community

Five Reasons Not to do NaNoWriMo

November 3, 2018 By Jo Eberhardt 17 Comments

We’re three days into November. Or, as many of think about it, three days into National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

Cathy wrote a great post yesterday about trusting your gut during NaNoWriMo. Today I thought I’d write a post about the reasons you shouldn’t do NaNoWriMo at all.

Now, to be clear, I secretly love NaNo. I’ve done it sporadically over the last couple of decades, and I absolutely love the concept of it. I just think that if you’re doing NaNoWriMo for the wrong reasons, it may do more harm than good. So let’s get into it. Here are the top five reasons you absolutely shouldn’t do NaNoWriMo.

(Note: The first year I participated, I started on the 8th of November, so if you haven’t started yet and you think you’d enjoy the experience, it’s definitely not too late!)

1. Because it will be easier to write my novel when I’m part of a group.

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10+

It Takes a Village

October 17, 2018 By Kathleen McCleary 17 Comments

Last week in the creative writing workshop I teach, one of the students shared her latest short story with the group. None of these kids—ages 13-17—know each other outside our class. They all attend different schools. One is an outgoing 6’5” 17-year-old rower who loves fantasy fiction; another is a shy and brilliant 14-year-old who writes realistic fiction about the terrors of high school. Anyway, we all read Riya’s story and one of the students immediately said, “I love this. This story is just CLASSIC Riya.” And I thought, Bingo!

My thought wasn’t a response to the student’s comment; it was a response to the meaning behind the comment—I know you, I know your writing, you have a voice that is only yours, I get you. It was the validation we all hope for—to be seen and heard and understood. It was also affirmation that our little workshop of 6 (including me) has become a real community, a group of people who are working hard, making themselves vulnerable, challenging each other, and rooting for each other’s success as much as their own. It took me many years to understand the important role of community in my writing, and I couldn’t have written—let alone published—any of my novels without the various writers, readers, students, teachers, friends, and family who make up my communities.

Here’s what I love about my writing communities:

A community keeps you honest. I wrote half of my first novel sitting alone in my house without showing it to a soul. I had no idea what I was doing or whether or not it was any good and I was stuck. So I took an online novel-writing class. Every week, the instructor and seven or eight other students read whatever chapter I posted. I was warmed by the positive feedback—they liked it! They really liked it!—but they also pointed out that the reason I was stuck was because I had taken the plot in a direction that was way too complicated, difficult to follow, and didn’t make a lot of sense. It was hard to hear, but it was also true. It gave me the courage I needed to delete the chapters that didn’t work and forge ahead in a new direction. Now I’m in a critique group with four other published authors. We genuinely like each other and admire each other’s work, but we also tell the truth. When one writer showed us the climactic chapter of her crime thriller we congratulated her on getting the book done, then pointed out the flaws that made the chapter totally implausible. We hashed out all the reasons it didn’t work. She was embarrassed (she’s a pro who had published four novels by then) but also agreed. The next week she rewrote the chapter with a brilliant, unexpected twist that couldn’t have worked better.

A community keeps you going. Have I told you about the hell that was my second novel? I’m sure I have, because I’ve told just about everybody. I struggled to write it and rewrote it and rewrote it and despaired and it took me YEARS. But my community—in this case, my Fiction Writers’ Co-op, a private Facebook group of 50 writers—kept me going. I would post about whatever roadblock I encountered—I don’t know who this character is, my agent read a first draft and hates it—and friend after friend in the Co-op would respond with words of encouragement, tales of their own nightmare novels, and a steady belief that I could do it. I didn’t believe I could do it, but they did, and that was enough to get me through.

A community understands what a difficult, crazy life this is. [Read more…]

MFA + DIY: An Entrepreneurial Take on the MFA Debate

August 3, 2017 By Guest

Please welcome Gabriela Pereira, author of DIY MFA: Write with Focus, Read with Purpose, Build Your Community, to Writer Unboxed today! Gabriela is a writer, speaker, and entrepreneur who wants to challenge the status quo of higher education. As the founder of DIYMFA.com, her mission is to empower writers, artists and other creatives to take an entrepreneurial approach to their professional growth. Gabriela earned her MFA in creative writing from The New School and teaches at national conferences, regional workshops, and online. She is also the host of DIY MFA Radio, a popular podcast where she interviews bestselling authors and publishing industry experts.

