A to Z Challenge, Personal

Critique Partners

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Critique partners. I love mine.

Critique groups and critique partners are two different things. Each group, each person, has their own personality, their own set of pros and cons. I’ve been in terribad critique groups that actually sucked the life out of my writing (and out of me) and I’ve been in fantastic groups that inspired me to write and kept me constantly striving for improvement.

The most recent group I was in was a good one, and we used to meet in a local bar that had a popcorn machine. Like, a big popcorn machine, the type you see at movie theaters. Best of all, the popcorn was free so we’d meet for critiques and totally nom on the popcorn while we were there. It was a good group, small, (only four of us) but friendly and positive. Unfortunately, when you’re dealing with small groups, if even one person’s schedule gets changed you’re kinda screwed. That’s what happened to us, but though we no longer meet up weekly to critique each other’s work, we do get together occasionally just to talk, vent and hang out with a friend who knows what we’re going through in our writerly life.

Even without my group I still occasionally (okay, nearly always) want someone else to look over my work, to help me see the warts I’ve missed and polish up the pretty bits until they shine. On those cases I turn to my critique partners. I’ve had several over the years, and I’ve even paid for critiques (via charity auction) from some writers or editor’s whose opinions I respect.

I’ve received awesome critiques from a lot of people, I don’t want to start naming them because I’m sure to forget someone, just know that the list is long and filled with awesome. The #1 person I have turned to when I needed a critique over the past several years though, has been BD Wilson. We met in a critique group a few years ago and despite a bit of a rocky start (I certainly didn’t accidentally spoil a movie for her or anything, nope nope) we’ve become good friends. In our critique group we called her The Sledgehammer because that’s about how subtle her critiques are — but they are GOOD critiques. I’ve always envied how good her critiques are. Really. She has a skill, a way of figuring out what’s wrong with a story, and showing you in such a way that you can’t miss it, and you can usually figure out how to fix it. She’s made an awful lot of work for me over the years, rewriting, revising, totally scrapping things and trying them another way, but in the process she’s also helped to make me a better writer, and my stories far better than they would be without her.

Thank you, BD 🙂

The other fantastic person who regularily reads over my work and offers valuable feedback is Lauren. Lauren and I meet once a month to hang out, eat deep fried pickles (Okay, so maybe that part is all me, but zomg, so good!) and critique each other’s work. Honestly, even without the critiquing I would look forward to our meetings, because she’s a friend and a fellow writer, and as any writer can tell you, there is something incredibly energizing about hanging out with another writer. The whole “they understand you like non-writers can’t” thing is a little trite, and perhaps overblown, but it’s based in truth. Adding the wonderful social element to valuable critique though makes it a wonderful thing. Lauren doesn’t actually read the genres I write in (except for my work, of course) and I’ve come to find that is a huge, huge asset come critique time. She’s not just going to accept something I’ve written because ‘that’s how it works in fantasy books’ or ‘well, it’s a zombie, so um, yeah?’. It helps me to not only craft better stories, but to become a stronger writer too.

Thank you, Lauren 🙂

Do you have a favourite critique partner? What is it about their feedback that really helps you? Do you send them work as you’re going, or only when it’s complete?

I used to submit parts of works-in-progress to my critique group, but I quickly discovered that, for me, that was a very bad idea, but at least one member of our group used our feedback as we critiqued each of her chapters, to help her mold what was going to come next in the story.

Different approaches to critiquing and critique groups as a whole are interesting to me, I’d honestly like to hear about yours. Good or bad LOL

~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter C. Please pop by tomorrow when I’ll be talking about a super cheerful subject. D is for Depression. Wheee!

*The image I used in this blog post was taken by BD Wilson. I think that’s even a crit she did of one of my stories right there 😉

Just Stuff

Technical Note

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I noticed that several of my domains were down yesterday and contacted my host about it. Long story short, there was some sort of hardware failure on my server and blah blah blah…

The point seems to be that my domains are a little yo-yoish at the moment, and for some reason the images in my blog posts aren’t loading. Fun times.

My plan for right now is to wait and see if the images come back as the server stabilizes (or whatever) and if not I’ll replace them all.

*fingers crossed*

ETA: They aren’t coming back. Every image I uploaded in March is gone and needs to be replaced. Yay! (Um, that was a sarcastic yay. You knew that right?)

A to Z Challenge, Thoughts

Branding

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Branding. I suck at it.

