Writing Weekend Report

Often the best part of a long-awaited event is the anticipation and excitement before the actual occasion. I’m so thrilled this wasn’t the case for our writing group weekend. We had an amazing time. 

Our group has been together for almost five years. In that time one has moved to Australia because of work, and another down to Christchurch. They skype into our critique meetings, and if either are in town for any reason we rearrange or add meeting dates. 

Like some others of the group, I hadn’t been to Christchurch since the big earthquakes, and I was interested to see what has happened since then. There were two things that struck me. One was the feeling of space. In the city centre a huge number of buildings were completely destroyed, or so badly damaged they were dangerous. Over time the rubble and buildings have been removed and while there is now building going on there are still many empty lots, hence the feeling of space.

Christchurch is flat, so it’s always been a little difficult to get your bearings, and when we first arrived in the city I wasn’t sure where I was until we came to Cathedral Square. Suddenly everything slotted into place, and I was utterly shocked at the change. Yes, I was expecting it as I’ve read a lot about the work and changes going on and friends had told me their reactions, but nothing quite prepares you for seeing something yourself.

The other aspect you notice is the ingenuity shown by people. We often glibly say that life has to go on, and it does. You need somewhere to live and if your business premises are destroyed you still need to earn money. Much of the city centre and shops were destroyed and in their place is the Container Mall. Amazing!

 

Really glad to see a bookshop.

After the city centre we visited Sumner and Lyttleton, both badly damaged in the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 on our way to Diamond Harbour. 

The sightseeing was both sobering as well as fascinating, and we also had an opportunity to talk with each other and catch up on news. In addition the weather was wonderful, a beautifully clear and hot Canterbury day.

This was the amazingly creative view from the house at Diamond Harbour.

Over the weekend we spent time on writing exercises and critiquing our current works in progress. As this was a weekend jaunt, we decided that everyone would have a critique rather than taking it in turn with two or three per meeting.

Our format is to email our extract (usually around 20 pages) to the group one or two weeks prior to the meeting. This means we are able to have a longer piece of work critiqued, and everyone has time to read and note comments before the meeting. However, as we were all having a critique this time, we agreed to a maximum of 5,000 words, which is still about a chapter of a WIP.

The weekend was such a success; we've decided to make it an annual event!

If you are part of a good writing group, I'd certainly recommend this kind of weekend. Here are some of the reasons why:

• We were fresher for giving and receiving feedback as we hadn't just finished work and struggled through commuter traffic. 
• We did some writing exercises rather than working on current stuff which gave us a different creative outlet.
• It was great to be able to talk about books, writing, publishing, marketing etc. without the other person's eyes glazing over within 30 seconds!

Next time we may decide to have it as more of a retreat with time for working on our own manuscripts, but whatever format it takes, I'm already looking forward to it.

A Writing Weekend

Today I'm flying down to Christchurch, which in itself makes it an exciting occasion, but the reason for the trip is that I'm spending the next four days with the other members of my writing group. We've been planning our own writing retreat/getaway for some time and it's finally arrived.

As a group we met about five years ago when we joined a writing class run by John Cranna of The Creative Hub. John founded the AUT University Centre for Modern Writing and designed the Masters Level writing course. I'd been considering applying for this course when in 2010 I discovered John had founded The Creative Hub and one of his initial courses was an advanced writing course. I applied to join and after submitting some of my writing, and then an interview with John I was on the course.

We met at the Michael King Writers Centre in Devonport each week for a year. It's a great place to meet with fabulous views over the Hauraki Gulf. John ran the meetings, but we also had some great workshops on specialist subjects by New Zealand writers and publishers. 

Some of the notable ones for me was one on dialogue by Roger Hall and an absolute standout by Judith White.

Judith's topic was writing with emotion without it turning into sentimentality or melodrama, and as usual there was a writing exercise to do with the topic. There are a huge range of emotions we could have chosen, but we all wrote about sadness on some level. At the end of each workshop we would share our writing and this one was no exception. It says much about the belief and trust we had in each other that we all shared what we had written even though it was very emotional. I don't think I've ever seen John so worried as he was when he returned towards the end of the workshop and saw that most of us had been crying.

The thing that made the course so special for me were the other eight participants. We write in different styles and genres, but as individuals and a critique group they are incredibly supportive and always give insightful and constructive feedback. Almost five years after that course, we're still together as a writing group and looking forward to spending time together.