Today, she revives the MFA debate here at WU. In her words:

For the past eight years, I’ve dedicated my life to studying how writing is taught and learned. While I do believe the traditional MFA or typical workshop model we find at most writing schools can work for some writers, these pedagogical approaches are not universally effective. I believe that when writers take an entrepreneurial approach to their professional growth and education, they set themselves up for learning that gets results and helps them reach their goals.

You can learn more about Gabriela and DIY MFA on her website, and by following her on Facebook and Twitter.

MFA + DIY: An Entrepreneurial Take on the MFA Debate

It’s back-to-school season, and like every year, thousands of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed writers are flocking to academic campuses around the world, searching for that golden ticket that will turn them into authors. This ticket, of course, is the Master of Fine Arts (or MFA) and it is perhaps the most over-priced and un-useful degree in all of academia. I should know: I have one.

When I graduated with my MFA, I didn’t feel as though I learned anything in that academic environment that I wouldn’t have been able to learn in another context. My concerns with the traditional MFA are not just ideological or economic, but also pedagogical. There’s a lot of debate around the advantages and disadvantages of the MFA, but rarely does anyone talk about curriculum.

Over the past eight years that I’ve spent developing writing curricula, I’ve discovered a linchpin, a core factor that can make (or break) a writer’s ability to learn and improve her craft. This is the entrepreneurial mindset, and it means adopting processes and systems from fields outside of writing (like tech startups) and using them to improve your craft. To learn more about how to take an entrepreneurial approach to your writing, you can download a free DIY MFA Starter Kit, but here are three techniques you can apply to your writing right away.

1. Use Iteration to Improve Your Writing Process. Most MFA programs focus on the workshop model: You write something, get feedback from your peers and an instructor, and then you fix it. The problem with this approach is that it assumes you have no problem getting words on the page. The workshop model might help you improve the words once you’ve written them, but it does nothing to help you with the first draft (other than that terror of missing a deadline).

This is where an iterative approach can help writers become more productive. Just as tech startups might beta-test a piece of software, then adjust it as they get feedback from users, so too can writers test and improve their writing process. Next time you sit down to write, treat it as a mini-experiment. Keep track of how long you write, and how many words you produce. Many writers already track their word counts, especially if they are participating in NaNoWriMo or working toward a deadline.

Instead of just logging your output, make note of other environmental variables as well. Were you writing at home at your desk or on-the-go? Was it in the morning, afternoon, or late at night? Was the environment quiet or noisy? As with any experiment, you will want to adjust one input variable at a time, so you’ll know which part of your process is having what effect on your output, and you will need to collect enough data so you can see a pattern emerge. I find that testing one input variable over 10-15 writing sessions is usually enough.

If you’re serious about making a career from your writing, you need to work on both the quality of what you write, and the quality of your writing process, so you can produce those words faster and more efficiently over time.

2. Read in a Way that Fuels Your Writing. Authors and writing instructors often say that to write well you must also read. But how do you do that without taking time away from your writing? This is where reading with purpose comes in. While I think there’s a time and place for reading for pleasure (it’s called vacation), I am also a pragmatist and firmly believe that you must read in a way that fuels your writing. This begins by choosing the right books.

There are four types of books you must read regularly: competitive books (i.e. comps), contextual books, contemporary books, and the classics. I recommend reading a minimum of three or four books in each category per year.

Competitive and contextual books relate directly to your own work-in-progress (WIP). The competitive books are ones that most directly “compete” with your current project. Knowing these comps is important both as you write your book and when you pitch agents or build your platform later on. Contextual books include anything that informs or lends context to your project. These could be books you read for research, but they could also be books with similar themes to your own.

Aside from reading books that are relevant to your current project, I also think it’s important to read a few recent releases and some classics. For these two categories, I recommend focusing on books in the genre of your WIP, so that you still build your reading around your current project. Keep in mind also that “classic” doesn’t necessarily mean “old,” and you can view a relatively recent book as a classic if it has shed new light on that genre.

3. Build Your Community and Assemble Your Circle of Trust. If you take an entrepreneurial or DIY approach you can assemble a circle of trust for yourself. Your support network needs to provide four things, and rarely will you find all of these in one person. The four components of a writer’s circle of trust are critique, accountability, support, and advice.

