Writers in the Storm

By Sharla Rae

This week our critique group met at our favorite Greek restaurant. Besides the good food, we had major business to take care, namely, deciding the top five finalists in our Piece of the Sky Contest.

We all brought our top picks with us, and it was immediately apparent, there’d be no blood-letting. Surprisingly, our choices were pretty much the same. Funny how that works sometimes, but hey, we’re readers too. We know what appeals to us just like everyone else.  

At first, I was a bit leery about running a contest, but I have to admit, that it was fun. In fact, we enjoyed it so much that we decided to hold another one. The idea we came up with is out of the norm and will be hugely fun for all the participants. The prize is cool too! And no, I’m not going to tell you about it. You’ll have to check our blog for the official posting.

After choosing the five finalists, we shared a few personal tales. My favs were a real-life shark encounter and a story about a navy admiral putting the moves on one of my critique partners.

Next we shared some industry talk, and then we got down to the nitty-gritty part, critiquing our work. Each week we e-mail a chapter to each other so it can be read and critiqued before critique meetings. We critique using Track Changes in Word so that we can hand over or e-mail the critiques to each other. Sometimes we all contribute, sometimes only one or two us turns in work. This week we had one synopsis and one chapter. As usual, everyone took a turn suggesting changes, and asking questions.

Meeting in person allows us to brainstorm more effectively. We can be very vehement with ideas and opinions flying like machine gun bullets. We get mad, we get glad, and we laugh a lot. It’s never dull!   

No matter how heated the discussion or how touchy we might become over opinions of our stuff, we all know, deep down, that our partners really care about each other’s writing. Having them withhold their honest opinions and consequently having a novel be repeatedly rejected would be far worse than singed feelings. Not that we’re mean. We aren’t. We “all” give respectful, constructive criticism only and we’re mindful of the fact that when all is said and done, it’s the author’s story and only she gets to choose the final words.

Good news or bad, I leave the meeting with a new sense of purpose and the urge to go straight to my computer and start editing and writing. I love my storm-writer sisters. They are my best buds, great critics, and the best support group any writer could ever have. With us, one partner’s success is considered a win for the entire group.

Okay, I’ll step away from the podium now.

I’m revved for next week, when we’ll choose and announce the final winner to our Piece of the Sky Contest. And um, I have to rewrite the 1^st chapter of my new WIP and let them have at it . . . again.

Can’t wait!

By Denise Domning

When my first book came out in February of 1994 my youngest son, who has Asperger’s Syndrome Autism, was in the middle of his very violent teen years.  Then, two months later on April 28, 1994 my older son, Adam, was murdered. 

I state that so you’ll know where I was as I launched my writing career.  Instead of loving the wonderful things that were happening to me—my first book was purchased by the second publisher to look at it and it went on to win an RT award for Best First Medieval—I used my deadlines to escape the violence in my home and my grief. 

Suffice it to say, it was not a good time for me.  I don’t know if it showed in my writing, but it definitely took a toll on me.  Before my seventh book was published I’d had a complete immune system collapse and was living in a virtual bubble.  By the time Harper bought Avon and I ended up on the “to be let go” list, I was more than ready to quit writing.

For myself. 

From the moment I stopped signing a contract with a publishing house, I started signing contracts with individuals for projects that wouldn’t have my name on them.  You know what’s really strange about that?  Although I was still working at the computer, generating content for some book, I told everyone I wasn’t writing.  How was it that I could think writing for someone else wasn’t really writing? 

Whatever.  What’s important to note here is that . . . it didn’t work.  I am not a good ghost writer.  If my name isn’t on the cover, I’m not invested in the project.  I discovered this about two years ago in the middle of Monica Sarli’s memoir, after working on the book for three years.  I gave up and gave her her money back only to wake up the next morning overflowing with ideas for how I could make her memoir work.  But only if I became her co-writer.

She was thrilled.  She just wanted her story told.  It didn’t matter to her that our names would share the cover. 