What is Success?

Recently I’ve been considering how my writing goals have changed over the years. Like many people, I started writing the great novel. I got to about the 20,000 word mark, and realised my idea didn’t have the legs to be a novel. Around that time, I took a couple of writing courses and read a number of writing books. Through the courses, I met a small group of other writers who also wanted to be part of a critique group, and so I had the feedback I needed.  I left the 20,000 words of my novel behind, and started writing short stories. I really recommend this as a great start. It allows you to work through all those autobiographical stories and ideas in the short form without trying to force them into a novel, and you come out of the other side with new inspiration and characters to use, as well as improved writing and editing skills.

Short stories don’t take as long as a novel. You get to practice both the first draft and editing stages far more frequently.

After writing, editing, feedback and more editing, I began to feel I was improving, and so the writing itself wasn’t a big enough goal.

That was when I really started setting writing goals. Firstly, to send stories off to competitions. There were plenty of black holes when I never heard anything, or occasionally received a list of winners (my name being absent!). Mixed with that were a few modest successes. They were the highs, and on the back of those I changed my goals and sent stories to magazines. Later, there was the goal to write a novel – mostly to prove to myself that I could.

I gave this post the title What is Success? There is no definitive answer. Success is different to each of us, and it changes over time. 

What is your definition of success? 

BUT, the big question is - how will you know when you’ve reached it?

To know when we’ve reached our goal, we have to be able to measure it.

To say, I want to entertain people, isn’t specific or measurable. What do you mean? Do you want to read out loud to an audience? How will you know if your readers have been entertained? 

I recall reading a post from a writer outlining her goals, some of them were specific sales totals per month. At that time I was speechless (doesn’t happen often!) at her targets. I’m still a significant way from her numbers, but closer than I was last year.

Your goals will be personal to you. They might include a certain word count every week, sales targets, winning a competition prize, or a specific number of good reviews from people you don’t know. We have control over some of these goals, but others are out of our personal control.

Whatever way you envisage success, I think it’s important to know what you’re aiming for, and how close you are to reaching it.

Getting out in the world

Writing is a solitary occupation, whether it’s your full-time job or a hobby that takes over your evenings and weekends.

That’s why I think it’s important to get together with other people, but especially other writers. They understand when you talk about the voices in your head (no, not that sort, the other voices!), the problems you’re having with plot, and they understand the lift of a great review, without thinking you’re boasting.

The past week has been a good one in respect of time with other similarly-minded people. Mid-week was our writers group meeting when we critique twenty pages of a WIP from two members of the group. These meetings are good for so many reasons: feedback, motivation, and the camaraderie and trust we’ve built up over the past four or so years.

Over the weekend I attended several sessions at the Auckland Writers Festival and met up with some writer friends. The sessions were extremely educational and inspiring. This year I attended more non-fiction sessions than fiction; hence the educational comment, but I also thoroughly enjoyed the fiction sessions and especially one with Camilla Lackberg, the ‘Scandinavian Crime Queen'.

Writing is a solitary occupation, but if we don’t get out and meet other people where will we get those ideas and snippets of conversation to use as springboards of inspiration. Meeting with other writers reminds us we're not the only ones who suffer with plot problems/unruly characters/procrastination/lack of confidence/bad reviews/not enough reviews (tick all that apply!!).

Happy Monday and happy writing.

Mixing Business and Pleasure

This world of ours seems to get more frazzled and frantic on a daily basis, leaving us with less time to spend on what's important, if we let it.

It's often difficult to put work out of our mind and just enjoy the moment, as so many articles and magazines tell us to do.

Working full-time and writing novels doesn't make that any easier either (not that I'm complaining!), but this week I've managed to mix pleasure and writing business on a couple of levels.  

I have a number of writer friends, and at the moment I'm beta-reading a novel by one of them. Reading often feels like a guilty pleasure, as when I'm reading I think I should be writing, but this week I can tell myself it's work.

I also belong to a Writers Group and on Sunday we're having our monthly meeting. We usually meet mid-week after work, but this month we're getting out of Auckland and meeting at the home of one of our group who lives further afield. 

With this in mind, and because work has been especially frantic the past few weeks, I decided to take the opportunity of a weekend in Raglan. A great mix of downtime and writing, and with the two extracts we're critiquing I've had more reasons for reading!

