I am active member of an online middle grade writing critique group called the magnificent narwhals, which is one of over thirty groups under the middle grade hub (mghub) umbrella. I remember when the groups were formed--- probably about two years ago, maybe three. It was an exciting time to be placed into a group of serious writers. Since then, I've made lasting friends who have given me valuable feedback on my writing. I love looking at my group members' writing because they're so creative and talented! Periodically, the whole hub will come together (on zoom, of course since we're scattered across the globe!), usually for an author reading or agent Q and A. This spring, however, they did something a little new... There was a pitch event in May! Basically, we could submit our book pitches to private google form created by the hub. They then shared our pitches to participating agents who could then request more materials (eg. query, synopsis) from us. In preparation for the pitch, we had several workshops, which you can see outlined in the image above. Each was taught by members from the hub, most agented or with books coming out in the next year. After each workshop, we had the opportunity to sign up for swaps with members outside our regular mghub groups. So, for the first workshop, I got to swap pitches, for the second, synopses... etc. It's a week or so since the official pitch event, and I've received a few agent requests (eg. query, first five pages). I don't know what will become of these requests, but I'm so glad I participated, especially in the workshops and swaps because I feel that much more confident querying my project!
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There's a lot to learn when it comes craft: world building, setting, dialogue, word choice, etc. There's a lot to learn about the publishing industry, too. It's competitive, challenging, and loooong. My understanding of both craft and the publishing world (self-pub and trad) has been (and is!) a line upon line process. I've accessed tidbits in a variety of ways: writing courses, blogs, YouTube videos, author readings, etc. Today, however, I want to give a shout-out to one of my all-time favorite affordable online writing conferences that has helped me tap into writing life, craft, and the publishing industry: WriteOnCon! What is WriteOnCon? It's an online writing conference--- a three-day weekend event--- focused on kid-lit, open to the public. Traditionally published or agented authors (as well as agents and editors!) do workshops, panels, discussions, podcasts, and blogs on a variety of topics geared for those of us wanting to write for kids. And it's all online, so no need to get a hotel, fly or drive to a conference center. As much as I love in-person conferences, I feel like a lot of writing conferences are often far away from where I live. It's also a perk that you can wear your pajamas! How much does WriteOnCon cost? Like I said, it's extremely affordable, ranging from $10-$25, depending on the membership you want to purchase. Personally, I feel like you get a lot of content for your buck! This year, I purchased a full admission ($15) and I was able to access all the content. The only thing out of my reach was content from past years, but I've attended the last three or more, so I feel like it's okay that I don't have that access because I don't plan on diving into those older videos, blogs, and podcasts. I know I have more than enough to go through for the current conference. What can I expect at WriteOnCon? Like I said, there are a variety of blogs, podcasts, panels and such, some live-streaming, others pre-recorded. And, yes, if you have the full-admission ticket, you can view the live sessions after they've happened as well as live. The advantage of attending live is you can ask questions! I always get a little tickled when my question gets answered. I'm like... whoa... they're talking to me! It's fun! There's also feedback sessions you can participate in, as well as the critique boutique, which is where you can pay for a specific professional to look at your work. I find, however, that I get more than enough for money by simply exploring the various blogs and podcasts and such. There are a variety of topics each year. I'll list some of my favorites from this year so you can have a taste of what you might expect if you choose to attend WriteOnCon in the future:
Again, these topics and titles are about 5% of the conference... this year! There's so much more. You usually get a week or two, so even though I try to take "time off" for the first or second day of the conference I always need another week or so to go through the rest of the content. And, honestly, I don't always get through all of it, which (in my opinion) is fine because WriteOnCon can feel a bit like drinking from a firehose. You can take notes, skip content that doesn't apply to you, and rewatch your favorite stuff. There's more to learn
I wish I could tell you I know everything there is to know about writing and publishing, but I can't. The truth is, I'm still learning and navigating the world as I write, revise, query, and daydream about signing on with a literary agent and publishing house. But does WriteOnCon make me feel like I'm a little closer to my publishing dreams? Absolutely! At the very least, I feel like I belong in the "writing" and "publishing" club even though--- I haven't published, yet. Attending WriteOnCon--- at whatever degree I'm able--- shows myself that I'm serious about this career choice, that I am getting closer to my dreams of traditionally publishing.
