Badly Dressed Criticism

If people don’t like being criticised, why do they circulate their work for criticism?

When I’ve written something I always give it to my husband to read.  I do this partly because he’s closest to me, but mostly because I trust his opinion, because he’ll never shy away from telling me something is bad.  He does this with clothes too by the way.  There have been times when I’ve put on something I think look goods, but he’ll soon tell me if it doesn’t because he doesn’t want others to think badly of me, and he does the same with my writing.

            I appreciate a tough review,  I want my reviewers to be nitpicking, because I know if I put something out to a wider audience, there will be people out there ready to tear it to shreds.  Much better that it gets torn apart where I still have the opportunity to re-write than after it’s in print.

This doesn’t mean I don’t get upset about bad comments, sometimes I do, but as long as I know that it is aimed at improving my work, I’ll take it on the chin.  Of course I don’t always agree with criticisms either, sometimes the commenter has missed the point, sometimes they haven’t seen the fuller picture and sometimes they are just plain wrong.  But I always listen because a lot of the time, they are right and they do have a point.

            So I do the same with I critique other people’s work.  I will pick up on little details that don’t fit.  I will say if the dialog is out of place with the setting and what/when the people are.  I do this because it has helped me when it has been done to me.  For example, I have a story called Unclear Triangle, when I wrote it I thought I was just writing everyday English speech.  But my husband was quick to point out that actually there were a lot of Americanisms in there, so I built that into the storyline and it gave me an unexpected extra background story and more colour to my characters.

            Unclear Triangle was started about fifteen years ago and in the second chapter I talk about wanting high speed camera film, this week I put it up for criticism with the local writers circle and it was pointed out that with modern digital cameras, hardly anyone uses film any more.  So either I have to explain why high speed film is being used by that character, or I have to take that idea out to fit with the modern era.

            I also reviewed three other stories at the circle, and clearly my comments were taken as being me ripping into people.

            All in all, I was rather disappointed at this week’s weak criticism, it was less helpful than I was hoping for.  I didn’t go to be patted on the back.  I don’t need everyone to say they ‘liked it’, if everyone likes it, I won’t have done my job right.  I want to be better than that.  People shouldn’t like everything, not everything is likeable to everyone.  Universally liked means universally bland.  When it comes to writing, it should move you, you should feel something.  Love it or hate it, have a reaction. 

So, I wondered, I went to a writers circle to make me a better writer, why do other people go?

One In A Million

Someone said “you’re first million words don’t count”.  I say someone because I’ve Google-ed this and I’ve found several different people to whom this quote or mis-quote is attributed, though Robert Heinlein and Ray Bradbury, but I like the idea that it was Stephen King.

            Anyway, I was interested enough to wonder how much I’ve written, so last night I fired up Excel and Word, and went through all my files, counting words and adding it all up.  It was a surprising and odd experience.  I listed the books and my short stories, took only the count of the final versions even if the original were longer, occasionally much longer.  

            As I was going through I had a few surprises, not least of all was that several pieces I ‘knew’ were not there.  Actually it turned out that on the whole, they were there, they’d just got lost in my random approach to file saving, next job up this weekend is sorting out my filing.  Also, my hubby pointed out that given the amount of work on my hard drive that if I lost this laptop or it got damaged, I’d have lost a hell of a lot of work that I’d never really get back, so after I’d finished the count, I did burn all my files to a CD.

            Back to the surprising.  Because I’d been thinking about this millions words thought, I’d been thinking about it in work Friday, so at lunchtime, I started making a list of the stories I could remember and a estimating how long they were.  I didn’t keep the list, but I know as I was making the new one, I was rather surprised to find just how wrong I was on some of the counts.  There are a couple of cases where I was way out.  One romance I thought was 90,000 words turned out to be 60,647.  Another I’d thought around the same size was 84,086.  But the two that surprised me were one of my early mysteries that got an agent, but no publisher, which I’d thought was about 100,000 words, turned out to be 121,985, and the last is, of all things, the only book I’ve actually self published, Foreshadows (available on Amazon for Kindle), I thought it was around 120,000, it was actually 147,181.

            Anyway, I’ve got the list, I’ve done the maths, and here it is: 1,126,533 over 38 distinct stories.  Since my day job is heavily set on mathematics, did a number of statistics while I was there, I’ve tabulated them below, in case anyone’s interested. 