Working on Autopilot

Earlier this week I had to go to a meeting at a client's office. I parked the car a couple of streets away and headed to their building. One of the roads I cross is a one-way street, although it has two lanes. While I knew the traffic was only going in one direction, I couldn't stop myself looking in both directions before crossing.

I suppose the childhood training of 'Look right, look left, look right again', is so ingrained I had done it automatically.

I lived in Germany for a number of years, and on mainland Europe they drive on the right. The first few weeks I drove in Germany I recall being in super-alert mode to avoid making mistakes after being so used to driving on the left, although I had a few close calls when crossing the street while walking.

After a short time, driving on the 'wrong' side of the road became familiar, and I settled back into auto-pilot mode. When I returned to England there was a similar period of time getting used to what had originally been the norm.

When we first learn something new it's arduous and takes a lot of effort, but the brain is very good at forming habits. Once it knows this task is something we're going to do on a regular basis, then habit takes over. Think back to when you first learned to ride a bike, or drive a car. Everything was difficult, so many things to take notice of and do, but after a period of time it becomes a habit. If the brain didn't work this way we'd be overloaded.

This function is very useful, but it does mean we can sleepwalk our way through life if we're not careful. 

There are lots of simple things we can do to increase brain activity and keep us alert. Try doing a few tasks with your non-dominant hand. For example brush your teeth with your left hand instead of your right, or for those of you like me, try using your right hand instead of your left. Simple exercises that involve crossing the hands over the body are good for engaging both sides of the brain, or the good old rub your tummy while patting your head exercise. When I taught computer applications, a good wake-up exercise was sitting on the office chair (one with wheels) and moving backwards on it.

This autopilot mode can also invade our writing. We miss plot holes because we're too close to our writing, or don't see things such as weak dialogue, too much description, characters that aren't believable, or any number of other things that might need work in an early draft. 

Last night we had a good meeting of the writing group I belong to. We haven't met for some time as life has interrupted us on a few occasions, and one of our members now lives in Melbourne and another in the South Island. This week Bron was up from the South Island for the RWNZ Conference and most of us were able to make the meeting. It also happened that I was one of the two members having writing critiqued. Our format is that we email the extract (about 20 pages) to the group one to two weeks before we meet, so everyone has time to read and note comments before the meeting. As it's been some time since we met, we also had a great catch up. 

It's so good to have constructive feedback. The others will pick up things I've overlooked, and they often have a different take on a scene, or see it in a way that I haven't. They read the extract both as writers and readers. This feedback is invaluable in the journey to turning early drafts into polished books.

Self-discovered Learning

Most of my non-fiction writing and work is in the Learning and Development area. In a recent article I came across this quote.

'The only kind of learning which significantly influences behaviour is self-discovered learning - truth that has been assimilated in experience.'  Carl Rogers.

Self-discovered learning isn't necessarily learning something on your own, it's the discovered element that is important.  For example, you're giving a presentation and want the audience to remember an important statistic.  It's pointless giving it to them.  Make them work for it.  Let them discover the information themselves.  It will remain with them for longer than you telling them, even if prefaced with the words - this is very important.

So how does this relate to writing?

I've blogged a number of times about the benefits of writing groups, and a couple of years ago I had an experience of self-discovered learning through the writing group.

At one meeting several of the group pointed out a number of places where I was 'walking the dog'.  If you've never heard of the phrase it basically means that you over-describe an everyday action, like making a sandwich or getting ready for work in the morning.  It's something that can be left out, or covered in a sentence.  

I knew all about 'walking the dog', I could see it in other writing, but that night it was as if someone had just removed a blindfold.  I looked at the extract and suddenly saw it in my own writing.  How could I have missed it before!

I was walking the dog.

It was an interesting learning experience, and I'm now aware of 'walking the dog' in a way I wasn't before.

Self-discovered learning - truth understood in experience.

How Do I Get Feedback?

Like many authors (or at least those I know), I own a lot of books on writing.  They cover such things as how to write a novel and writing craft basics, to those on specific craft topics such as character development.  I have tried many of the suggestions, discarded ones that didn't work for me, and learned a lot about the craft of writing.  I won't get rid of any of these books, but there is nothing like getting advice and feedback on your own writing to help you improve.

