Tagged? Ok, so long as I don't have to run.

A while ago Bess over at It's the World Dear tagged me. (Hangs head in shame ... yes I know I'm bad at keeping up with these things.) So I have to answer a few questions and then - this is the fun part - I get to tag some others!

You're it!

What do you think of when you hear the word tag?
Running through long grass that's almost as tall as my six-year-old body and almost convincing myself I really am running for my life with my heart in my mouth the moment before I'm shoved from behind and someone yells, "Tag!"

Do you think you're hot?
No! Well I'm warm. The heater just came on and the vent's directly over my head. But my fingers are white and my nails are blue because I have very bad circulation. Oh ... that's not what the question meant? Never mind.

Upload a picture or wallpaper that you're using at the moment.
How bout I just give you the link. This is what my MC's love interest looks like in my head. I just discovered it a couple of nights ago and thought, "That's Jeran!" and had to have that picture on my desktop for ... err ... inspiration. Truly.

When was the last time you ate chicken meat?
I had crispy chicken sushi for lunch. It wasn't very good.

The song(s) you listened to recently.
Reflections by Tahuna Breaks. Listen and love. They're an awesome Kiwi band.

What were you thinking as you were doing this?
Oh crap, I wasn't paying attention. And now my brain is annoyed at me because I 'never listen'. Woops. I'm sure it wasn't important anyway.

Do you have nicknames? What are they?
I guess Sari could be considered a nickname. At least it's a shortening of my full name which is Sarindah. At school me and my friends were obsessed with Finding Nemo and I got called Squishy. And my dad calls me Seebs. Or Seebedybeebs. Or Seebedydeeebedies.

Tag 8 blogger friends...
1. Sarah Billington
2. Michelle Merrill
3. Barbara Kloss
4. Chantele Sedgwick
5. Lana Rosenbaum
6. Maggie Hall
7. Vicki Tremper
8. Kari Marie White


Who's listed as No. 1?
Sarah's blog I found randomly when I was looking for internships in Melbourne, and she just happens to have interned at both Black Dog Books and Ford St Publishing, both of which are very cool. She also has really insightful and interesting posts, and (!) I won a 10 page critique off her. But as you know I've got the beginning rewrite itch at the moment so she's being very patient with me.

Say something about No. 5
Lani's one of my publishing & editing classmates, and she keeps me company on the train on the long trip home from uni. We could talk for hours about books, and last time I went to visit her (for a Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants marathon - did you know there's a fifth book coming out?!) I almost missed my train because we were so engrossed in our bookish conversation.

How did you get to know No. 3?
Barbara is one of my fabulous critique partners. I love reading her story and getting to know her characters and world. Her writing life has had to slow down for a little while because she's just done a big move and taken on a new job. (Check out her blog for photos of her road trip with references to Middle Earth!)

How about No. 4.
I met Chantele in the Crusade, and we were in the same group. She is awesome, and she's got a super cute bug on her blog.

Leave a message for No. 6.
Hi Maggie! Thank you for being my awesome (I think I need a new word) CP and for keeping me accountable this month. I think we're doing well (even if we're not going to quite get to our goals). Your comments are always so spot on, and you've helped me to tell a better story.

Leave a lovey dovey message for No. 2.
Michelle, it's so cool how you feature other aspiring writers on your blog so regularly. I'm sure you're getting heaps of good karma for your future writing success.

Do No. 7 and No. 8 have any similarities?
They're both talented writers who are worth getting to know. What ya waitin' for?

Summer? What summer?

This is what it looks like outside my window right now. Not very summery, right? Apparently it's 6.4°C at the moment, so it doesn't feel very summery either. But that's ok, it's not going to stop me from participating in Beth's Second Summer in the City blogfest (which I am a tad late for, by the way).

Since the idea behind this blogfest is to make writerly goals for summer (or dreary winter holidays) and I kinda already did that on the weekend, I thought I'd look at how I'm going to try to keep those goals.

