Day 4 was unexpectedly relaxing. I slept in a little and accidentally missed breakfast, but the mid-morning snack saved me from hunger-induced Hulk rage. We did three more critiques over the course of the morning. I continue to be amazed by the feedback people give, and how much value I get from hearing it. A lot of what is said in other critique sessions could just as easily apply to my book.
The one sad thing is that I’ve been so focused on critiquing that I haven’t had much time to work on my own writing. The good news is that I only have one critique left to do! I’m hoping that means I can spend tomorrow and Friday revising or working on a story.
After each person’s critique we’ve been playing the game “If My Book Was a T-Shirt…” This is what the Fellows came up with for mine:
In the evening there was a guest lecture by the fantastic Kelley Eskridge. I did not attend because I was distracted by Indian food and wine, but I feel that I should let you know that there is more going on than a bunch of the YA/genre Fellows frolicking around in a creepy unicorn mask (though we did get one of the poetry Fellows to put it on today). Despite not attending the lecture, I did do the pre-reading Kelley left for us, and one piece especially captured the essence of being a writer. You can check it out on her website here. Let me know what you think in the comments!
Day 5 is going to be fun and scary. I have a one-on-one with Malinda in which I’m planning to ask some questions about race in my novel. It could prove awkward as I may have attacked her while wearing a unicorn head earlier this week.
I’m not scared of Malinda, though. She’s cool. The scary part is that I have to read an excerpt from my novel in front of 50 people and be videotaped. I think I peed a tiny bit just typing that. Trying to dig out two or three pages to read from my 280-page novel is like sifting through a cat box hoping to find a candy bar. We’ll see how it goes.
*Photo/design credits: Dave Ring. Follow him @slickhop on Twitter!
The unicorn attack sequence is made of rainbows and awesome!
Thanks for posting the link to Kelley Eskridge’s post. That’s very much to the point, and not just for writers.
LOL. I needed that part the cat box / candy bar!