Writing Advice II

Five Suggestions:

1. Join a writers group.

A good writers group can give you feedback on your works in progress, share information about legitimate contests and publishing opportunities, warn you of scams, and tell you when your writing sucks (while giving suggestions how to fix it). A bad writers group might feed your ego—or someone else’s ego—or give you wrong information.

Currently I’m in three pretty good groups:

 Lake Writers (the literary branch of the Smith Mountain Arts Council) is an informal group that meets twice a month. Most of us are retirees who want to perfect our writing; many of us seek commercial publication; several of us write for local publications. The critiques are usually very helpful. Valley Writers (a chapter of the Virginia Writers Club) also meets twice a month and is a bit more varied (we have non-retiree members) and the critiques are also helpful. A kid-lit crit group meets when needed. A couple of us are members of SCBWI and got the idea to form a crit group when we attended a 2008 mid-Atlantic SCBWI meeting in Richmond. This group is nit-picky and focused—and very helpful.

2. Keep up with the publishing industry. Read publishers' websites and agents’ and editors’ blogs.

3. Avoid writing scams. A good place to learn about scams is the Bewares & Background Checks forum on Absolute Write.

4. Get an agent (albeit not an easy task), so you have a chance at being commercially published. (Self-publishing and print-on-demand publishing only work if you write for a small niche market.)

5. Perfect your craft. Attend classes and workshops. Read.