Monday, September 18, 2006
Comments fixed, computer dependency, and critique groups
Ah, illiteration!
Anyway, I figured out what was going on with the comments. Commentary should now come through! Hooray! I thought you all had decided I was really boring. Or just so brilliant there was nothing to add... (yeah, right.)
Don't ask me how the moderate comments option got turned on, since I have always had open comments, and don't remember changing it. One of those mysterious "the computer did it" situations. (At least no one ended up dead, and no inheritance is missing!)
Computers have definately replaced husbands in the can't live with em, can't live without them category. (Though my hubby contends that chocolate replaced husbands long ago...)
Either way, I demonstrated to myself my total dependence on the keyboard last night at a meeting for a local writer's group I was checking out. I didn't have a pencil or pen on me, not even in the bottom of my purse. I don't know whether to laugh or to cry...
Tonight I'm checking out a science fiction writers critique group. I'd love to sit face to face with writers and share comments. And it'd be a great way to make some new friends with common interests.
I've always thought writer's groups are a mixed bag. After all, the notion that you would write a novel by committee seems a bit odd (and obviously that's not what writers groups are supposed to do, but so often the critiques seem to boil down to not much more than "rewrite this in my style, or with my plot ideas.) Even more than that, often the writers involved in critique groups are not very far along in their writing careers; it's sort of like the blind leading the deaf, and if no one in the group has any publishing success, you may be getting not very useful commentary.
Of course, you may be getting incredible commentary. It's just a bit hard to judge. Feedback is, obviously, extremely valuable and necessary. Most of all, I'm looking forward to the opportunity to make friends who have shared interests.
Anyway, I figured out what was going on with the comments. Commentary should now come through! Hooray! I thought you all had decided I was really boring. Or just so brilliant there was nothing to add... (yeah, right.)
Don't ask me how the moderate comments option got turned on, since I have always had open comments, and don't remember changing it. One of those mysterious "the computer did it" situations. (At least no one ended up dead, and no inheritance is missing!)
Computers have definately replaced husbands in the can't live with em, can't live without them category. (Though my hubby contends that chocolate replaced husbands long ago...)
Either way, I demonstrated to myself my total dependence on the keyboard last night at a meeting for a local writer's group I was checking out. I didn't have a pencil or pen on me, not even in the bottom of my purse. I don't know whether to laugh or to cry...
Tonight I'm checking out a science fiction writers critique group. I'd love to sit face to face with writers and share comments. And it'd be a great way to make some new friends with common interests.
I've always thought writer's groups are a mixed bag. After all, the notion that you would write a novel by committee seems a bit odd (and obviously that's not what writers groups are supposed to do, but so often the critiques seem to boil down to not much more than "rewrite this in my style, or with my plot ideas.) Even more than that, often the writers involved in critique groups are not very far along in their writing careers; it's sort of like the blind leading the deaf, and if no one in the group has any publishing success, you may be getting not very useful commentary.
Of course, you may be getting incredible commentary. It's just a bit hard to judge. Feedback is, obviously, extremely valuable and necessary. Most of all, I'm looking forward to the opportunity to make friends who have shared interests.