What I’ve read about branding tends to emphasize the difference between you, as a person, and you as a writer or brand. I totally fail at making that distinction. I shouldn’t be surprised, really. Once upon a time I had a pen name, and I sucked at keeping it separate from my real name too.

When you’re trying to figure out your brand you’re advised to pick a few keywords (most places I read said three) that describe you and make sure you use them in all your bios and such, and make sure all your public posts (blog, twitter, facebook, whatever) from your professional account have to do with those things in one way or another. It makes sense, right? I mean, you want people to know what to expect from you and to stay focused. In theory, if you want to have a place where you share things that are off-message you could have another, personal Twitter account/blog/whatever for that.

In theory.

In theory my brand is all about writing, gaming and a little bit of crafting. That means it’s perfectly all right for me to include that picture of my main character in World of Warcraft up there (Obscenity the priest. She’s awesome.) and to talk about my writing, raids and video game crushes (Alistair from Dragon Age: Origins) on Twitter. Unfortunately, it also means that it’s not alright for me to share funny things my husband or daughter do, or complain about the scale not shifting in the right direction or whatever. I’m not okay with that. As soon as I’m told I’m not supposed to do something, guess what I want to do? Also, I’m not just about writing and gaming and crafting. I’m also about being a mom, and a wife, and going to school and Niteblade and, and…

What’s more, I totally don’t have time to get another blog or twitter account for sharing ‘personal’ things on, and I’d drive myself crazy with some things trying to figure out which account to share them from.

So… that’s why I fail at branding. Thus far I’m muddling through the whole social media thing anyway, though, and hoping enough people will be interested in ‘me’ that it’s okay I don’t have a solid focused ‘brand’. *Crosses fingers*

What do you think about branding? Do you have one? Do you care about other people’s? I’m really interested in hearing what you think.

~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter B. I hope you’ll stop by tomorrow when I’ll be talking about Critique Partners.

ETA: Since I wrote this I decided to try Robert Brewer’s Platform Challenge, so who knows, maybe I’ll get better at this branding thing 🙂

A to Z Challenge, Personal, Pictures, Thoughts

Atheist

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I was raised to be a Christian and it’s been pointed out that a fair amount of my work has a bit of a biblical flavour to it, but I’m an atheist.

My atheism definitely affects my writing. In fact, one of the reasons I write is because I want to leave something of me behind when I die. I have an amazing daughter I am insanely proud of, but, as much as it pains me to think it, she is also mortal. I want to leave something behind that will last. That is, for lack of a less cheesy and egotistical word, forever.

Sometimes I envy people who believe in a life after this and if I believed in God, or an afterlife, I’m sure I’d still write, but I’d lose this one motivation. I believe this lifetime is all we get, so I’m always pushing myself to make the most of it, to write something that will last beyond myself. Some people find that motivation from other places, but this one is mine.

Unfortunately that also results in a bit of a perfectionist streak which can sometimes be counter-productive, but mostly, mostly I think it helps push me to work on those days I’d rather just curl up in bed and wish the world away.

Mostly.

Do your religious beliefs affect your writing? For better, or for worse? I’m curious.

~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter A. If you find yourself with some extra time on your hands you might want to check out what my fellow participants are blogging about that begins with the letter A as well. I know I will be. I hope you’ll pop back again tomorrow when I’ll be blogging about Branding and how much I fail at it.

 

A to Z Challenge, April PAD, Goals, Poetry, W1S1

Lull Before the Storm…

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I don’t usually blog on the weekend. Hell, I don’t usually work on weekends period, but I’m making an exception today because today is the last day of sanity before the crazy that is going to be my April hits. Before I get into that though, I’d like to take a second to say yay. Yay! I am still on track with my Write1Sub1 goals. And also, thank gawd for Write 1 Sub 1. Without it to use as motivation I don’t think I would have produced any new material this month. But I did.

In March I continued to work my way (slowly) through the How to Revise Your Novel course with Twixt. I also started, then re-started a short (ghost) story. It’s going to require at least one more restart before I make it to the end, I think, but still… I also wrote several new poems which are currently resting before I go back and revise them next month and I revised two of the poems I wrote in November (O_o) and added them into my “submission pool” (for lack of a better description). That means I have 16 pieces all currently out looking for new homes. I made 10 submissions this month too, and if you’re paying attention that means you know I collected 8 rejection letters. Whee! LOL #trytryagain

Now, enough looking back, it’s time to look forward.

