I NEED OTHER WRITERS

There are several reason why writers need other writers. Number one is you can't write in a vacuum. If you take one tip from each writer you meet it moves you that much closer to being an awesome writer.
Writer's groups give you special insight into how your work looks from the outside in. When i write and rewrite and rewrite I miss the simplest things. A good writer's group will tag these things and offer suggestions to improve. I had a great writers group at one time but it dissolved when Barnes & Nobel kicked all their groups out. In protest I don't shop at B & N anymore. I'm an Amazon girl now. I think removing the chairs and groups was a big mistake on their part. I belonged at several groups in our local store and they just stopped all of them and removed those cozy little seating arrangements. Pity. I never left a group without buying something on the way out. Now that I'm not there for my group, I shop on Amazon. My bank account is grateful but I miss my group. One of the members was an agent and she was awesome with the grammar and punctuation. Another was a multi published author who gave amazing critique. Miss those peeps.
I need other writers for insight into the publishing biz. Its changing. Agents used to be the gatekeepers to the world where only the ubber talented and lucky (yes, i think some are just lucky) get passed onto the major publishing houses. Now with Amazon cracking the lock down on the publishing biz its a whole new world for publishing. Other writers are a wealth of information on the in and outs of this new world.
I need other writers for inspiration. Every time I hear about the success of one of my writer friends it inspires me to work harder. I rejoice for every book they publish, every bridge they cross and every moment they shine in the author spotlight. These amazing writers, who forge ahead in conventional publishing or the new world of Kindle and Nook, give me hope.

I need them all.

Characters---Why does my rogue need a rule?
1. One of the first things I heard about character rules was not to name your main characters with the same beginning initial.
Reggie and Regina will confuse your reader especially if you name their kids Rudy and Rebecca. The theory behind this thought is that all the "R's" will get mixed up in the reader's brain. Not sure I believe this, but it might be true. What do you think?
2. I have a problem with books introduce too many characters in the first chapter. Yes, I know the characters build the story and we need to see our main character's interaction with them to get a feeling for who he/she is, but too many all at once is just a blur of names and later when the character comes back into the limelight I'm confused as to who it is and sometimes have to go back and find out his relationship to everyone. In doing so I fall out of the story while I search.
3. Bad behavior from the main character that is out of character. I used to read the Kinsey Millhone series by Sue Grafton until she started sleeping with the detective (Kinsey, not Sue) while the detective's wife was very ill with some incurable illness. Gee, how sleezy. Excuse me, he's still married and she's sick. I thought; how low can you go? This made me stop reading because I suddenly disliked the morals of the main character. Call me a prude, but this behavior hit close to home. My best friend was very sick with MS and we discovered her husband was cheating on her. I know no one knows the journey of another until you've walked a mile in their moccasins but still...ewww, he's a cheater and she's the cheater-enabler. What happened to "until death we do part"? I missed the codicil that says, "except if you're really sick then I get to have sex with my coworkers".
I understand I'm a woman and men may not feel the same about this issue but it really did ruin the series for me.
4. Rambling. This is subjective. Unless it's painting the picture...move on. I want story not six pages about the color of the drapes or how grandma spun the wool to make the  thread to sew the drapes. Unless of course someone steals the drapes and wraps the body in them and the DNA brings grandma's lineage to justice.
What character rules do you follow?

Five Days of Writing- Or Things I've Learned about Writing

Day One- Mechanics
I aced English. Loved it. Played with it, memorized it.
When I me an agent in a writer's group and she took out her quick, red pen, I realized just how much I didn't know about English. Or maybe I just didn't remember as much as I thought I did.

Punctuation-commas go before the word "but", but only in certain places. They connect two thoughts within a sentence. Sometimes they don't.  You use them in a series and belong before the word "and" as in: He had meat, potatoes, string beans, and salad. However, somewhere along the line one of the news lines wanted to save space and decided to wipe out that last comma to read: He had meat, potatoes, string beans and salad. I learned this when writing for one of the info sites on the net. I got tagged for putting the comma in by one editor and tagged for not putting it in by another editor for the same site. (That's a whole different post! If you wrote for them, you know who they are.) I went and looked it up and discovered it was a space saving thing done by a big news site. I think it was app but don't quote me.
And let's not forget that commas saved grandma.
Let's eat grandma!
Let's eat, grandma!
Oscar Wilde once said he spent most of the day putting in commas and the rest of the day taking them out.
Since I write fiction, let's talk quotes and the connected tag line.
"I love puppies," Jane said as she scooped a warm ball of fur into her arms. Since Jane uttered a complete sentence I'd think the period should go after puppies, but I'd be wrong.  The entire thought is about Jane's words and actions so they are connected with a comma. Weirdly correct.
However if the sentence continues after the tag we use another comma.
"I've loved puppies, Jane said as she scooped up a warm ball of fur, "ever since I was a child."
After this and more I've decided I hate punctuation. Blah. And don't get me started on Its and It's...they hurt my brain.
Punctuation is essential in good writing, but sometimes fiction bends the rules. Setting something apart so the reader will hear the voice of the character or mood of the story can be done with correctly placed punctuation. It can add dynamic expression.
If.
Done.
Right.
Which are incomplete subjects/thoughts and completely wrong, but work so well in some places.
It can also get grandma eaten by cannibals so be careful with your commas, quotes and periods.
Tomorrow we'll talk about character dos and don't s and if any of them can be write or wrong.
:)