Critique is what people think of when they talk about having a network for their writing careers, but the other facets are equally important. Of course, your critique partners may also provide accountability and support, but that may not be true for all writers. Often your circle of trust may have many people filling different roles.

That iterative approach that you can use in your writing also applies to the reading and community pieces. Every few months step back and look at your reading and community. Ask yourself three important questions: [Read more…]

A Community of Debut Authors Unite to Help Each Other

April 22, 2017 By Guest

Please welcome Kate Brandes as our guest today! An environmental scientist with over 20 years of experience, Kate is also a watercolor painter and a writer of women’s fiction with an environmental bent. Her short stories have been published in The Binnacle, Wilderness House Literary Review, and Grey Sparrow Journal. Kate is a member of the Arts Community of Easton (ACE), the Lehigh Art Alliance, Artsbridge, the Pennwriters, and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. Kate lives in a small town along the Delaware River with her husband, David, and their two sons. When she’s not working, she’s outside on the river or chasing wildflowers. The Promise of Pierson Orchard is her first novel and debuts today!

Connect with Kate on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

A Community of Debut Authors Unite to Help Each Other

I’ve spent most of career, not as a writer but as an environmental scientist. Sometime in my mid-thirties I decided I wanted to try writing creatively. There was one problem. I’d never written fiction, nor had I studied creative writing, and I didn’t know anyone who wrote. I quickly sensed how vast an ocean I was learning to navigate and I was without a compass. If I was going to learn to write a decent story in this lifetime, I would need to build a writing community for myself.

I did that over ten years time. And building that community—people who are serious about writing and want to support each other—was probably the single most important step I took toward publication of my first novel, out this year.

Following the first few days of ecstatic bliss after learning my debut novel would be published, I felt a bit like I did a decade ago when I was just learning to write fiction—I had SO much to learn about publication. And this time I didn’t have a decade.

Luckily, shortly after my book deal was listed in Publisher’s Marketplace in early summer 2016, I received an email from a woman named Kellye Garrett, who, along with another writer, Mary Ann Marlowe, was starting a new Facebook group of writers with books coming out in 2017. Kellye asked me to join the group so we could share experiences.

Being a debut author is a bit like driving a newborn home for the first time. There’s so much joy and anticipation (of course), and it’s also a terrifying responsibility you feel ill prepared for. A new author must learn a whole world of marketing and book promotion in a very short time. Most unpublished writers have heard about this phase, but have paid little attention, since all energy has been spent on writing and finding an agent and publisher. [Read more…]

A Writing Group that Works

March 12, 2017 By Guest

Please welcome guest Judy Fogarty who lives, writes, reads, and runs on the historic Isle of Hope in her native Savannah, Georgia. She holds a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance and Literature from the University of Illinois and has served as marketing director for private golf and tennis communities in the Savannah/Hilton Head area, including The Landings on Skidaway Island, Berkeley Hall, and Callawassie Island. She is a devoted—even rowdy—tennis fan, as anyone who has had the pleasure—or displeasure—of watching a professional match with her will attest. Breaking and Holding is Judy’s debut novel. She is happily at work on her second, enjoying as always the invaluable support of her husband, Mike, and children, Colin and Sara Jane.

Breaking and Holding traveled a long, tedious road to publication with too many revisions and disappointments to count. The novel wouldn’t be in print today were it not for the wisdom, encouragement, and camaraderie of my writing group, The Savannah Scribes. Every serious writer deserves the same kind of unfailing support, and I’d love to help others find it.

Connect with Judy on Twitter and on Facebook.

A Writing Group that Works

One writing group. Four years together. Six women working in different genres. And since August 2016: three novels sold (two already published and the third scheduled for June); a non-fiction book deal signed with a major university press; an extensive essay published; and a memoir currently in submission to agents.

What factors have contributed to the success of the Savannah Scribes? Perhaps it’s one of our mascots: Penny Lane, a Pomeranian; Gussie, a Boston Terrier; or even Gus, a pig. Perhaps it’s brain-food: the homemade chicken and dumplings we love. Maybe it’s the mornings after our meetings and the emails we write, in which we sound like we’re gushing but are totally sincere in thanking each other for wisdom and feedback.

Though all of those are possibilities, here are a dozen other criteria that you may find helpful in sustaining, improving or establishing a writing group. [Read more…]