Why you should join a Writing Group...

One of the many things I miss about the UK is Abingdon Writers and I'll tell you why. Being part of a critique group really forces you to think about what you don't like about a piece of writing. What doesn't make sense, what doesn't flow, what needs clarifying. It's lovely to have friends and family gush over your writing and assure that you're going to be the next J K Rowling or whatever but that's not at all helpful. Ego boosting, yes. Making you a better writer, no. Constructive criticism is what it's all about.

I was lucky enough to be part of a writers group that has just gone from strength to strength. From starting off as a bunch of writers who had never shared their writing with strangers, much less agents, to being a talented group of writers, some of whom have become agented and won nation-wide competitions! 

Even if you rarely read your work to your group, listening to the critiquing of other people's work can benefit your own writing enormously. So, someone in your group always gets positive comments on their dialogue - listen carefully to see how you can improve yours. Ask them how they write it, compare it to your own. Maybe someone else often has great concepts but struggles to portray them in words. Take note on what other members are suggesting for ways in which to fix that. 

Concentrate on what your fellow writers home in on so that you can know what readers (listeners?) pick up on. Give a book to five people and they will all have different takes on it, even if they're all readers of the same genre, but there will be something that they all loved. Something that they all agree worked really well - character development, dialogue, plot twists, use of language. The same will be true of your own writing and a writing group will help you to discover what it is you do really well (yay - ego boost!) and the other things that you need to get right.

Depending on the group, you may also find yourself a writing buddy and these are invaluable. These are the people you can email your manuscript to and ask them to read the whole thing. Cover to cover. And they will be honest with you. But in a constructive way. And you will do the same thing for them. They might write in the same genre as you (helpful) or be really good at grammar (great for submission time) or just be really solid at critiquing, picking up holes in your plot or mistakes in your character development.

Your fellow writers will also clue you in to competitions and other groups that you can join such as SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) in the UK or RWA (Romance Writers of Australia) in Australia. AND they will encourage you to enter said competitions, help you to get your piece ready and celebrate with you when you're long-listed, short-listed and win (or commiserate if you don't and then motivate you to keep entering competitions so that one day you will be celebrating).

Plus, seeing your fellow writers morph from 'amateur' status to being a 'real' writer with an agent or writing credentials like being long listed for competitions really gives you the shove up the bottom that you need. There's nothing like your comrades-in-ink getting on with it and REALLY pursuing their publishing dreams to persuade you to sign up too. Who wants to be left behind, not even on the slush pile but murmuring about the fourth book you've written, when everyone else is surging ahead, climbing the ranks, earning their writing stripes (I think I've exhausted that metaphor now)? Not me. I'm off to polish up that synopsis and make my query letter sparkling. 

And after that, I'm going to find a critique group to join. Maybe one that doesn't have quite so many shining stars in it...

 Huge congratulations to the following AW writers 

with recent and thoroughly deserved successes:

Sally Poyton- long listed for the Times/Chicken House  2013 Children's Fiction Competition (and for SCBWI Undiscovered Voices 2011)

Nicki Thornton - long listed for the Times/Chicken House 2013 Children's Fiction Competition

Marissa De Luna - Newly agented writer!

Christmas E-book Giveaway!

There's some really cool stuff going on in the blogging world - Christmas themed of course!

One of the best of these festive ideas is Sally Poyton's 'A book in every stocking' campaign. Having always been a bookworm (resulting in glasses at age 11 for overgrown eye muscles [or something like that, optical people, help me out!]), it is no surprise to anyone who knows me in the slightest that this is something I will enthusiastically get behind. 

 Credit: Sally Poyton

Lady M has almost as many books as me and she's only just hit the tender (tender? More like awe-inspiring in her capacity for creating disorder) age of 2. Still, the book gathering is slowing down due to the outrageous price of books here in Australia. *sigh* Can anybody explain why books are so extortionately priced here? Thank God for The Book Depository, I say....

I don't think, despite the above proclamations, that I have any books for Christmas but then, that's not really up to me, is it? That's up to my present givers.

However, I am partaking in the Christmas bookish spirit by giving away, thanks to the lovely Talli Roland, a Kindle copy of the wonderful Christmas Novella, Mistletoe in Manhattan. to one lucky commenter.

Credit:Talli Roland

All you need to do is leave a festive comment here in the next couple of days and I will literally pick a name out of one of Lady M's sun hats on Boxing Day so that the winner can curl up in a corner and read this charming and funny story whilst recovering from the excesses of Christmas Day.  

So, having exhausted myself trying to buy a 2kg ham (impossible apparently) and settled on roast beef for Christmas Day, I am off to wrap presents, make a Buche de Noel and drink rum-infused eggnog in preparation for a very (non) traditional Christmas Eve feast of cheesy, beany nachos with all the trimmings, cos that's just how we roll in this house. 

WISHING YOU ALL THE HAPPIEST OF CHRISTMASES - EAT, DRINK AND BE VERY, VERY MERRY!! 

Ali Shaw on writing groups and fairy tales

So, last night was the Abingdon Writers' event with the very lovely Ali Shaw (and his even lovelier wife, Iona). 

I must admit, I was a little worried it would be a bit of a flop, mostly because I've never organised an author event before and, as well as not having one friggin' clue what I was supposed to be doing, I've had rather a lot going on recently. In the end though, we had a pretty good turn out (thanks mostly to Mostly Books and their publicity drive) and I think it went pretty well. 

Ali was a very laid back, interesting speaker and we were treated to an impromptu mini-lecture on fairy tales and folklore which, with the recent Hollywood trend for fairy tales, felt very current and en vogue. In fact, Ali said he drew inspiration from Hans Christian Andersen for 'The Girl With Glass Feet' and traditional, mostly long-forgotten folklore for 'The Man Who Rained'.  Which, I must say, does show in his writing which is full of lyrical prose, beautifully imagined description and melancholy, damaged characters with more than a little fairy tale magic sprinkled throughout. 

Ali read some of his latest book - a segment which I think showcases his style and imagination perfectly. As I said on my guest blog over at Mostly Books, if you smile at the thought of sunbeams turning into canaries (and, really, you'd have to have a black heart not to), then Ali's books are for you!

We also managed to lure some audience members into hopefully signing up to join Abingdon Writers helped greatly by Ali extolling the virtues of belonging to a writing group. For me, it's the support and encouragement (and once arm twisting but I deserved that...) that is so incredibly helpful. Writing is, as everyone knows, a very solitary thing to do, so being able to talk to fellow writers going  through the same angst about a plot line or a character who just won't behave is really important for your sanity.  Plus, as Sally Poyton (an Abingdon Writer) pointed out - being part of a writers group isn't just for you, it's for your family and friends too. 

No longer will they have to fight the urge to tell you that they just can't care any more about whether your MC is being too whingey here or too bossy there. They won't have to smother the desire to tell you that they definitely do not want to hear the 88th re-write of your first chapter. And they won't have to pretend they've just gone through a tunnel on the motorway when you call them to harass them about finishing your 115,000 word manuscript and giving you some feedback (honest but only about the good bits please). No, you can delight your new writing buddies with all that stuff now. Hurrah for writing groups!