Report and Critique

Here are directions to help you find the Henderson Writers' Group weekly Monday meetings during September and October: Go to the Community Lutheran Church on Tropicana. Park in the back or next to the office building across from the church. Enter through the back or side entrance. Go down the stairs by the stained glass window, and look for the "Vending Machines" sign. Go through the door under that blue sign (room C2) and you'll see the group.

We will, most likely, not be returning to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for our regular weekly gatherings and we're interested in finding other venues for our meetings. If you know of a good place please contact our president Jo Wilkens or one of the officers and let them know.

Newsletter Report for the September 17th meeting:

BRAGS:

Congratulations to Joseph R. Lo-Bianco for the publication of two online books: "Woman with a Butterscotch Complexion and Best Little Cat-House in Louisiana" and "Who is the bravest critter in the Louisiana Swamp? and The Pointed Fishhook"

Congratulations to Patricia Kranish for winning Honorable Mention for an excerpt from her book "Wind" in the HEART Animal Rescue Anthology writing contest put on by Dandilyonfluff.

Congratulations to Kathleen Mosko on a fun book launch this week for her book "Back Surgery for 2012."

QUOTE OF THE NIGHT:
(This is a sentence or two from the meeting which I (Jenny Ballif, the editor of the Newsletter) pick depending on my mood and humor.)

"Don't you want to apply punctuation? Because you don't. It's missing everywhere."

Here is an article about critiquing, written by one of our officers, Jay Yarbrough. Enjoy:

Everyone has their own take on critiquing. This is what works for me.

I’ve found the most common question from a first time reader is: “How many copies should I bring.” I bring anywhere from twenty to thirty. I want everyone to mark them up. I really don’t care if some of the copies I bring home are absent comments because the ones that do, they are invaluable to me.

I never debate during my critique time. To me, that’s counter-productive. I value the constructive criticism from my peers and I don’t want to waste a second of it. If someone suggests I should of done this or would of done that, I note it and make a decision later. I’ve learned that there are some pretty sharp people in our group so I pay attention to what they have to say. And, are you ready for this? Sometimes they’re right! (I’ll let you in on a little secret, in my case, that’s most of the time.)

If someone has a question on why this or that, I answer but do my best to keep it from becoming a debate.

The second most asked question is: “How many pages should I bring?” That’s something only you can answer. Do you read fast, or slow? I always print out six to ten pages and then read them to the mirror with a timer set to see how many pages of that segment I can read in the allotted time. Our Writers group allows ten minutes for reading and five minutes for critiquing.

In a nut shell, critiquing is what you make of it. There aren’t any hard and fast rules with what you do with the input. That’s your decision.


As I said at the beginning of this rambling, I bring a lot of copies for the group when I read and if a good many of them say a certain segment ain’t right, you can damn well bet I pay attention because these people helped me get two short stories published.

Thank you and KEEP WRITING!!!

Jay Yarbrough