Thank you so much to everyone who joined us Wednesday night for our twitter party.
For those who missed it, here is a brief recap of some of the main conversation points:
1. Length. This week's prompt asks us to stay under 1,000 words. Some of us have a tough time with this; they tend to ramble. Others have a tough time writing long enough. It's difficult to figure out what to keep and what to add.
2. Which leads us to editing. One of our lovely hosts, Katie, pointed out that editing is cleaning up sentence structure and grammar, and revising is fixing content. Many of us have trouble "murdering our darlings" but know it has to be done. Good editing makes a story more, not less. Reading aloud is something that can be helpful.
3. Critique. This continues to be a touchy subject. Writers want to know how to get better, but the delivery is important. Pieces that are intensely personal need to be treated with more care. I am not entirely sure everyone who links up with us really wants constructive feedback. If you receive it, don't take it personally. If you give it, don't make it personal. Remember we are all learning and growing and writers are notoriously insecure (yes, I'm talking about me!).
4. Writing fiction. It can be daunting, to say the least. You are exposing a story you created solely from your imagination. Then again, it can also be incredibly freeing, as you are ONLY limited by your imagination. Another issue is placement. Fiction does not fit in with everyone's blog. I personally reserve Friday for the writing prompt and usually do fiction. And even though it's not the "theme" of my blog, it IS my blog and I'll post fiction if I want to! Fiction if I want to!
Ahem. Sorry. Anyway, Katie (and others) solved the problem by creating a separate blog to feature their writing. Obviously that's not feasible for all of us.
We would love to get your thoughts on these topics. Feel free to leave them in the comments! And hopefully next time you'll join us!
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