Anyway, I belong to an exclusive group of middle grade writers, the MGnarwhals. Our fearless team captain read an interesting blog post by Ann and reached out to her with questions. He somehow managed to book a chat for all us narwhals. I probably shouldn't go into too much detail on the meeting as it was informal in structure (mostly a Q&A) and some bits of advice about writing and publishing was meant just for us narwhals, but I'll share a couple nuggets or takeaways from the Q&A. But first, can I just say how much I loved her energy? So much energy for writing and reading and doing the best you can! Nugget #1 When talking about her writing process, she talked about all the false starts, the messy drafts, and manuscript flops. (They happen to all of us!) What I won't forget, though, is her optimism. "You keep getting better!" she said, meaning that the secret to writing (and maybe even publishing traditionally) is to keep writing. It's such a simple recipe for success. Keep writing. Get better! I know this to be true. I think about the writer I was even last year, and I'm completely different. I'm better... I can't wait to see how my writing skills improve next year and the next... Nugget #2 You can read her publishing story on her blog (link above), but she had a few setbacks when her book was released. Instead of hanging her head and moaning about her challenges, though, she got to work. "When it comes to promoting," she said. "Don't shy away." She talked about how retweeting something positive about her book was easy because it wasn't about her. It was about Zoe (her main character) and her story. Why wouldn't she support her friend? "It's like your baby!" she said. "Advocate! No regrets!' Her method worked because it was through word of mouth that I heard about the book. It was the same for many of us, I think. Conclusion
I'm thinking about the meeting and I can't remember all the questions or even all the answers, just the excitement and energy! You know how some people say they can see themselves in others? You know, I think I can see myself in Ann. Years from now. After publishing my first book and having a second soon to be released. I'll be as excited as her. ha ha! I hope so anyway. I know some people get worn down by the politics and sloooow process of publishing, but if there's anything I've learned it's that writing is writing. Whether you're starting in on your first book, in the query trenches, or published... you've got to love telling stories to get your through. My poem went to outer space. No, really! Let me tell you about it... This last July, I was checking my faculty email, just to see what the college was planning to do for the upcoming Fall semester, and I stumbled onto a forwarded email, something district wide. It was a call for poets, promising that the winners of the contest would have their poem read in space. (Cool!) I looked at the submission date, decided it was worth a shot and started in drafting a poem... for outer space. After I had a draft, I reached out to the online writing community and found another poet. She reviewed my poem, gave me some ideas for improvement, etc. I made some changes and shared it with another writer friend and got more feedback and after revising for a third, fourth, fifth time, I decided it was time to submit. I followed the instructions, filled in my information, and got my "thank you for your submission" email back within seconds. Fast forward to last week, nearly two months after submitting. I was checking my faculty email again, and got something from a coworker. She told me my poem was beautiful and congrats for winning the contest. Huh? I double-checked, triple-checked my email for something that would tell me that I won. Nothing. I never heard from the contest. Weird. So, I emailed my coworker and asked where she saw the finalists listed. Maybe she was mistaken. She said she saw the announcement from our department chair who shared a link. She shared it with me, too and, sure enough, my poem was among the other finalists on their website! I won the contest I think that (maybe) because I'm not teaching a class right now that my email wasn't included in the announcement she saw from our department chair. But where did he hear about me winning? More importantly, when would my poem be read in space? I went into research mode. I searched the contest page, looked everywhere for an email, and considered "replying back" to my submission confirmation, but it was a "no reply" address, meaning it was an automated response most likely. hmmm...
