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Writing Foo
Jan. 5th, 2007 09:00 amLast 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.
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.
