In the comments section of my post on How to Critique Other Writers’ Work, a debate ensues. When using the sandwich approach (two slices of positive feedback with a glob of criticism in the middle), do the positive and critical parts of your sandwich need to be equal? If a manuscript needs a lot of [...]
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Tags: critique groups, critiques, polls, Writing, writing groups, wrting workshops
Posted in Craft of Writing, Editing, Publishing, Revision, Writing, You Tell Me • 9 Comments »
A post by my friend Sierra about her toxic critique group inspired me to remind people how to give critiques of other writers’ work in a writers’ group or workshop.
The sandwich method always works best: Start by saying something positive, followed by your constructive criticism, and then end with another positive comment. The reason for [...]
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Tags: creative writing, critique groups, Writing, writing groups, writing workshops
Posted in Craft of Writing, Editing, Revision, Writing • 7 Comments »
Many people think they never get writer’s block. They see writer’s block as this weird disease that only people like Hemingway got once they had published ten books and had run out of things to say. But almost every writer I know has days when she sits down at her computer and doesn’t want to [...]
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Tags: Editing, Publishing, writer's block, Writing
Posted in Editing, Memoir, Publishing, Revision, Writing • 7 Comments »
Last month, Rachelle Gardner over at Rants & Ramblings wrote a great post on what we give up as writers, which got me thinking about the things I give up every week so I can work on my WIP:
1. Sleep
2. Watching movies
3. Going on dates with my husband
4. Reading more
5. Making more money
6. Spending more [...]
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Posted in Memoir, Publishing, Reading, Revision, Writing • 8 Comments »
I met with a friend the other night who really thinks I need to start my book, a memoir titled Paris On Less Than $10,000 a Day, earlier, before I arrive in Paris, to give the reader a sense of who I was before I began modeling and how and why I got into modeling. [...]
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Tags: Editing, fashion, France, French, Memoir, modeling, models, Paris, Writing
Posted in Editing, Memoir, Revision, Writing • 17 Comments »
… to bring you some random updates. I think I need to post Random Updates more often, a chance to say all those things that don’t merit an entire blog post.
First up, my writing goals. As some of you know, four weeks ago I mailed my friend in Texas $1000 with a plan for her [...]
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Tags: deadlines, Editing, goals, memoirs, Publishing, Writing
Posted in Memoir, Publishing, Revision, Writing • 4 Comments »
Despite all my talk about stick-to-it-iveness, I have not done much writing in the past couple of months. I have lots of excuses—two small children, training for a half marathon, etc. But like Martha Borst says, you can have excuses, or you can have results. And I don’t want this revision to drag on all [...]
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Tags: deadlines, Editing, goals, Memoir, Publishing, revision, Writing
Posted in Editing, Memoir, Publishing, Revision, Writing • 13 Comments »
Even before the the James Frey debacle, we saw disclaimers in memoirs that let the reader know that time was condensed or that characters’ names were changed in order to protect them or that various characters were combined. When I first started writing my memoir, a few—ah hem—years ago, I was paranoid about inaccuracies. [...]
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Posted in Craft of Writing, Memoir, Publishing, Revision, Writing • 9 Comments »
I’m going to start blogging about the process of memoir writing, a process I have become all too familiar with these past – eh hem – “couple” of years. This week, I’ll talk about tense.
It’s a difficult decision whether to write your memoir in past or present tense. I wrote mine in past and then [...]
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Tags: autobiography, craft of writing, Editing, Memoir, Publishing, Writing
Posted in Editing, Memoir, Publishing, Reading, Revision, Writing • 15 Comments »
Last week, I was feeling really discouraged about revising my book. I’ve been working on this same book for SO long now (more than five years), and I’m dying to put it behind me on and start something new. I don’t feel excited about it. In fact, I mysteriously find very important things that I [...]
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Tags: Editing, goals, Publishing, revision, Writing
Posted in Editing, Publishing, Revision, Writing • 6 Comments »