20 November 2010

I'll Give You Fifteen Minutes to Cut that Out

This morning I had the chance to get together with a few of the writers I met at Death Camp. Since we already have connections (each other) and an ambition of being published, we thought it might be a good idea to start a writing group. Today was our first meeting.

Because we hadn't e-mailed anything before hand (first meeting—no plan) we decided to have everyone read their first chapter to us. Well, we had a time limit because one guy's first chapter was 30 pages long. Mine is a Young Adult novel, so it's only 8 pages long. Anyway, I've only read my first chapter (you know the one I've rewritten about a thousand times) out loud once before.

I don't mind reading out loud, just as long as it's not my writing. I get nervous, try to talk faster so I get finished faster, trip over words and fall on my reading face. So my first goal was to not do that. My second goal was to stop my hands from shaking as I read. Both of those went okay. As a matter of fact, the chapter sounded pretty good. I revised it a few weekends ago and this was my first audience for it.

. . . They liked it! There were a couple of good comments for me to work on, which was awesome. But the best bit was this. One guy said that as I read a certain part he got chills! CHILLS! My writing evoked an emotional response from someone. (Well, and emotional response besides humor. That one's easy for me.) That little writing wanna be inside of me squealed and did a dance of very, happy joy.

Maybe I'm on the right track after all:)

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