Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

authors

Advice: A Writer Needs Feedback

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Every writer knows that the only way to get that book, story, poem, etc., done is to write. We also know that the only way to improve is to get feedback, honest, no holds barred feedback.  I teach creative writing, and I tell my new students every year that I will be considerate but honest.  They will know what the strengths were in the piece as much as where growth is occurring and where it is needed.  Every writer needs this and for some, like myself, it is hard to come by.

I am a teacher, and since I want my students focusing on what I am teaching them and not on me, I don’t advertise that I am a indie writer.  I have told only a couple people in my family and just one friend.  I know they’ll keep my writing activities secret.  But where does that leave me for feedback: well in a very limited space.  I have become friends with several writers, and those connections has been helpful because they know what I mean when I say tell me everything so I can get better.  They want honest feedback from me, and I want the same from them.  And it has been worth any uncomfortable feeling I might get from seeing the flaws pointed out in what I thought was a pretty thorough job (repeated numerous times)at line and context editing.  I grow as a writer each time they supply feedback and each time I give feedback.  It would have taken me years of personal distance to be able to give that kind of critique myself.  I don’t want to imagine waiting five years to be able to look at my own work with the necessary distance and increased knowledge in editing, drafting, plotting, etc. needed to actually see what needs to be improved.  That’s five years of embarrassment of having my work out there that I would get all in one fell swoop that could have been avoided by getting straight feedback from another writer or a professional editor when the work was “finished.”

So sure a writer writes, but a WRITER GETS FEEDBACK is even more important.  I published my first book with minimal feedback (those two family members).  It wasn’t long before I had a nagging feeling that perhaps I had overlooked aspects of the story or not edited as well as I thought (even an English teacher needs an editor, nobody can look at their own work without bias, certainly not after reading it one hundred times).  So I took it off publication, sent it to a writer friend (she sent me hers as well) and we traded feedback.  I am still working on it and hope by Christmas to have it back published again.

All this post really is saying is writers need feedback.

Writers need to be readers: suggested read

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You’ve Got To Read This is an anthology supplying short stories that are the favorite reads of some of the finest writers of the 20th century.  Every writer should be reading, especially the most exemplary works of well-written prose.  “Goodbye, My Brother” by John Cheever is one of my favorites due to the family dynamics it portrays with simple, straightforward narration, and it is introduced by Allan Gurganus.

This book, though not a recent publication, is a great start for the writers looking to learn by reading.  The short introductions given by the author that selected each piece adds to the reading of each work.  Not only do I get to read a great short story, but I also get to understood what drew the accomplished writer to be moved by the work and name it as one of his or her favorites.

So track down this text and sit down for that occasional short read that you can examine both for the writing skill itself as well as for what  an establish writer might find worthwhile in it.

As said in Lu Chi’s Wen Fu, “When cutting an axe handle with an axe,
surely the model is at hand.”

Writers are collectors

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You may not find a series of shelves massed with tiny figurines or thirty-odd tennis racquets mounted on the wall and never used, but we’re collectors.  We keep scraps of images, places, phrases, and emotions.  Some of us organize them in neat rows on revolving memories deep in our subconscious while others of us let them tumble about getting stuck together, so we can just reach in and grab a clump.  But we are constantly collecting from the world of experience around us.

pine resin, cool breeze, the heavy alarm of cicadas

I have lived all over the US, visited abroad a few times, and I can smell and hear these places no matter what current place is about me. In my mind the Narraganset trail lays out before me, twisting eagerly toward the Oregon Trail which I also know well in parts.  Standing on the deck of a ferry moving between Seattle, Washington, and Victoria, Canada, I can feel the rumble beneath my feet, the stiff breeze dragging at my ponytailed hair, the stacks of tandem bicycles filling the lower deck, row after row of them.  I can still see the riders standing about chatting in their matching jerseys and riding shoes that clicked in awkward careful steps that seemed to lean the riders slightly back on their heals.

I recall the day I moved into a new house when I was nine years old.  We moved often, and I had formed the habit of running outside to check out the neighborhood the moment I was excused by my parents.  I would peer up and down the street searching for children near my size and age.  This day I looked beyond the cul-de-sac I lived in, across the connecting main road into another cul-de-sac.  Three little girls were playing in the street.  I don’t remember how I introduced myself, but I do remember they greeted me warmly, and we played until twilight and the street lights began to flicker on, which was my signal to return home.  We agreed to play again the next day, to be life long friends.  Just as I was about to head home, one girl asked me if I was Catholic.  I admitted that I was Lutheran.  Suddenly, the girls became a wall, shoulder to shoulder in front of me.  One girl stated quite dismissively that they were not to play with children who were not Catholic.  They left me standing in the middle of that cul-de-sac watching their stiff little backs as they strode away.

I didn’t go home despondent; I was confused.  We had had a lovely day playing together, and one word had changed everything.  The next day I met two girls who lived several blocks away but were far more willing to enjoy lovely days with me regardless of my faith.  All six of us took the same bus, but I don’t think I ever talked or even glanced at those three cul-de-sac girls again.  I wasn’t hurt, I wasn’t angry.  But that moment of separation is saved inside me.

We writers gather these moments, and somehow they grow into stories, poems, essays, novels, and histories because we never stop looking at them, turning them about in our minds, viewing them from different angles, remembering tastes, textures, sensations of the moment.  We are connoisseurs of memory and experience.

What have you collected recently?

#writers
#memories

Building a positive writing community

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When I started on my journey as a writer just one year ago, I decided that I wanted to build slowly.  That is how I build friendships, and mine tend to last.  I want my involvement in writing to be one that carries a positive polish.  So I carry that philosophy into my approach to building a platform and making writing connections. I don’t see the positive in the flash-in-the-pan way of doing things.  So I have published my books (two so far at Smashwords.com) and I have taken part in discussions on Goodreads and this past summer, I began tweeting (which definitely reduced my Goodreads activities).  I have met some writers at both venues that I have built a sense of connection to.  Marcy Peska and L. A. Hilden have been the two that I have recently made friends with.  They are enthusiastic writers and have been most welcoming to me.

Marcy and I have begun a peer feedback process for each other’s books.  I cannot explain how exciting it was to find someone to share my exuberance for completing a writing goal and the desire to write well.  Marcy and I have started to tweet #confettitweets to each other as we
share our writing achievements.  I don’t know about Marcy, but I don’t
have anyone who understands what it means to write and get to the end of
a chapter or a tough go at 2047 words after several hours of typing,
rereading, redrafting and sighing.  So getting those #confettitweets and
giving them as well has been a treat.  We hope to expand our range of
flying confetti to other authors who do their goal dances by themselves
before diving back into their creative muse.

L. A. Hilden and I have traded approaches to using time travel in our books, and it is intriguing to talk about why we chose the means we did.  I have already read Hilden’s London’s Quest (a well-written Regency Romance) and am getting a sneak peak of Marcy’s book Magic All Around (a modern lady comes to grips with the magic she never noticed before).  I am fortunate to have met these two talented writers.

Denise Baer is another author and blogger that I have met.  She has begun a Pay It Forward program on her blog meant to showcase indie authors as well as encourage the review of indie author works.  I participated and am happy to find another author who wants to bring positive action to the indie author publishing effort.

Nick Bost is a book reviewer I met on Goodreads.  He regularly reviews books and as a young reviewer with a good sense of what makes a good read, he is making his mark as well.  I have enjoyed talking about the review process with him.

Today, I just wanted to mark my year of publishing by recognizing the fine people I have met during this part of my journey as an author.  I thank each of them for adding to my slow immersion plan of joining this positive writing community.