More Helps

Wednesday I started with some things that help me with my writing. Now, I want to finish that list.

5. GET A GOOD CRITIQUE GROUP. This is very important to me. I have two critique groups. One is with four other ladies who are writers, one a published author, who are members of the Church of Christ. We are scattered all over the United States. I live in Tennessee, one lives in Missouri, one in Texas, one in Alabama and one in Georgia. We have been silent for a few months, but I am ready to get started with it again.

My other critique group is a group of four ladies who are all members of ACFW. We try to critique more often. They are fun women and I have learned to love them dearly.

6. READ your chapters out loud. Why? There are several reasons. You will know how it sounds and I always catch a lot of mistakes. I try to read it with the same thing in mind that a reader would who is reading it for the first time. There are readers on the internet, mechanical reader programs. I have one, but seldom use it because it is so monotone.

7. LISTEN. That is a hard one for me. I, like everyone else, want it my way. When you listen to what a critiquer or lecturer says, you have the option of taking their advice or not taking it. Usually, I take it. There are some times when I do not because I know the point I want to make. But if I listen, I am hearing what a reader will say or react. If a sentence is hard for my critiquer to understand, then my readers will have the same problem. If my critiquer says I am chasing rabbits, then the reader will think the same thing. Don't accept the critiquer as criticizing your work, they are only trying to help. If I don't listen to a critiquer, how will I ever listen to a publisher? If I don't listen to a publisher, my work will never be published.