I never figured out when they read my poem in outer space or see a recording of it, but I learned a lot about the crew. They're called Inspiration4, and they are the first civilian crewed spaceship to orbit the earth, which is cool! Oh, and they raised over 20 million dollars for St. Jude's Hospital. So great! It was a historic launch and even though the contest organizers haven't connected with me (yet), I'm glad my poem is on their website and that it may have been read in outer space! I guess that makes me a galactic poet, don't you think? UPDATE June 2022 Dr. Sian Proctor signed my poem and mailed it back to me. I guess that was her way of proof that she took the poem to outer space with her. This interview was originally published on August 30, 2021 on the WTMP website after a four month mentorship with Lori Keckler and Silver Milagro. Tell us a little about yourself. Who are you, what do you write, and what are you working on right now? I’m an ESL teacher, drummer, and writer, and I live in Arizona. I love Middle Grade---reading it and writing it. I mostly gravitate to fantasy, but I like contemporary, too. Right now, I’m playing around with poetry. I’ve published a couple poems in literary magazines, but I also write practice poetry on my website, and just for fun, my current baby-work-in-progress, which I have not finished or shared with my mentors, is an attempt at a book in verse. To learn more, check out my blog: https://kassielamro.weebly.com/ What kind of stories are you interested in exploring in your career as an author?
All of my projects, including the one I worked on with my mentors, explore family relationships, so I imagine my career will include stories that do more of that. I’m also interested in stories about belonging and walking that line between childhood and growing up. What's the best thing about you as an author? I am persistent. You have to be in this industry! I’m also inquisitive---about my characters, world(s), writing process, etc. I’m a discovery-writer, but open to plotting. I’m also open to critique from trusted mentors, critique partners, and beta readers. How have you developed as an author during this mentorship period? Is there anything that you didn't think before about the craft that you think now? It’s challenging to sum up 3-4 months of work in a few sentences, but, generally speaking, I’ve learned a lot about myself and my writing process. Lori and Silver asked good questions about my characters, their motivations, and my thought process behind each scene. They also introduced me to some helpful resources. For example, Story Genius by Lisa Cron had activities that challenged me to think about and identify my story’s “third-rail.” I don’t think I changed my ways of thinking about the craft so much as learned about my preferred styles communicating and receiving feedback from others. If every book is a book baby, then it takes a village to raise a book. Are there any people who stand out to you as people who helped you in your writing journey? I’d have to say my husband, for sure. I’m an extrovert, and writing (if you haven’t noticed) is an introvert activity. So after a long writing session, I often talked his ear off—but in doing that, I talked through plot points, character arcs, and impostor syndrome. I also talked with my good friend Kathy and my college friend Malina, who both brainstormed ideas and supported me in my very slow process. As far as revising and shaping the story, once I had a draft, I’d say my creative writing teacher Josh Rathkamp as well as all of my beta readers, especially a friend from high school, Christa, who amazingly agreed to read my work despite the fact that we hadn’t talked in a long time, made some really important contributions to my writing journey. It was also encouraging for Silver and Lori to pick my book for this mentorship and cheer me on as I continue this crazy journey towards publication. What do you think is the biggest necessity for a group of writing friends? (This answer can be anything from "trust and communication" to "a sweet slack server") A love of the craft, a love of the process, and a love of each other. Any parting words for young writers looking for guidance, or a community? Look, finding a community of writers isn’t that hard, especially today. When I was a kid, I had to beg my neighborhood friends to read my made-up stories under the shade of my parents’ tree, but today, finding a community of writers is literally at your fingertips. You could start by participating in NaNoWriMo, which happens every November, but there are other opportunities via social media and the Internet. Or, you could explore free writer workshops via your public library or local independent bookstores. For example, Bookman’s in Arizona, does a young writers competition every year. I would also encourage you to (when old enough) to take classes at your community college. In every experience, be open, flexible, and giving. Remember that the writing process is a series of trial and error, so don’t be afraid to take risks and be okay with making a few mistakes along the way. Finding your people and learning about the craft is great, but remember that the best way to get better is by reading (a lot!) and writing (a lot!)