Getting Your Work Out – In the Wrong Place?

Note: My apologies for not joining the great discussion last week with the great readers who commented on my blog. It was my birthday and I was playing hooky all day – a movie, a delicious pub lunch with my Honey followed by the most amazing gelato I’ve ever had, then buying lots of chocolate cookies to share with my class that night. Thanks for your comments! I promise to be better about answering today!  {grin}

Last week I encouraged you to get your work out to someone, somewhere. The idea was to start small with people who could help you build your confidence. That’s what I did when I joined the Tempe Christian Writers Club when I lived in Arizona. That was the very first time I met with other writers or let other people read and critique my work. Everyone was supportive and friendly and helpful. But eventually I found a few novelists in the group and we all seemed to gravitate toward each other. The comments from the authors of magazine articles and devotional books (eventually) didn’t seem to help as much as the comments from other novelists. Before long we quietly created our own group.

Over the next year or two, my writing improved dramatically. The new group was proving to be a learning success for all of us. But it had its drawbacks as well. After a certain amount of growth, there were times when we felt we weren’t helping each other much at all. At one point, a good friend told me she couldn’t critique my work anymore. She thought I was a good writer, but she just couldn’t get past my chick lit subject matter to enjoy the work enough to feel she was giving me a good critique. I was so grateful! My friend was trying not to change my “voice” but simply didn’t like the style of writing. I thought choosing not to critique my work for those reasons was the nicest thing she could have done – and we’re still friends.

Soon I joined the Romance Writers of America and felt a little like I’d come home.    The vast majority of my new friends understood my writing and I understood theirs. We knew how to help each other. Again, my writing improved in great forward leaps! After a year or two, I felt I’d reached that good-but-scary place where the only thing that was really going to improve my writing at this point was more writing.

Fast forward several more years to present day. I still believe that (almost) the only thing that will improve my writing is more writing. But there are some things I’m trying to do, some things I’m trying to say, that I wanted some guidance on. I enrolled in the Master of Arts in Creative Writing program last month and I’m giddy with excitement and enthusiasm!

However…

I’m once again in a place where not everyone gets me. Now I have to focus on listening to my classmates’ comments through a lens of wisdom. If I can tell that they enjoy my style of writing, I listen to all of their comments and try to figure out how to make my piece tighter, better. If I can tell that they really don’t get it, I listen to all of their comments and try to figure out what is useful. For instance, last week no one understood that Joe was having a vision of sorts of something that was happening now. Most people thought it was a memory, or they were just plain confused about what was going on. I need to change that to make it more clear. A few people liked the comic book similarities – good, that’s what I was going for. A few people didn’t like the superheros idea and didn’t like the costumes. Well, I’m not going to change that, but I am going to look into how I can describe the costumes a little better to make it more interesting.

Do you see what I’m trying to do?

It’s not easy. I really have to go into these workshop sessions with a good night’s sleep, leaving any of the day’s baggage at the door. I need to focus on improving my work, not on who likes it and who doesn’t, and not ignoring those who don’t care for my style.

I hope my example has given you food for thought when you take or send your work out and then are evaluating the feedback. If you have any other thoughts on this, please share them. I really want to see all of us improving in both our ability to take a critique and in our ability to give quality feedback.

Happy Writing!! 

School Notes:
Let me just say, now that the last day of the “drop” period is over – Oh. My. Gosh. I am so freakin’ exhausted. How did I ever think I could just drop a full-time master’s degree program into my life?! I just found out last night that I have another class presentation to do next week that I totally forgot about. My every-other-day runs are down to once or twice a week now. Other things I used to do more often are also down to once or twice a week – and I’m still behind in my homework.

BUT… take the grades part out of the equation, and I have to say – it is so worth it! I am learning new things, forming new opinions, trying things I never would have tried (if you’re interested, I’ve got to share the funny exercises we did last night), and reading things I never would have read. Did you know that people have written whole novels in verse?? I mean recently, not Beowulf. And the paper that is due tonight (eek!) is so interesting that I may do some revisions and see if I can get it published in some kind of writer’s periodical. I’m comparing 19th century realism to the argument in today’s romance and women’s fiction to portray life a little more realistically. I’ve gotten really interested in what I thought could be a dry topic.

Thanks to all of you who wanted to know more about all this! The very act of writing this section for you right now has reminded me that despite the stress and tremendous effort, this whole amazing journey is so worth it!