Writing workshop in RI

Yesterday was a good day! My local critique group trekked down to Providence RI to workshop our manuscripts with editor/author Kara LaReau. Given that I hadn't seen them since last December (Jan got canceled because of snow, and I couldn't get to Feb because of the flu) I was thrilled simply to see everyone. But the workshop itself was awesome too.

(Natalie Reid, Me)

Other positives: Natalie and I drove down together, so had time for a long chat. I didn't get lost! The library was beautiful, though not as beautiful as the BPL, of course ;). The four liters of hot water I hauled over for the tea didn't leak or spill.

Kara was wonderful! The picture of her (left) is from her Bluebird Works website. I'm embarrassed to say I took not one individual picture of her, so had to steal this. We were all in awe of her on account of her, you know, having edited books like Because of Winn-Dixie, The Tale of Despereaux etc. After which we were going to read our humble stuff, YIKES! But she was so sweet and unassuming and truly gave each of our mss her full attention. She was liberal with praise and constructive feedback, and brainstormed some great ideas to fix the problems we identified together.

(Allison Vinkels, Amy Benoit)

I was horrified to realize that I had to read first, since they decided on alphabetical by last name order. This had something to do with my not being there for the last crit. meeting, I suspect (Thanks a lot, gals ...) I managed to read a couple of pages without swallowing my tongue. We'd settled on 15 minutes of critique for each piece--Kate did a great job being timekeeper--and spent most of my time talking about my synopsis. I hate writing them and really appreciate the input from Kara on how to make it better.

(Kara LaReau, Kate Narita, JoAnn DiVerdi Miller, Sue Lovejoy, Natalie Reid)

Then we went around in order and worked through everyone's writing. Kara's insights really gave so much energy to the discussion! I don't even know where the time went. Now we're all thinking over the individual critiques we had from Kara and from each other. I know my synopsis is definitely going to improve as a result of this exercise. And we'll have a LOT to talk about at our next critique meeting. Like I said ... a good day! I should mention that what made the workshop possible at all was a grant from our local SCBWI, so thank you SCBWI! You rock!

(Deborah Orzack, and last but NOT least, the lovely and talented, April Jones Prince)