April.

April is going to be nuts, because I, apparently, am nuts.

In addition to everything I usually do I am going to be participating in three separate challenges. O_o I know, right?

First I’ll be doing the Blogging from A to Z challenge. The good news on this one is that I’ve got roughly half of my blog posts already written and pre-scheduled. That doesn’t mean I won’t have anything to do on those days though, because one of the more time consuming parts of that challenge is going to be visiting the blogs of other people who are participating. Also, I expect it to mean I’ll have increased traffic here, and I like to try to reply to all the comments on my blog, so… Yeah.

I’m also going to be doing the April Poem-a-Day challenge. I’m not actually interested in entering the contest portion of the challenge, but I want to write a poem to go with each prompt, ideally on the day the prompt is offered. If you don’t think that will be a challenge perhaps you weren’t aware that I’m still working my way through the prompts from the November 2011 Poem-a-Day challenge LOL

But wait! There’s more!

I also decided to check out Robert Brewer’s April Platform Challenge. I’m not sure how much of that challenge will be applicable to me because, well, I’ve never done a platform challenge before LOL, but it should be fun to find out.

So yeah… the crazy is going to start tomorrow. I hope the daily blog posts won’t drive you all away and I hope I’ll still be standing when May 1st rolls around.

Wish me luck, I’ll need it, and if you’re participating in any of those challenges with me, let me know. Company is always a good thing 🙂

Just Stuff, Personal

Month of Letters

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Month of LettersI participated in the Month of Letters this year. The idea was that every day in the month of February I would send something out to someone via snail mail. I know, you’re probably looking at the date at the bottom right corner of your screen, scratching your head and re-reading that second sentence. I know the Month of Letters officially ended almost a full month ago and I’m just doing a recap about it now but, the thing is, it’s still not over. Not for me. Not really.

I didn’t know who I was going to write in February so I posted on here, Twitter and the Month of Letters forums and said if you want me to write you, send me your address. And you did. A lot of you did. I wish I’d kept better records so I could say exactly how many of you gave me your address and your blessing to send you a letter, but I didn’t. I don’t actually even know how successful I was at doing the Month of Letters LOL.

I didn’t write everyday. I just couldn’t. However, I did write most days, and I think I made up for the ones I missed by writing two or three letters on some days. More importantly (to me) I wrote every single person who sent me their address. It took a long time, I had more addresses than there were days in February, but last week I mailed off the last letter I owed anyone from February (better late than never, right?).

Writing the letters was awesome. It gave me an excuse to buy schmexy papers and envelopes (always win) and when people wrote back it meant I got to meet new people. I feel like several of those people are going to become true and lasting friends. What’s more, it helped me connect with existing friends on a different and more real level than we previously had.

Writing letters is going to remain a very important part of my life from now on. It really is. Without sounding too flaky, I feel like regularily writing letters has been a transformative expirience for me. Writing to friends is like having a little conversation with them, except in my head and on paper (one of my new friends phrased it that way, I thought it was perfect) and it’s so awesome. In order to have that conversation I have to slow things down, focus on just what I’m doing. It’s not like writing an email where I might stop part way through to check Twitter, or where my attention is divided between four email accounts, the website I’m referencing and the open Word .doc I’m working in. When I write a letter, a real letter, that gets my complete attention. It’s relaxing, meditative.

I’m not doing a very good job of explaining, I don’t think, but it has helped me make real connections, both with other people and myself. I love it, and I have the Month of Letters to thank for it. Yay!

Do you write snail mail letters? Has your expirience been similar to mine?

If you haven’t written a letter in a long time, why not try it? Send me your address even (email, comment, whatever) and I’ll drop you a line to get you started 🙂

Rants / Venting, Thoughts

My Thoughts…

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For the past couple years I have made a very concerted effort to keep my politics and personal beliefs far away from this blog. It hasn’t been easy, I’m a pretty opinionated woman and I don’t excel at biting my tongue, but I’ve done it. I think that was a mistake. I think it was a mistake because maybe it’s people keeping their opinions to themselves (or in my case, off my blog) that allow horrible laws to be passed. Laws like the one that requires women seeking an abortion to “consent” to a transvaginal ultrasound. Are you kidding me? I don’t want to simply re-iterate what wiser people than I have said about this (people like Jim C Hines and John Scalzi’s guest blogger) but I can’t say nothing at all. In my opinion (oh how it hurt me to write those three words) that is rape. Period.