! What about your own craft, interests, and abilities drew you to your mentee and their work? We were attracted to Kassie Lamro’s novel Until Sundown primarily because of the subject matter—a child dealing with death and grief, a difficult subject that Lamro handled beautifully via a fantastical journey through the afterlife with the aid of zodiacs—a highly creative concept with a subject always needed in the MG space. The strong writing that accompanied the concept made it a solid choice for us. Do you have a message for anyone interested in your mentee's work? Our mentee’s work has a lot of heart and soul. Her MC’s definitions of grief and death are handled delicately and are at a level consistent with middle grade parameters. Her passion for her work radiates on every page. We are looking forward to seeing this story on the bookshelves! I've watched #PitMad come and go for at least three years now. It's a quarterly online competition where you tweet what your story is about and agents "like" or favorite your tweet if they want you to submit to them. Having revised, edited, and incorporated beta reader feedback to said completed draft, I knew this time around would be different! This time, I was eligible to participate. All you need is a completed, polished book draft--- but you need a completed, polished book draft. (It sounds easier than it actually is!) How it went As much as I was hoping something would come from my tweet, I knew that it was unlikely. Most people who participate don't get representation. It happens, sure! But there were over 200,000 tweets by noon. It would be impossible for agents to go through all the tweets! At the end of the day, a friend asked me how my first time was! "It was fun," I said. "It was a great way to dip my toes, so to speak, into the querying world." When he asked if I had any takers, I admitted that I got one "like," but it was from an agent that represents romance novels. ha ha! I I didn't write a romance novel, so I'm not sure why they would think I would be a good fit for them. "But you know what?" I said. "I connected with a lot of wonderful writers... At the very least, I just told the world I wrote a book!" "That's a great way to look at it!" he said. Unexpected support Even though I was optimistic about my experience and was glad I tried, it was still somewhat discouraging not to get something more. Then, the next day, I found this tweet!
But wait! That's not all. Diane Magras sent me a DM and told me not to give up on my book. She gave me names of agents that I should submit to and offered to look at my query. Jaw drop! I sent her my query and she gave me great advice for how to improve it. She wants my book in the world! It was awesome! The road to publication is still long, but at least there are moments of sunshine and support along the way.
As I've sheared before, I finished writing a book! I've revised and edited that puppy--- alone, with mentors and critique partners, and I've sent out two different versions to beta readers. I revised, edited again and again... and it's about as good as I can get it. "When will you publish your book?" a friend asked me recently. Good question!
In short, I'll more easily be able to say, "Buy my book wherever books are sold!" and maybe in several different languages. Getting a literary agent In some cases of traditional publishing, it isn't necessary to have a literary agent. Shonna Slayton, for example, said she queried a small publishing press on her own. Bully for her! I may get to that same point of confidence someday, but most publishing houses don't allow for that sort of thing anyway. They will only listen to pitches from a literary agent. My goal, then, is to get an agent. Again, this is someone in the publishing industry who can guide you through the submission process, answer questions, and even go to bat for you and your book when it comes time to signing a contract with a publishing house. This one step alone (getting a literary agent) can sometimes take ten or more years! The "query trenches" This is a nickname for that stage in your writing career where you are submitting queries (cover letters to your book) to agents and receiving rejections. Everyone gets rejections! It took J.K Rowling over seven years to get Harry Potter published. Stephen King said he got so many rejections that he was able to cover his entire wall/room with rejection slips! These are the giants in the writing industry. If they struggled to get their books into the world, what hope is there for the rest of us? Requests You might hear people talking about whether they got a partial or full request. This basically means that an agent (or someone they queried) is interested in your story. They're not quite ready to represent you, though. They need to see more of your writing, so they ask for part of your book (partial) or the whole thing. Sometimes these requests result in representation. Other times, they lead to an R&R... R&R R&R stands for "revise and resubmit." The agent (person you're querying) will tell you about some specific aspects in your project that need some tweaking. It could be a character that needs to be taken out, some polishing up of your theme or character arch or something else. R&Rs are usually good news, but sometimes you submit again and receive a rejection anyway.
Competitions There are competitions that can help you get seen by an agent faster. For example, #PitMad is a quarterly Twitter Pitch competition. #RevPit is another. I am currently working towards #PitchWars (which sponsors #PitMad). It is a mentorship program. Basically, an author/agented-author works with me and my manuscript in preparation for an agent showcase. As you can imagine, it's extremely competitive to get into such a program. Oftentimes it takes two or three tries to get in. After getting an agent Getting a literary agent doesn't guarantee that you will be published. It's for sure a step in the right direction! But the agent will need to pitch your story, put it on what's called submission, and convince people that your book belongs in the world. This could take anywhere between 2-5 years. Once the publisher agrees to publish your book, though, it only takes about 3 years for the book to be printed and ready for sale. So, when will you publish your book?
