Category Archives: feedback

May 13, 2013   Jane   feedback, fun, Jane, reading, vacation  
9

What should I read on my vacation?

Finally, our vacation is in sight.  It’s  been a long  time since we’ve been away and it’s been a long winter of recovery from emergency surgery (for my husband, Steve) and lots of hard work for us both.  But our trip to Australia to spend my son  Zach’s twenty-first birthday with him is almost here.  As these will be the longest  flights we’ve ever taken, I am wondering what great suggestions our blog followers will have for me to read.

Yesterday, one of my clients asked me if I still enjoyed reading for pleasure because I review so many flawed manuscripts.  I answered that, indeed, I am able to put my “agent’s hat” aside when reading for my own enjoyment (other than, of course, to wish that the book I am loving had been one I had represented).  The problem is that I have so little time to choose what I read and so many books to choose from.

So, I am very eager to have your suggestions.  Not only would I like to know the titles and authors of the books you single out, but also why you think they are great reads.

I very much look forward to hearing from you.

July 12, 2012   Stacey   advice, critiques, feedback, rejection, Stacey  
4

The positive power of rejection

The longer you live, the more rejection you are faced with. It’s as natural a part of life as breathing. As a writer, you put yourself in a position to face more rejection than the average person (actors probably have a leg up on writers, though, in the rejection department). How you handle that part of the process is key to your success. If you give up too quickly, you’ll never get where you want to go. If you take it personally, you’ll wind up angry and resentful. But if you use it to make your writing better, and take the feedback that rejections sometimes offer and revise your work to make it the best it can be, then you’re really getting somewhere that could wind up being great. Perhaps not necessarily what you originally envisioned, but even better than that.

I enjoyed reading this recent article from writersdigest.com about Aminta Arrington’s winding road to publication. She describes the various agents with whom she corresponded and how their feedback shaped and changed the book she wound up writing and selling to a publisher. While not all agents or editors can offer the type of constructive feedback it sounds like she received, there are certainly other places to go to get feedback on your book, whether it’s from teachers, beta readers, writers’ groups, or your most insightful friends and family. Taking the idea of rejection and spinning it into a chance for growth and introspection is a worthwhile concept.

And it got me to wondering about our own blog readers and their experiences with the positive power of rejection. I’d love to hear your stories of how a rejection shaped your work in a positive (or negative – sometimes enough rejection can get you thinking about a new project instead of staying stuck on an old one that isn’t working) way. And it doesn’t have to be agent or publisher rejection. Maybe it’s a friend who told you they didn’t like something you’d written, or a teacher who gave you a grade lower than you thought you deserved until you heard his or her explanation and realized maybe it really wasn’t your best work. Please share your  positive rejection stories and then we can all work on trying to remember to see the glass half full approach to rejection from now on.

June 26, 2012   Brenna   book club, Brenna, classics, feedback, literacy, news, reading  
4

Redemption through Reading

Brazil made headlines yesterday for introducing a new program to reduce prison sentences, aptly titled “Redemption through Reading”. According to this article from the Huffington Post, inmates in Brazil’s federal prisons can now minimize their sentences by up to 48 days per year by reading one book every four weeks, then writing an essay on it.

While there’s no shortage of literacy programs in prisons all over the world, I thought this was the first case where it actually had a concrete impact on a person’s punishment, but I was wrong. After a little searching online, I found Changing Lives Through Literature, a rehabilitation course introduced in the early 90’s in Massachusetts as an alternative to prison. Created for repeat offenders of serious crimes, this initiative forms reading groups where offenders discuss the classics.  It has proved to significantly reduce recidivism rates and violent behavior among participants.

Avid readers know that literature has the ability to change lives, but these programs bring this concept to fruition. By reading about characters and situations they can relate to, convicts get the chance to look at their own lives, and the way they affect others, through a different lens. They also develop skills to analyze, articulate, and communicate more effectively, equipping them with the ability to make more positive contributions to society.

Does anyone here have experience working in this capacity in the penal system?

June 01, 2012   Lauren   advice, book club, feedback, fun, Lauren, reading  
2

Organized nerdiness

Despite my love of reading and the sheer volume of it that I do every week for work, I feel like I don’t often enough do it just for fun.  I tend to cram it in in phases, desperately scarfing down book after book, before returning to a world in which TV and games on my phone exist and sometimes steal my attention away.  As much a fan of books as I am, I’m also a big nerd for systems and rules, so I decided to find ways to make sure I’m keeping up to a reasonable level of pleasure reading.  It’s hard to turn off your inner editor (maybe that National Book Award winner doesn’t really need my marginalia) if you never read enough for fun to find the work mode off switch.

My first step was to form a book club with my friends.  DGLM book club is great, but it’s geared toward learning rather than enjoying, and we don’t usually all read the same book.  I want to be able to chat about books with my friends, but with varied tastes and busy lives, it’s often the case that even those of us who are well read don’t overlap much.  Our first book is Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Marriage Plot, which I’m actually not that sure is going to be my cup of tea.  We shall see, I guess!  Those who’ve already read it suggest we’re going to have lots to talk about, so at least it should be interesting.  I’m pretty adamant that we not pretend to read a book and then gossip about other things instead—we do plenty of that without forming a book club, after all.

So I turn to you for tips:  are any of you in a book club?  Any pitfalls to avoid?  Ways that your book club really made things interesting?

November 07, 2011   Jane   feedback, Jane, Q&A, questions  
12

What would you like me to write about?