I am pro-choice but I really, truly, do understand the pro-life position. I do. And I respect that people who are pro-life honestly and truly believe that abortion is murder. I can imagine how difficult it must be for them to accept that there are women out there who are chosing to have them, but abortions are legal medical procedures. It is NOT okay to penalise a woman for having one and, as far as I can tell, that is the primary purpose this required ultrasound serves. At best it’s meant as a deterrent to abortion and frankly, it’s not the government’s place to provide that.

I tend to find phrases like ‘War on Women’ to be a bit hyperbolic, but then, when I go from reading about state-sanctioned rape to reading about proposed laws that would make it legal for employers to fire women for using birth control it makes me begin to wonder.

I recently read “The Heretic’s Daughter” and I was talking to Jo about it. I thought it was a wonderful book, but made me tense while I was reading it. Just watching how people could throw logic, common sense and rational thought out the window and be caught up in the whole witch-hunting hysteria was horrifying to me. “Sadly,” Jo said, “we’re not really that far removed from that even now.” Is he right? I don’t know. I am beginning to think maybe he is.

In what reality is it actually okay for a bunch of strangers (mostly male strangers) to mandate whether or not a woman can use birth control, or force her to have something shoved into her vagina? No, really. I want to know.

Nathan Crowder wrote a blog post recently called “Faith: A User’s Guide“. I read it, nodding my head the whole way through. Everyone ought to read it, especially lawmakers. The most important point that Nathan makes is that your personal beliefs are just that, personal.

Until people really and truly get that, we’ll continue to require people like Stacey Newman to keep making the ‘stay out of my uterus’ point. Stacey proposed a new law that would make it illegal for a man to get a vasectomy unless he could prove that it would save him from serious injury or death. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Well, that’s because it is (which is why she proposed it in the first place). Just like these laws focused on women. The main difference is that the vasectomy law will never come into being. I wonder why?

Hmm…

Guest Blogger

Guest Bloggers

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I mentioned a while back that I was going to try and have more guests on my blog, and I am, but so far I haven’t actually gotten around to organising that in any sort of proactive way. This post is meant to change that. I thought it might be nice to have one blog post I could point to when I ask on social media sites and the like for people to do a guest blog spot here.

One thing you should know is that I can’t stand blog posts, and especially guest blog posts, which are actually blog-sized book advertisements. They drive me bonkers. That’s not what I’m looking for here. Guest blogs on my blog can be about pretty much anything related to writing (there’s even some flexibility toward gaming and/or crafting as we’ve seen me leaning that way a bit these past few weeks) but they have to have some content other than ‘This is all about my book. Here’s the blurb for my book, and the cover for my book, and look down here, it’s the links for where you can buy my book!’. That is actually pretty much the only ‘rule’ I have, come to think of it.

You have to promote your book, of course you do, but don’t look at my blog as just a giant infomercial. Write a blog post like Jon Pinnock did, which is about his book (Mrs. Darcy Versus the Aliens) but relates that book to something else. Or write a blog entry like Charlotte English‘s, which was on a topic she truly cared for, and was well-written and interesting enough that you wanted to follow the link to her own blog at the bottom of it.

I am happy to do guest blog exchanges if that works out better for you, but it’s not a requirement, I’m very happy to share your words with my readers either way.

For my part I promise to do what I can to make sure the greatest number of people possible see your post. My readership isn’t huge, but it’s growing. I’m happy to share more details via email if you’d like, but I don’t want to post them here because then it would be extra work to keep them up-to-date. In addition to the traffic I receive here directly, this blog is mirrored onto LiveJournal. I also tweet about each blog post (usually twice) and those tweets are mirrored to my Facebook account. Yay mirrors!

If you’re interested in making a guest appearance on my blog, for whatever reason, just let me know. There are loads of ways to contact me. A comment here, on on my LJ, a message on Twitter or Facebook, or good old fashioned email (rhonda@jofigure.com).

Finally, in case you were curious about my choice of photograph… I’ve been trying to include a photo with every blog post, but I didn’t have a clue what to put to go with this topic, so I just picked a picture from my Flickr account that I liked. It’s my blog, I can use random photos if I wanna :-p

Just Stuff, Personal, Pictures

New Plan

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Yesterday I blogged about my quilt, the one my mother made me when I was teeny tiny. By the time I’d finished that blog entry I had pretty much talked myself out of getting rid of the quilt but if I hadn’t the response I’ve received on my website, Livejournal and privately would have changed my mind.

