This is an entrance survey people can fill out if they so wish, for the Chrysalis Experiment. Once filled, you post a link to your survey (in whatever blog you put it in, or on Facebook or whatever) in the Chrysalis blog. Anyway, here's mine!
1. What are your current writing habits? Do you have any larger projects in the works?
My current writing habits are I write daily, even if it's rewriting/editing. And I know I don't need to tell you gals about my current projects, but I will anyway - I've got lots of novels waiting to be edited, others waiting to be finished, and still more that are waiting to be written. Oh, and about 52 short stories to be written this year. Woo!
2. Name three things you love about your own writing and three skills that you would like to work on this year. Do you have a list of writing goals for 2011?
Three things I love about it:
-I think for the most part I manage to avoid character/plot clichés, or at least if I rely on them I twist them up a little.
-My heroines are generally pretty kick-arse, far from pathetic needy creatures.
-I write in multiple genres and don't feel restricted in any way.
Three things I want to work on this year:
-Getting more used to letting go of my little darlings. I think I'm doing pretty well on that, but the better I get the better things will be!
-Not starting as many paragraphs with the same word, and getting rid of repetitiveness in general. Can't believe it took me printing out my entire ms to notice I'd pretty much repeated an entire descriptive paragraph in two different chapters. Ha.
-Using a thesaurus more. ;)
As for goals, you can see them here if you scroll down a bit. I need to do a new post for my 2011 goals at some point soon, so they're all on their own.
3. What do you find inspiring?
I have never really written to prompts before, but in the last month of 2010 I got into writing a bit of flash fiction based on prompts. And so, I'm finding that prompts are inspirational! I also frequently find myself inspired by music. I still need to write a ghost story, based in some eerie woods somewhere, thanks to Type O Negative.
4. What sort of things do you currently do to improve your writing?
I dare to share my writing with other writers, and make sure I listen to the advice they give. Also reading my work aloud does seem to work sometimes. And printing it out!! This is new to me, as I generally try to save trees, but I finally bit the bullet and printed out one of my novels, and...yeah...it's been illuminating so far.
5. Are you currently looking for a critique partner or beta readers? If so, what qualities would you like in a critique partner or beta reader?
I think I have more than enough critiquing partners right now. Let's say I'm completely polyamorous there. :D And I may also have a beta reader for Sundown, starting in Feb 2011. This chick is also writing about rock stars on tour, so I think we're aligned in our interests. Yay!! As for what qualities, well I'd want honesty, but not cruelty. And that honesty can be brutal. I can take it, as being a member of the AW forums has shown me. But not cruelty just for cruelty's sake.
Fun post today, I'll have to do the survey too. :)
ReplyDeleteI also hate to print my work out - I never print anything out if I can help it, I usually just do coupons and boarding passes and all that sort of thing on my iPhone rather than print. But I find I edit much better on the printed page than on the screen.
If you do fill it out on a blog, post a link on Chrysalis for us to have a look at it :D Or you could email it to us :)
ReplyDeleteAs for printing, well more than half my novel was printed onto scrap paper, so I guess it was less of a waste than it could have been. It still hurt though. lol