            Of course this count is only what I’ve got on the laptop.  And only the fiction, it doesn’t include the raft of non-fiction I’ve written, nor my journals, nor my blogs.  Also, I’ve got a couple of boxes worth in the loft that were saved on three and a half inch floppy discs (yes unfortunately, I really am that old), which I’ve never transferred, and never will do now, I mean, who’s got a floppy drive any more?  Mind you, I’m not sure I’ve even got the discs any more.  Truth is anything that old probably isn’t worth having any more, but while they sit where I can’t see them, they are skeletons in the loft that I can’t quite bring myself to cremate. 

            So, hey ho, that’s a million words and more.  Hopefully that means that now I’m be able to ‘write’. There again, give me a pen and paper, or computer, or even my smart phone and I’ll write whether I’m ‘able’ to or not.

Total (as at 15/03/2013)	1,126,553
Average	29,646
Max	147,181
Min	94
Mode	1,700
Median	2,842

Time Races

Well time has certainly been racing for me this week. My new job is a bit of information overload but what's really getting to me is the fact that 2 days a week I'm still doing my old job.  Now I have to be honest - I love my old job that’s why I had to think very hard about even taking the new one.

It was agreed that I would do this split so I have to but what's worrying me is that the language being used suggests that the old bosses are expecting this position to go on indefinitely and there is no evidence of finding a replacement despite the fact that I gave them a CV of an ex-colleague I knew was available. Thing is I ended up spending hours on Sunday working when I wanted to be relaxing. As it was Mothers Day it would have been nice to have spent time with my kids only my son is away at Uni and didn't even bother texting me and my daughter was in Paris with her school on a French language holiday.  So just me, the hangover and a hang over hubby oh and the workload.

Have managed to keep up with the resolution to enter at least one competition a month and actually entered two last night. I also managed to find a piece for a flash fiction competition which I'm considering putting in for.  My hubby read it last night, said it was very dark.  Well the judge said he wanted to avoid formula and read something that moved him, well if this story doesn't move him I don't know what will.

Time to get on with other stuff.

The Ring in a Circle

The last two weeks I’ve struggled to find something to write about, which is why my blogs haven’t been as regular as they could have been. Tonight blogging wasn’t on my to do list, however, I thought I just had to get this done.

About a year ago I went to CrimeFest in Bristol and among others, I met Sally Spedding, and in conversation she suggested that I try my local Writers Circle, she even gave me some contact details, only a problem was, I didn’t get around to using them before my email account threw a fit and deleted everything in my inbox for no good reason and the details were lost.  So on Monday, I was on the internet and for no good reason I looked up Swansea Writers Circle, the link that came up to the council’s website, which linked to Swansea and District Writers Circle and gave me all the details I needed.  The site told me that they met on the first Wednesday of the month, so today I went.

The only other writers circle I’ve ever been to was in Cardiff and probably more than twenty years ago, so I was expecting the same sort of thing, people reading their work and other critiquing it.  But no.

Got there and there was an agenda and a speaker.  I was quite surprised.  The speaker was Melanie Lloyd, a woman who writes about boxing, she had two books out entitled Sweet Fighting Man and Sweet Fighting Man Vol 2.  When I realised she was going to be talking about boxing, I can’t say I was overly enthralled, but she was a really good speaker.  Absolutely enthusiastic about the subject, Melanie was a joy to listen to.  And though she spoke of loads of boxers I’d never heard of, she had interesting stories to tell that I enjoyed listening. Thing was, I’ve been trying to work on a noire flavour book and recently read Choke Hold by Christa Faust, and two of the three lead characters are boxers, so some of the stories Melanie told, seemed very resonant with that book, so obviously Ms Faust and Ms Lloyd have both got a talent for evoking the same imagery, emotions and reactions.

Strangely enough, I entered and won a prize in the raffle, but since I won a bottle of bottle of wine and I’m trying to give up drinking (not exactly working, but I’m trying), I suggested that it be pulled again, and it went to the other first timer there.  Nice that huh?

Anyway, feels good to feel enthusiastic about writing again, so thanks to the Swansea and District Writers Circle for that.

Blues

Well we've had white and red, but last weeks theme was blue.

I was somewhat under the weather, physically exhausted and mentally numb.  The pleasure of being offered a job wore off as quick as I realised what it would do for my finances - that is nothing.  I've been offered a significantly lower salary than the job was advertised at.  If I had another option I'd take it.