To everyone who commented or contacted me anywhere, thank you. Really. You’re awesome.

I want you to know that I’ve got a new plan for dealing with the quilt. I’m going to cut the ties out and take the backing and batting out. I’ll applique something (I have a few ideas 😉 ) over the big holes in the top and then re-quilt it.

To everyone who asked, yes, I am a quilter too, and I’m not bad (you can see some of my work here). When I said I lacked the skill to fix it, it was because, for some reason I was completely focused on fixing the quilt as a whole. Once I realised I could get rid of the back and batting and simply “patch” (haha) the top it became clear this is a job I could handle.

And who knows, maybe next time it needs fixing my daughter will take care of it adding her own personal touch to it, and then maybe my grandchildren…

Yeah, I’m getting a little ahead of myself here, but I think the point I wanted to share is that the quilt is safe. Thank you SO MUCH for caring. Truly. I will update this blog with progress as I make it, but there are a few projects ahead of this one on my crafty to-do list so it could be quite some time.

seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew

O_o I got up to answer the phone and when I came back my cat (Absinthe) had typed that. Since it was on topic I decided to leave it. In case you’re viewing this somewhere the formatting is weird, that says sew… more or less.

Personal, Pictures, Random Fact, Thoughts

A Little Story…

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I want to tell you a little story.

See this?

This is my quilt.

It’s also my cat.

That’s Eowyn. You’ve met her before, but this story isn’t about her, she just happened to be on the bed and unwilling to move when I took the picture about the real star of this tale:

My quilt.

My mother sewed it for me when I was little. I’m not sure exactly how young I was, but I don’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t have it, so I’m going with very young. It’s king-sized and she sewed it out of squares of fabric she’d cut out of clothes (I assume it’s clothes people had grown out of).

When you consider that I was born in 1976 and I’ve had this as long as I can remember, you probably wouldn’t be surprised to hear a lot of that fabric is polyester. There’s some cotton, some denim and even some fabric I’m not sure what it is, but there’s a whole lot of polyester.

The backing was a flannel sheet, and there was loads of stuffing. My mom hand-tied that beast meaning that at every point where the squares meet she pulled wool through and tied it to bind all the layers together.

My quilt is freaking heavy. It’s even heavier when you’re a kid, but I loved it then as I love it now. I would drag that thing across the lawn to lay it out for a picnic or drape it over chairs or tables to make the most secure fort you can imagine. When I’d have nightmares I would duck beneath it, growing sweatier by the moment but also safe, secure beneath its weight.

When we moved to the country you might think I’d be smart enough to leave it indoors, but you’d be wrong. That quilt has been through fields and corrals, it has hosted tea parties and listened to whispered teenage secrets.

I know it like no other object in my life. I’ve spent countless insomnia-filled nights counting the squares, playing with the wool ties or looking for a pattern in amongst the chaos. I know the texture of each block and I have favourites among them.

Sadly though, the quilt has seen better days.

It’s worn and strained. The backing sheet is threadbare beyond words, stained and tired. Polyester being nearly immortal those squares are fine up top, but the rest are giving up the fight. The batting is also a mess, spread bare in some places and clumped up in others. There are holes big enough to stick my fist (or my foot) through.

The quilt has spent the last four years or so in my closet, waiting while I tried to figure out what to do with it, how to restore it, how to save it. Recently I was forced to admit that really, its time had come. There might be a way to painstakingly pull out all the damaged parts and add new ones in, but that is beyond my skill or the time I have to offer to it. I could applique stuff on over the big holes and put a new back on it, but… well, it wouldn’t be the same.

So I’m saying goodbye to my quilt. I pulled it out, I put it on my bed and we’ve been using it, sort of a ‘last hurrah’.

Then an interesting thing happened.

Jo was trying to get some work done and Danica and I were baking together and being a bit noisy so he took his books into the bedroom. He’d been in there for a while when suddenly he popped his head around the corner into the kitchen and said, “Hey, Rhonda, did you know that my tartan is all over that quilt?”

Sure enough, the plaid blocks all over my quilt, the one my mom made for me over 30 years ago, is Jo’s family’s tartan.

Just one more reason my quilt rocks.

 

…maybe I should try to find time to save it after all.

 

I write, I edit and I take a lot of naps.

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