARD? Do you keep writing anyway? Have you done NaNoWriMo and what was that experience like?