In February I wrote a post about creating a writing habit. I am the sort of person who finds it very hard to stick to goals. I have so little self-discipline I wonder if it even exists. I am easily distracted.

When I wrote the writing habit post I had very good intentions, but you know what they say (and at the risk of sounding cliche): the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Today is the seventh day of June. I've done no writing or revisions. I have read four books. Three out of four were very good books. (Read Divergent, Poison Study and Crown Duel if you haven't already!) Now I have to put reading on hold for a while, because I know myself, and I know if I keep going through my new books no writing will get done.

It's time to try out the writing habit again.

To summarise the five steps to building a writing habit:

  1. Commit to thirty days of writing (or in my case, revising). No skipping days.
  2. Make it a ritual. Do the writing/revising first thing in the day.
  3. If my self discipline really isn't doing it for me (it hasn't got the best track record), remove temptation.
  4. Write it down and put it somewhere I can see it.
  5. Have a buddy.

And here is my June 'To Do' list (ugh... goals... maybe I'll stop using that word).

Those words of wisdom at the bottom are from my CP Maggie. Told you I was going to put them on my wall!

 

So, who wants to be my writing/revising buddy for the next 30 days? I'll keep you accountable if you do the same for me! Head on over to Beth's blog and encourage all the other goal setters, too.

Sharing genius

I've just been catching up on my blog reading, something I haven't had much time for lately and which I have missed.

I came across this post by one of my awesome critique partners, Maggie the Genius (my new name for her).

You should go read it, but to sum it up, she had a middle of the night epiphany (something I'm sure all you writers are familiar with):

Make the awesome parts of the book awesomer, and get rid of all the parts that aren’t awesome.

I'm going to frame that and put it on my wall. Seriously.

What writing gems has your subconscious brain given you while you sleep?

Entries into the Share the Birthday Love Compfest

There is still time to sign up, if you would like to participate. Please sign up here.

Please post here your entries into the compfest. As a reminder, they are:

• Follow this blog.
• On the weekend of 11-13th of March visit the blogs of the people participating, and comment/offer your help/critique on a minimum of three of them. Each additional comment/offer of help/critique gets you an extra entry into the competition.
• Get one extra entry for tweeting about the compfest.
• Get one extra entry for blogging about the compfest.

Please try to comment only once so I don't get confused (I'm easily confused).

Let me know if you have any questions, and have fun!

Decisions and Resolutions

It's been a while hasn't it? Sorry about that. I'll be better I promise. The good news is that the craziness of moving is all but over, the only thing left is for our furniture to arrive. It's currently being combed over in quarantine, just to make sure we're not trying to smuggle any evil New Zealand thingies. So I'm writing this from the the couch which is one of four pieces of furniture in our house at the moment, thanks to Mr Rental. I'm so looking forward to my stuff arriving!

In other news, as you know I moved to Melbourne to get into publishing. I applied for the publishing courses at three universities here: Monash, Melbourne and RMIT. Monash offered me a place last month which was very exciting. I was so happy to get into SOMETHING. Then I received an email from Melbourne last week saying they weren't able to offer me a place in the postgrad diploma as my degree wasn't relevant enough (commerce) but they offered me an alternate position in the postgrad certificate. I was also contacted by RMIT at the end of last week with some follow up questions, and was ultimately offered a place in their graduate diploma in publishing and editing.

It's really hard to find comparative information about these courses because I think industry organisations try to stay neutral on the topic, but from the research I did it seems that RMIT's course has the best standing within the industry. They also accept less than 30 new students every year, are only one of two courses in the country to receive accreditation from the Australian Publishers Association, and give precedence to people who already work in the industry.

So I have decided I will be going to RMIT. I'm so excited about this (and surprised - when I get that email I expected something along the lines of "we regret to inform you...") and I can't wait to be starting the course in February. Until then I need to find something to do.

