I often complain about the difficulties in getting the opening pages of my novel just right. I’m about to re-work it again for the hundredth time. Luckily, the beginning of the critique group six children’s writers are forming in Denver had an easy start. We met on Sunday, strategized, and set up the following tentative guidelines.
~Open enrollment in the beginning. When the group gets to an ideal size we’ll start a waiting list.
~Monthly meetings every third Sunday at 1 p.m. The first gathering will be in the Colorado Mills area, possibly Border Books or at a nearby library if one is open on Sunday afternoon.
~Each person will email their manuscript to the other members a week in advance. If it’s a picture book they can send the entire work, if it’s a novel they’ll send about 10 pages. (I will be sending the new beginning I’m about to write. I can’t wait to get some direction.)
~Members can bring to the meeting copies of the other writers’ work they received by email and their hand written or “tracking and change” comments.
~A timer will be used. Each person will have 25 minutes devoted to their work. They will read it aloud for about 10 minutes and then there will be approximately 15 minutes for discussion.
~We will re-evaluate and improve this process as we go along.
The only thing left to do is think of a name. Maybe we’ll have time to discuss that at our next meeting.
“The beginning is the most important part of the work.” Plato
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