Through the chasm of Twitter I discovered writing.ie and joined their emerging writers programme. It's already proving to be a useful resource and way to meet other writers. Thanks to a link on it for Cornerstones I discovered Write A Blockbuster And Get It Published. This is one of the more pragmatic and easy to follow writing guides I've purchased, dealing with not only writing but the submission process.
Short Stories and novel extracts in women's fiction genre. Photos from around Northern Ireland that have inspired or appear in writing.
Wednesday 6 February 2013
Writing.ie
I live in a rural area and, combined with my family circumstances, it's difficult to find a writing group. Instead I turned to the internet and sought out writing communities, joining two writing forums, each providing peer review and beneficial in their own way. One in particular has a critique group for women's fiction, which I've found invaluable.
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Hooray! I've finaly found another writer from N. Ireland. I am going to have a good wee look over your blog, I would love to join an online writing group. I'm a country girl too, but romance would be my main focus.
ReplyDeleteHi Suzie - thanks for the post and lovely to hear from another NI writer.
ReplyDeleteHi Lesa, just wondering which online writing groups you joined and was it worth it? I'm looking for a smallish group to join in order to get good feedback and move on a bit with my writing. Don't suppose you know of any real writing groups in N. ireland? I think they are a bit thin on the ground.
ReplyDeleteSuzie, I belong to Authonomy and youwriteon. Autho can be superficial and if you get involved in the race for the editors desk it's all too often about game playing and popularity contests. For me the best part of that site has been the women's fiction crit group. It's a varied group but provides thorough and constructive feedback. For the first MS I put up in that group I got approx 14 A4 pages worth of reviews.
ReplyDeleteYWO is run on a different basis - there's no facility to send private or direct messages on it, you have to provide a review to get a review and books are randomly assigned for that purpose. You can't read what others have said about the MS you are reviewing until you've submitted your comments. It means there is less opportunity for game playing.
I had to put a great deal of effort into Autho to get the number of reviews I did for my first MS. I didn't want to start that again for the current MS so am concentrating on seeking reviews through YWO for the initial chapters of it.
That's the other difference - on YWO you can only upload between 5000-7000 words, although you can upload as many projects as you like so you could add further chapters by uploading them as a separate project. On Autho you have to upload a minimum of 10,000 words but after that you can add as much as you like. Many writers do upload their entire MS.
I'd dearly love to find a local writing group - especially if it met in the mornings so could work it round school, sports and clubs.
BTW , found you on Twitter and followed.
Lesa, thanks so much for the info about the groups, that is so helpful. I'm actually going to try and organise an online group for n.irish women writers/bloggers. Not sure what format yet, but I've already been contacted by another blogger who wants to take her writing further. If you are interested let me know. I don't actually twitter at the moment, too much to do. I'm thinking email contact to start with, but with poss of organising social contacts if enough people interested in the area. Particularly for women's fiction/romance. co.Down/co.Armagh sort of area. Please spread the word if you can. Thanks, Suzie Hull
DeleteCount me in. I've been thinking along the same lines since you got in touch so very pleased to hear you're already looking into it. I'm in Co. Down so would really suit me. I can pop a post up on twitter to see if anyone interested. I'm in the Emerging Writers at writing.ie and they have a section about writing groups so can put up a message there as well.
DeleteThere are some lovely people out there on the internet - all willing to pass on advice to other writers. I think we all recognise what a lonely business it can be.
ReplyDeleteHi lesa, just followed you on twitter, so you should be able to message me now.
ReplyDelete