Which brings me to the next part of this post. Inspired by my critique partner Maggie, who was in turn inspired by the Rejectionist's December test run on resolutions, I've decided to get in on the action (only six days late).

I RESOLVE to:

• Write every day for at least 10 minutes (shamelessly stolen off Maggie but with a far less ambitious goal. Small steps right?)
• Find a job! This one's a December and January goal. Since I'm going back to NZ for two weeks over Xmas I'll be realistic about this one.
• Make people Xmas presents this year. But not crappy presents. So I have to figure out how to make good handmade presents that people would be happy to get. Any ideas? (This one relates back to the last one.. I have no job).
• Do some exercise? Hahaha... yea right.

Some of the Rejectionist's pre-resolutions were far too scary for me to even contemplate (NO COFFEE!? I have cut down from four a day to one, but still.. NONE?)

Anyone have any pre-resolutions they'd like to share?

Critiquer's Toolkit

I decided a few weeks ago that it was time to get myself a critique partner (CP), another writer to exchange advice and positive criticism with. Someone who is going through the same things as me: writer’s block, manic stints of writing when an idea forms, moping when you start thinking that idea was never any good and you have to throw it all out and start again. I don’t think writers are particularly sane when it comes to our writing, and we’re certainly not removed enough from our words to think logically and objectively about the good, the bad and the ugly.


And don’t get me wrong, I love having my family and close friends read my WIP, but they’ll never be able to give a critique the way another writer can, because they don’t know what information a writer is after. And for some of them, no matter how many times I assure them that I can handle the truth, they just give the completely unhelpful response – “It’s good.”

So having made this decision, I had to start thinking about how to go about giving a good critique, because having a CP is a two way deal. Here’s what I came up with, written as a kinda writer’s toolkit:

Add value

A good CP won't just say “it’s good” or “I don’t like it” or leave the writer scratching their head trying to figure out what you were trying to say. Don’t just focus on the what (it’s good), because then you will miss the most important part of the critique – the why.

    It’s good because I love the way this dialogue shows the characters personality.

If you get stuck with the why, try to keep the word ‘because’ in your mind, it will prompt you to take that next mental step.

What to look for

If you’re not sure how to pinpoint the sections that need work, try reading through the sample and make a note if you:

- Become confused by the setting/dialogue/action/description
- Become distracted/are finding it hard to focus on the writing
- Read something that is so unlikely that you can no longer suspend disbelief
- Read something that you really like

Once you’ve pinpointed these, go back to asking yourself why.

Things to consider

When writing a critique you might want to consider the following...

Characterisation: do the characters seem real, do they have depth and emotion? Are they based on well known stereotypes? Do real motives drive the characters actions?

Dialogue: Is the dialogue stilted? Is it weighted down by exposition? Does it have a purpose? Is it realistic, without being too realistic? Does it reveal details about the characters? Is it clear who is speaking?

POV: Is the POV consistent and is it easy to follow? Does it jump from person to person and confuse the reader?

Pacing: Is it too slow/too fast? Just right?

Mechanics: Sentence structure, style, clichés, overabundance of adverbs, too few strong verbs, etc

Voice: What does the writer’s voice invoke? Do you enjoy it/not? Why?

Be kind

Always start out by emphasising the good – and there will always be something good (and remember 'why'). Constructive criticism involves a little compassion. Writers become very emotionally invested in their work, and with good reason; it takes a lot of time and effort to write a novel! Take giving a critique as an opportunity to help the writer your critiquing learn as well as learning more about your own writing.

Try to separate your own preferences out when critiquing – be objective. Try to give suggestions instead of instructions, and avoid using the word ‘You’. If you focus your critique on the work, rather than the writer it seems less personal, and more like advice.



Aaannd…. That is all! Keeping in mind that all my "you shoulds" and "you shouldn'ts" up there should be taken with a grain of salt. I am new at this after all.

Anyone have any of their own suggestions about critique style?