Critique Group John is moving away, so we had a goodbye dinner at a Mexican restaurant. It was nice to see him again, since he’s been “taking a break” from the critique group for about 6 months. This leaves just three active members in our critique group, all of them women, two are erotica writers, one (me) an action-adventure writer (currently writing urban fantasy). I think we were all hoping to tempt Critique Group John back, since he was our remaining male perspective. I’ve been meaning to do some recruiting, but just haven’t had the time. Critique Group John, probably now that he has no worries about offending anyone, talked candidly about the structure of our group and I couldn’t help but agree with most of what he said — in fact, I’d broached similar concerns often.
The problem with critique groups is it’s a bunch of people trying to find the same schedules to work on creative material. Unless all of you are in the same place with that creativity, then you’re going to have problems. When I mean “the same place,” I don’t mean talent-wise, I mean with where you see yourself with your writing. Is it a hobby? Are you doing it for eventual publication? How seriously do you take it? And of course, on top of that, how well do you take direction? How much time can you put into critiquing? A lot of the time, it seems very few people in our group had serious plans for publication, and then there’s been a few people (luckily all gone now) that have been unable to take critique direction.1
Critique Group John also talked about our one-chapter-every-two-weeks format, which is also something I’ve had problems with. It’s very hard to get through a novel when you’re sending two chapters a month (and when we had eight members, that number dropped to one chapter a month). After all, that means for an average 80,000 word novel, with every chapter being…oh, say 4,000 words, you’re looking at finishing the last chapter of that novel 10 months later (20 months if you’re just sending in one chapter). For a lot of us, that means the novel has completely changed by the time the group reads the end. Or, it means that the group has difficulty remembering some of the finer details that happened in the beginning. For my own novel, I had a quick “outline guide” ready. Granted, after all this chapter-by-chapter critiquing, there’s the beta read at the end. That’s a whole novel critique instead of line-by-line edits. The beta read is to look at the overall picture, point out things like characterization and weak plot points. But, sometimes I wonder whether it wouldn’t be better to just do a beta read from the get go?
It was pointed out that submitting it chapter-by-chapter makes one stick to a writing schedule. I can’t deny that I’ve often used the excuse “Well, I have to send something into the group” as a way to produce something when I’m particularly busy. However, many professional authors will tell you that the way to become a writer is discipline. Write every day,2 much like people say “20 minutes of movement/activity/exercising a day.” I try to do both — exercise and write. 
And, at the risk of sounding snobby, if you’re serious about writing for publication, you really should be writing more than 4,000-or-so words every 10 days.
However, in the end, we didn’t come up with an answer to Critique Group John’s concerns, or our own. The critique group will continue as it has always continued, and I know that our current schedule tempts newcomers easier than my secret preference3 not that I’m complaining. I think I’ll be very happy for the one-chapter-every-two-weeks process when I start my new job.4
Footnotes:
- In fact, once a member told me they weren’t “really looking for critique.” I could only stare with dumbfounded confusion. But, then, a lot of people join critique groups hoping that they’ll hear gushing reviews and “Omigod squee!” from their fellow members. In other words, what they want is an ego boost. Critiquing is for the improvement of your writing, not about hearing how awesome you are. ↩
- Of course I’m saying that after a day spent not writing or editing.
↩ - I would love to try a submission schedule where you present a finished book on X-month. For example, say there’s 8 members, the max our critique group allows. That gives 1.5 months for each novel. Each member will know on what date their novel is due and presents it at the start of their 1.5 month. At the end, the group comes back together to give the beta reads and the next novel is presented. You always know when your novel is due, and you have a whole year to finish it as the cycle comes back around to you. Yes, there’s problems to this strategy: you meet only once every 1.5 months, which isn’t very often, although I think this can be combated through an active online community (forums, mailing lists, etc.) or you meet more often but the other meetings are for other activities, like book discussions or writing exercises. A critique group doesn’t necessarily have to do any face-to-face meetings, or even live in the same city or state. You could also do everything online through video chats (or just normal chat). But, that brings up issues of trust. Making a critique group isn’t an easy thing to do. ↩
- I just hope my group can be punctual. One thing I hate is having only 3 days to critique anything. What if those are my busiest days of the week? I’m doomed. I wish we’d restructure a little, so that your submission is due the previous meeting instead of “by the weekend before the next one.” ↩
). But, between driving, getting home, making myself breakfast, etc., etc. I forgot to write the scene down. You know how it is, you get into other things and you overestimate your ability to remember things. When I sat down in front of the computer, I tried to shuffle through my memory and found very little from my brainstorming left. Sure, I ended up with something good, acceptable, but not as great as what I was thinking this morning. 
I’m desperately trying to finish the next two chapters of Tayce since I won’t have time this weekend, but it’s slow going, mostly because I had a horrible night’s sleep and my brain feels mushy inside my skull. Though, lately, I’ve been having really vivid, strange dreams. I’ve found that my creativity coincides with the time I have vivid dreams at night; it’s like my brain doesn’t shut off when I close my eyes, it wants to keep writing. Mom would say my brain is just going through “a bit of spring cleaning.” I actually like dreaming, some of the stuff my brain comes up with leaves me flabbergasted in the morning, wondering where the heck that came from (and no, I don’t usually have sexy dreams, unfortunately(?), usually it’s just really weird stuff like flying carpets and camping trips in the middle of my university and mysterious escalators and 
). I’m ready for one of my goals to come to fruition. I’m going to savor checking off “Finish Tayce” from my Resolution list. 