I find it extremely difficult to come up with a fresh and interesting topics to blog about each week and, so today, as I was pondering yet again what I should write about, I thought I would ask you, my readers, what you would suggest for me.

I am very eager to hear from you about what topics you’d like to see me prattle on about.  I look forward to receiving your suggestions.  So, bring them on!

And have a great week.

August 29, 2011   Jane   feedback, fiction, fun, Jane, reading  
14

Time to read finally, but what will it be?

So I have to be the very last person in the universe who is going on a summer vacation, and I am not actually leaving until the evening of September 6th.  This isn’t going to be a beach vacation, nor is it planned to be the least bit restful, but there will be at least three very long flights and some potentially long airport layovers—I sincerely hope they aren’t too long.

I have been so busy all summer reading proposals, signing up new projects and getting material ready for the fall, that I haven’t had a second to consider what I might read for pleasure on this trip.  So, I thought for my last blog entry of the summer, I would ask our readers what they would recommend.

First some parameters:  I spend a great deal of my work time reading nonfiction and so, though there is some which has been published in the last year that I would love to read, I don’t want to do that on this vacation. I am looking for fiction that will capture my attention and be totally absorbing; I am looking for good stories, memorable characters, and wonderful writing.  Is that too much to ask?

So, if you have time in the next several days to send me your suggestions and why you are choosing these titles for me to read, I would be very, very grateful.

I look forward to hearing.  Thank you in advance!

July 19, 2011   Stephanie   advice, agents, conferences, feedback, Stephanie, writing  
10

The pitch session

Every once in a while, when they let me out of my cage and into the general population, I get to attend conferences and meet some wonderful aspiring authors. One of my favorite things to do is attend agent pitch sessions—most recently at this year’s Thriller Fest—where authors have the opportunity to discuss their material, gain advice, and ask agents if they are willing to accept submissions. It’s always exciting and fast-paced, and even though the brain can feel somewhat mushy after two non-stop hours of pitches, I find it to be very rewarding in various ways.

With all this in mind, today I thought I’d give some recommendations on how to make the most of those precious few minutes a writer has with an agent:

  • Practice reciting a concise synopsis of your work. You shouldn’t (and shouldn’t need) to cover every single plot point or every detail about every character in your novel.
  • Do your research. It’s often a good idea to know a little bit about the agents you’ll be meeting with before the pitch session. It should go without saying that this is the easiest way to avoid pitching your young adult novel to the agent who only represents non-fiction.
  • Relax and enjoy! I have had to stop more than one author mid-sentence, hands and voices shaking, and ask them to take a deep breath and start over. Pitching to an agent is understandably petrifying, but at the end of the day, we’re people too. We aren’t going to criticize your work, or laugh in your face, or make you cry. I promise.

Have any of you out there attended pitch sessions? What have been your general opinions and experiences?

June 23, 2011   DGLM   authors, feedback, Jessica, relationships, writing  
14

First Readers

 

Yesterday I was doing some research on an author whose scholarly works I find interesting, and my online search landed me on the acknowledgments page of her book, where she thanked her husband, whom she described as her first and most careful reader.

I’m not a writer per se, but this line of work calls for a good deal of writing–pitch letters, edit memos, correspondence that attempts to strike that fine balance between “authoritative and rude” (see Jim’s very funny post)–and if I can prevail upon him, my husband is my go-to reader, and vice versa. This is not always the case. In fact, I know plenty of writers who believe that romantic partners, married or otherwise, ought not be part of the process. That talking shop, evaluating drafts, and giving candid feedback is best done by a person with whom there exists some emotional distance. 

How about you? Who is your first reader? If you have a significant other or a family member who reads your work in progress, is her role as a booster or a critique partner? There’s no shame in the former. Frankly, I think all writers could use at least one of each.

June 20, 2011   Jane   feedback, inspiration, Jane, opinion, writing  
21

Why do writers write?

The other day, I was challenged by a friend to answer the question of why authors write.  He maintains that “pain is the reason that authors write. All stories must have a conflict (pain) or a series of conflicts to resolve or else there is no story.”  He added that authors write because of “the pain of not being published, the pain of not making a living or the pain of not feeling worthy.  Insecurity is pain.  Good storytellers have to tap into the pain of the characters in order to ‘color’ their personality and make them real.”

He and I have been around this in subsequent conversations and frankly I don’t agree and I don’t “get it.”  I think people write for many reasons (one of which might be to get rid of their pain): they have a story to tell, they have information to impart, they have an experience they want to share, etc.

I found this link on the subject, which adds to the discussion.

I would be very interested to know what you think.  Why do you write?

June 13, 2011   Jane   advice, e-books, feedback, Jane, technology  
10

E-readers keep having babies

Just when I think I have it down as far as whether the Kindle, the NOOK, or the iPad is what I want to use to read my books on, things change.  In fact, these changes can be really dizzying and confusing.

This week, though, there was a development that could simplify things for those of us who use e-readers.  Barnes & Noble and Kobo introduced nearly identical readers that appear to be superior to the bestselling Kindle.

Both the “All-New NOOK” and the Kobo Touch have a number of similarities and some differences.  But both of them have features that make them more attractive to the reader than the Kindle. This of course will force Amazon and the other manufacturers of e-readers to improve their products, and on and on and on. And even though many of these are becoming less expensive, they are still an investment of sorts, and how many do each of us really need?

I guess my question is, which e-reader do I buy next?  I have used my Kindle successfully for two or three years and am feeling it is time for an upgrade.  But I am totally confused by all of the choices available.

I am searching for opinions and advice.  What would you choose?

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