RWA totally worth it!

The RWA meeting was wonderfully inspiring! The people were an amazing wealth of knowledge of publishing and the writing process. It was like being among kindred souls! These peeps understood me and I probably could have stayed all day.
The speaker of the day was Marcela Landres, a book doctor. She was an editor at for 7 years and now helps others get published. http://www.marcelalandres.com/
The information she shared with us gave me new perspective on what the agents and publishers look for when a book comes thier way. She gave some great suggestions for shaping the dreaded query letter, too.
Aside from the speakers and other things at the meeting I met the greatest people. Not having a large contingent of fiction writers here in my little burg, it was inspiring to talk to other writers who are in the same boat as me; prepublished, looking for representation and wondering where I'm gonna get the time to write!
I would definately recommend the RWA. I only wish I had joined sooner!

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! Its off to RWA I go!

Tomorrow I'm investigating my first meeting of the Romance Writers of America local NJ chapter. I've been vacilating about attending one of these meetings for a while. Mostly I wonder how much I can get from it. I do write some romantic suspense but I also write sci-fi and paranormal stuff. (With a few serial killers thrown in for good measure) It all kinda depends what falls out of my head. However, after talking with a few people who are members I'm thinking this might be a place to learn a lot of stuff. They have editors, agents and other writer's talking about every aspect of writing.
I'm excited!
But I'm a little nervous about the drive. They discribe it as 20 minutes up the Parkway...but I get lost so often I could end up anywhere. I think some cruel Parkway employee wandered around New Jersey and just stuck Parkway signs all over the place. You could follow those things for miles and never actually see the Parkway. Its kinda like the Jersey Devil. You know it's out there...but no one ever admits to seeing it.
If I actually get there I'll let you know how it goes....

Better to light a single candle....

Better to light a single candle then to sit and curse at the dark, lost pages of my manuscript.
I had an absolutely great time at the critique group. There was an agent there (whose name I missed because I got lost-yes, thats typical, I'm always lost) who gave us sooo much great information on query letters (which are an art by themselves) and the writing process in general. Caridad Pineiro,http://www.caridad.com/ a wonderfully prolific writer, also gave great insight on what builds a great story and how to hook your readers from the start.
When they took my pages in hand and started to read there was a feeling of diving off a cliff. Laying open my soul and letting them peek inside. But most of what they said hit upon things I already had questions about. They gave real good suggestions and I came away with more of a focus on where the story should go.
I also submitted to Cabbages and Kings. A wonderful blog everyone should check out. It belongs to the writing team know as P.J.Parrish. http://www.pjparrish.com/index.html (Thank you, P.J.Parrish!!) Everything said there echoed the words of the other critique group.
I would definately recommend every writer find a great critique group and lay open your soul. Its kinda like raising a child...sooner or later you have to give them wings.

Critique groups

Tomorrow night I'm going to a critique group. This is run by a writer I respect and I really am looking forward to it. Really.
I'm going to hand over pages of my sweat and blood and let them maul it, rip it to shreds and then tell me how to put it back together again. I'll let them take my carefully crafted words and cut them up into little bitty pieces....
No, I tell myself, no, its not going to be bad at all. These are a just a group of peeps like me who would never, ever scar a person in such a way. They will be generous and kind and give real insight into my work. I hope.
I can only justify my fear from my last experience with a writer's critique group. It was just a few years ago when I found a group at the local library. With my precious pages clutched in eager hands I sat with this group as they talked about the work submitted the previous week. The woman next to me had tears in her eyes as they systematically ripped through every word of her story. They objected to the main charactors hair color, his vehical, the fact that he used the word "fuck" at one point in the story. The writer next to me tried to explain her thoughts and where the story was going but these harpies couldn't get past one thing in the story without some word of distaste. It was like they were ordering her to take her story to places she never intended.
I tucked my pages into my purse, made an excuse to use the ladies room, and never went back! It scared me off of critique groups for a long time.
But here I stand ready to leap into the fire again...I'll let you know how it goes.
In the mean time; Tell me about your experience with critique groups. I want to hear your stories!

Apologies

I've removed the story from the blog as it seems to have taken off and needs serious work to move it along. However! I want to thank all who commented. Another story will be posted soon....

My "G" is gone

The dog jumped up on to the couch, one paw down hard and my "G" key went flying. I was too lazy to get up and find it and besides at this point I was pinned by a 70 lb Golden Retriever named Halston. (No, we didn't name her.) This slowed me down for about ten minutes until I learned to push the little plastic thing under the keys to get my "G" out. The "G" key joined the missing ranks with my "Alt" key and one of those little arrow keys. they went missing a long time ago.

Funny how we can learn to adapt.

Like we adapt the time we get to write. I'm sure those yet unpublished (and some of the published) will understand. Working full time, doing the family thing, and basic house cleaning and maintance doesn't leave much time to crank out a book or two. I usually get up early and if not captivated by anything on the blogs of Robert Gregory Brown, Mark Terry, J.A. Konrath or even (yes! I admit it!) The Astrology Zone, I can usually squeeze in an hour or so of writing. If I write longer then that I just tell my boss I overslept. After work, dinner and cleanup, sometimes if I can clear my head, I can get in another hour or so. Weekends, that should be excellent for carving out some writing time, zoom by so fast I'm ususally left to wonder what the hell happened!
My question is: When is your writing time? How do you find it?