The words flowed.   We signed with the Don Congdon Agency last year, working extensively with Katie Kotchman to turn the project into what Katie calls a “genre buster”.  Two weeks ago she started submitting.  We’re out to more than a dozen publishing houses as I write this and have gotten our first rejection, albeit a really nice one.  

It’s all so very exciting.  I can’t believe I’m working toward being published again.  This time, I’m ready for it.  I know what will be expected of me and what to expect of the house that eventually buys her story. 

Even better, ideas for new projects, projects I’ll write all by myself, are starting to stir.  I wonder?  Do you think maybe I’m back?

by Jenny Hansen

How can you make it easier, every time, to open a new document in Word and start a new manuscript? I have friends who angst every time they do this over things like margins, font, headers and footers and the dreaded 25 lines per page setting that we covered in a previous blog. My fellow software trainers have long called me the “Word Dominatrix” and I’m here to show you how to MAKE Word give you a great looking new manuscript every time.

My goal for you after you finish reading this blog: no more fretting about setting up a manuscript properly!

Make a template.

How do I do that, you ask? When I told one of my writing friends I was doing an article on templates, I was appalled at her response. She said, “Templates are for people like legal secretaries or whiz kids like YOU, not for an old computer klutz like me.” Do you know she actually gave me the hairy eyeball? Like I was insulting her by suggesting that she and her word processing program could be friends.

I will tell you exactly what I told her (though you get the cleaner version): “Horse Pocky! Templates are HUGE for writers and I’m going to show you ten (10) easy steps to make one in Word.”

Step 1 – Open your current work in progress.
Make it look pretty. It is so much easier to format a document with a few chapters in place than it is to format an empty document where you can’t see the results. Here is your chance to make it double space, change the font to the one your editor loves, add in the first line indent and do the twenty-five lines per page setting. When you are done formatting and you have completed the next step, you can delete all the text (after you have completed Step 2).

Step 2 –Save these great changes to the current work in progress, before following the rest of the steps to create a template.
This document is going to be the basis of your new manuscript template but you have to be certain that you’ve saved your writing before you proceed. Any of the following three methods will allow you to save your changes to this document – pick the way you like best.
1) Hit the Ctrl + S buttons on your keyboard (you don’t type the plus)
2) click on the little blue disc icon (third button from the left on your Formatting toolbar in the older versions of Word or fourth button down in the Circle menu in Word 2007)
3) go to the File menu and choose Save (again, the File menu is in older versions of Word and also apply if you are using a MAC)

Important Note: Be certain that you have saved all of your writing before you delete it!

Step 3 – Go back to the File menu (Circle menu in Word 2007) and choose the Save As command. If you are a keyboard person, hit the F12 key – this takes you to the Save As dialog box.

Step 4 – Click the drop down arrow to the right of the “Save as type” box at the bottom.

Step 5 – Choose the Document Template (*.dot) option.
Word will automatically take you to the place on your computer where Word templates are stored. Write this down if you feel the need to know this but I can promise with 99% certainty that your computer is the only one who needs to know where the templates are stored.

Step 6 – Name your template and click Save.
Now comes the most important part, mainly because this is the step where people think they are home free so they leave the next four steps off! You are still in your template…don’t forget this. Everything you do from this point on is done to your new template, which is still open.

Step 7 – Save any additional changes you want to add and close the template.
You must close this document before you begin to use it or all the things you type will be part of your template. You have no idea how many times I’ve forgotten this and pounded my forehead against my desk in exasperation when I open a new template with a bunch of text in it.

Step 8 – Go to the File menu (Circle menu in Word 2007) and choose the “New…” command.
This is usually the first choice and will help you get to the template you just saved. In older versions of Windows, you will see the list of templates and the name of the one you saved will be right there. If you use Windows XP, the New Document Task Pane will show up on the right side of the screen and give you options. You want to choose “On my computer.”

Step 9 – Choose your new template that you just named (I recommend New Manuscript or New WIP as a title) and click OK.

Step 10 – Save the document immediately as the name of your new manuscript, the same way you would any document.

You may now begin creating your new bestseller without fretting about all those pesky details like font and whether you have the 25 lines per page setting done correctly. Enjoy your writing!