This can come in several ways:

• A group who meet to give feedback on submitted writing
• Beta-readers 
• Writing assessments/reports
• Competitions where a report or feedback may be part of the competition, or supplied for an additional payment.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you will know I belong to a writing group and have blogged about them before.  It's the second writing group I've been a part of, and both have helped my writing in many ways.

Beta-readers are people who will give you honest feedback, and who read a lot, preferably in your genre or area.  The difference between beta-readers and a writing group is that the writing group sees your work in various stages, and in smaller chunks. Sometimes a problem only becomes visible when someone reads your book from beginning to end.

Writing assessments or reports are very useful as you remove the friendship element.  The person writing the report isn't trying to spare your feelings or stroke your ego, though hopefully they will phrase the feedback in a constructive way.  The report should acknowledge what is good about your writing, and point out the areas that need work.  I'm a member of the New Zealand Society of Authors, and after finishing Driftwood I applied for one of the Manuscript Assessments available through the society each year.  I was fortunate to have my manuscript assessed by a published author, and her feedback was invaluable in a further edit.

I enjoy writing short stories.  There's something satisfying about creating a story in a shorter timeframe than a novel, and sometimes I write a short story for a specific competition.  Over the years I've received a number of feedback reports through competitions.  Sometimes there is an additional payment required, but I've also entered competitions which offer a sentence or two of feedback, written by the judge on the entry, included in the entry fee.  

In whatever form it takes, feedback is essential for writers.  We get caught up in our story and characters, and this makes it very difficult to be objective.

Writing Groups

Last night we had the first meeting of the year for our writing group. As it is summer here in the Southern Hemisphere we've had the long school holidays, and people generally away on holiday, and so we didn't have a January meeting (used the time to do more writing obviously).

One of the group has a 2 hour drive for the meetings, but other than that we are all (relatively) local to each other. However since we started the group, one has moved to Christchurch, and another to Melbourne - nothing we said in our critiques I'm sure!

Last night had a definite international air with our distant attendees skyping in for the critique part of the evening. Food, and a general catch up of summer holidays took up the remainder of the evening.

In other posts I've talked a lot about the benefits of a critique group in writing, and I can't stress enough the help I've received from the group. I've heard some horror stories of people who've had bad experiences in critique groups, but we're very fortunate with our group. Everyone is extremely supportive, and the feedback is always constructive and never personal - thanks guys you're great.

In case you weren't aware Smashwords is holding a 'Read an e-Book Week' from 4 - 10th March 2012, and Lives Interrupted will be half-price on Smashwords during that week.

Starting out

When I first started to take my creative writing seriously I decided to write a novel.  Hardly an original idea I admit!
I wrote about 25,000 words before realising my idea wasn't a large enough canvas for a novel.  
About that time two important things happened.  I attended a weekend writing course at Auckland University, and read an article which stated would-be novelists should cut their writing teeth on short stories. 
The premise of this advice is that much of our early writing is autobiographical and it is good to get through that stage in the form of short stories.  The second reason is that short stories are good vehicles for practising the craft of writing. 
I took this advice, and from the writing course found three similar minded writers and we formed a critique group.
For me it was good advice, and the feedback from the other writers was invaluable.  I must stress here that I don't think short stories are just a stepping stone for writing a novel.  They are wonderful in their own right, and I love reading a beautifully crafted short story.  However the advice in the article was good for me, and I wrote short stories for a couple of years before deciding to start a novel. 
I still love writing short stories, and am helped in this with the growing variety of short story competitions - at the moment I have details of competitions ranging from 25 words to 4,000. 
By the way I have since rewritten my original 25,000 words as a 7,000 word short(ish) story - so there was a lot of padding in the original. 

Writing Groups

For most of this year I've been part of the Advanced Writing Course run through The Creative Hub in Auckland.  Being part of a writing group is a must (in my opinon) for writers.  It's great having a group of other writers reading parts of a work in progress and giving insightful feedback, which the CHubbers always do.  
There are always those parts of your work you have a niggling feeling about, but just can't see what isn't working, and also the bits that you think are great, but others, not so close to the work, can see the gaping holes in the plot. 
Being part of this group has also allowed me to read great work from the other writers, some in genre's I wouldn't otherwise read.
For any writer who isn't part of a writing group I'd say, go and find one, or failing that, start one yourself.  It's brilliant spending an evening talking about writing and writers without boring everyone else in earshot.