Writing Foo

[kaitou]

Last night I went to the first meeting of my new writing critique group. What a blast!! I hope I'll feel the same way next week when MY stuff gets critiqued. But I think we've got a very smart, good critique group shaping up. Not many people attended last night, but I think that the feedback was excellent. I thought it was as good as Clarion.

It was interesting having so many lawyers in the group, which really put a different spin on things. Before we got started with the critiquing there was a long discussion about copywrite and confidentiality. And after an equally involved conversation about pen names, and whether or not they're necessary. So of course I had to tell the story about O. Henry and Anne McCaffery and how my goal is to write a story about dragons giving each other the wrong gifts and no one will ever believe that my name is my real name. Honestly, the only thought I've given to pen names is for writing in different genres. 'In for a Penny' is a meringue of a fantasy, while I hope that the Victorian Hong Kong stuff will coalesce into something more of a gingerbread in density after a retooling. But, of course, as I mentioned in the group, that's really putting the cart ahead of the horse. Names can wait until I have an agent...or, like...an actual manuscript.

One of the women in the group has a tendency to read very very deeply into things. Lots of comments like "I can see a very strong sense of economic underpinnings to this story. A lot of it revolves around money and the economy," for a book which ultimately is pretty much about sentient cabbage. I can't wait to see what she makes of my brand of crack!fic. Since I'm not ready with the first bit of Penny rewrite, I'm inflicting the First Contact story on them.

Comments

[samcurt.livejournal.com]

I just wondered it's the English side of Victorian HK or the Chinese side of it. Even in Victoria City (Which is MUCH larger than what we know as Central) many Chinese worked for the Europeans, they are pretty much seperate.

[kaitou1412.livejournal.com]

I would like to show parts of both. The little bit of research I've been able to do about the early police force in Hong Kong sounds fascinating. But I'm having a hard time finding more information. I expect the reseach for this to take a few years actually, and I'd like to be able to come back and visit Hong Kong again. I was only there for 3 days, but I loved it!!

If you know of any books or anything that would be good research, I'd love to hear. My history classes in college never spent much time focusing on Hong Kong.

[soranokumo.livejournal.com]

*cheers on critique group*

I hope it stays as awesome as it sounds, and that it helps you keep feeling the push to keep writing. >^_^< I should really look into trying to find one of those around here...

[kaitou1412.livejournal.com]

I was really nervous about doing it, because I'm not sure that Penny's at a point where I'm ready for it to be critiqued. But I figured I had to make the next step for my committment to writing.

I think a good group can be a great help, and can be really, really energizing. But a bad group can do just as much damage. So good luck finding a good one!!