That dragged my mood down some and robbed me of concentration.  I didn't get much done in the week and the weekend was lost in catching on some sleep. Oh, and a ton of ironing.  So I've bent my resolutions missed a weeks blogging and haven't read Writing Magazine at all. Mind with doing the ironing I put Lovefilm on and managed to watch the whole of season one of "afterlife", a programme I was aware of being on TV when it was on air but never watched. It was brilliant.  Loved it.  Will watch season two at some point.

I tried to force the writing with a short piece for a competition, but it didn't work.  Will need to apply myself more if I'm going to be able to make the resolution to enter at least one competition a month.

I have however written more of the romance and come up with the follow up to Solutions.  Solutions by the way is a crime novel based in Merthyr Tydfil. It's all arisen out of my annoyance with the dictatorial nonsense from the HR department over this new job. Also on the weekend I took a walk up  a mountain to do some cache maintanace and spotted a great location for the first dead body to be found.  So while it wasn't a very productive week it wasn't the utter washout it felt like.

Oh one thing more.  This blog.  I'm finding this really useful.  It doesn't get read but it's a bit like therapy.  I get to air my views, focus on the positives and practice writing.  Great mix.   So to anyone who does ever bother to read it - thank you.

Love Is All Around

Well it is the week of St Valentine’s Day? 

Hope you had a warm day, in your heart if not in reality.  Don’t know about where you were, but it was freezing here.

Anyway, the theme of my week does seem to have been love.  Not all heats and flowers, of course, but love all the same.   Though in all honesty, there was a bit of the hearts and flowers.  Not only was it the week of St V’s, it was also the week of my husband’s birthday, but it’s only today that his present arrived.  Better late than never.

I’ve loving the way my life is at the moment.  Despite the fact that I’m changing jobs when the month changes I’m still enjoying the work-life balance that I’ve found since I was made redundant last year.  Before work, the nine to five kind not the scribbling kind, used to intrude on my time off.  That happens now if I have a particular deadline is looming, but so far it’s been four evenings in five and a half months.  Other than that, I’ve been getting back to writing which brings me back to my theme.

There is more romance in my writing this week.  One of my resolutions this year to to write another romance, and I’ve been working on that this week.  Got a good few scenes down on paper and thought up a couple more, it’s really going well.

One other item on the theme is that, strange and sad as I can be, I enjoy cross stitch and have been working on a large panel piece.  Truth be told I’ve been working on it for about four years and I’m only about a quarter of the way through it, but mostly because other things have been getting in the way.  But given the work life balance thing, I’ve been giving one hour a day to it and I’m seeing some real progress on it.

It’s a difference I’m comfortable with, it’s the annoying advise that I used to get when I was a kid.  A little and often.  Keeps the mind alive and active.

Well, got scenes to write, so bye for now.

What's in a Title?

Well actually, quite a lot.  In the office, it’s all about status, position and power.  In the literary words it’s the hook to bring a reader in.

And titles in both areas have been absorbing my time this week.

I’m currently working as a temp, my job title ends is “Analyst”, and on Monday I had an interview for another job, a one year fixed term contract, but that’s more security than I have right now.  On Thursday I was offered the job.  I accepted of course.  It’s not a writing job, but the mantra of mortgage two kids comes up, and there are still bills to pay.  And a job is a job, right.  This one is Investment Strategist, good title huh?  Sounds impressive than Analyst too.

On the writing side, I have been making in roads into the romance story I’ve promised myself to complete this year, and I have submitted two more short stories to competitions.  So I’ve kept up with three of my new year’s resolutions, which isn’t bad.  On the way with another one – reading WM every month, but though it arrived last week, I’ve barely read a page because of the distractions else where.

The pain with the submission of the competition is the difficultly I had finding a title for one of the entries.  The remit was a short story which opens with dialogue of no more than one sentence.

So I wrote the story last month, was happy with it, except for the title. Just couldn’t think of one.  At all.

Titles matter.  And not only in the jobs market.  So I’ve spent some hours trying to come up with a title on this latest entry, and all to no avail.  Been through every synonym I could find for dialogue and gunman to see if there was anything jumped out at me, but really struggled to find something that felt right. Today I had to find the right title, and I had to do it quickly as I wanted to get the submission in.  So I ran several options passed my husband, he didn’t like any of them.  Finally I gave a three word title, and the enthusiastic response was “yeah, that’ll do”.  Not the greatest praise ever, but workable.  It was certainly the best title I could come up with and it’s the one I used.  So fingers crossed it hooks the judges in.

See you soon.