My Critique Group

There are two things I do for myself each month almost without fail if I am in town. One is bunco and the other is my ANWA chapter meeting. This is my time out with my girlfriends and I love it. LOVE IT! Did I mention that I love it??? So, today we had our ANWA chapter meeting. What a great group of writers*! I came away energized and excited about writing, yet feeling like it's time to step away from free writing and do some plotting and a character bible. There are so many great resources out there for helping novice writers and I need to take advantage.

My father-in-law has a saying: "Pay me now or pay me later." Essentially, you have to pay one way or the other. I can either take the time now to plot and plan the basics or I can free write like crazy and spend a serious amount of time editing and re-writing and figuring out plot holes and what does/doesn't work in the end.

Why do I avoid it? I don't know the answer to that because the character bible class I took at LDStorymakers Conference was so much fun. Plus, I want a really strong character arc and I think that takes more planning than I have put in so far and I think it will be an aspect that is easier knowing up front. So much for being excited about my increasing word count... This week I'll be doing some of the "behind-the-scenes" stuff and hopefully it will turn an average story into a classic.

Dream Big and Write On!

*Check out the blogs of two of these writers: Tamara and Valerie. They rock!