Let's just say that I'm in the car, puttering forward. It's gonna be a long drive! I might (literally!) break down, get lost or even pull over to get more snacks, but you know what? I'm not giving up. A friend of mine once told me, that persistence is the most important trait in a writer. I think I have that. I won a query critique from professional story editors Carly Howard and Jeni Chappelle, and this week, they aired their comments on their podcast! What is a query? A query, in case you're unfamiliar, is essentially a cover letter to your book manuscript. It's supposed to entice either a literary agent or editor enough to get them to request pages of your book and/or pick up your project for publication. In other words: a good query is essential for traditional publishing! What is Story Chat Radio? Story Chat Radio is a podcast that reviews story elements in popular movies from a story editor's perspective. (My favorite episodes so far are Princess Bride and Dark Crystal.) At the end of their movie discussion, they look at a winner's query letter and talk about whether it entices them (and why or why not). I was (ahem) such a winner. I may not have been a guest on the show in the traditional sense, but my story was! My query critique is at the end of their discussion of the movie, The Lovebirds. I, personally, have never seen that movie, but their discussion on Point of View is pretty awesome. If you want to jump to where they talk about my query letter, go to 35:28 or see the snippet of the transcript below. In case you're wondering, I shared my query draft of my Dragon book. I used the comp (comparison) titles Jim Hensen's Labyrinth and Dan Gemeinhart's The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise. My thoughts on the critique? This is a really positive critique! (Yay!) I had toggled back and forth between adding in the internal stakes or leaving them out. I'm glad they asked for it, so I now know that I should have put them in the query letter like I thought. I had been worried about my word count. I wasn't sure how much room I had exactly, especially adding in the brief bio and genre (etc), so it was great to hear that I have some wiggle room for more details about the story. I never thought about being specific about my "allies" in my query letter. I've always learned not to give too many character names or unnecessary details. Anyway, my main character meets up with her grandpa in the afterlife, who is a pretty important side-character to the book! I never thought about adding him into the query, but since they're asking, I'll slip him in there. Oh, yeah...
I forgot to mention how I won the critique. All I did was retweet something that said "follow and retweet to win." That's it! Nothing fancy. ha ha! So this was a cool experience! I've been followed Carly and Jeni on Twitter for a while now. I actually belong to Jeni's online writing community on Slack, so it was pretty cool to have them look at my writing. I was nervous, but I think I did okay. I'm really grateful for the help. I'm looking forward to their next episode! In part 1, I talked about finding beta readers and in part 2, I talked about having readers sign up and giving them resources, dates, and expectations. For this post, I wanted to talked about the nuts and bolts. It's nice to have readers and an informative email with links and stuff, but if you can't get your book to your beta readers, it's all for nothing! Scriviner I use Scriviner to write my books. If you haven't heard of it, you should check it out. I recently upgraded to Scriv3, and I love it! I probably only use about 10-15% of the features, but it's worth it to me because it breaks up the text into manageable bites. I like putting my chapters/scenes into folders, color coding them, and stamping them with draft type (eg. 1st, 2nd, etc). I'm also pretty much obsessed with composition mode! Compiling the Book Another spiffy advantage to using Scriviner is that it makes it really easy to compile your book. It looks scary, but it wasn't that bad. It helped that I found a really great video that walked me through everything I needed to do, but, honestly, it's about trial and error. I complied my book several times before I got it to look the way I wanted, and that's fine! It's a process, and that only took me a little longer because I had to take a little more time figuring out how to get the table of contents to look right. I recommend compiling the book twice. Make a mobi and epub. These are the two doc types that work best with most mobile and computer ebook apps. When you do the mobi, you will need to download Kindlegen. I don't know how this will work on a PC, but the Mac process was pretty straightforward.
I uploaded the mobi and epub (no PDF). I didn't know how to do a jpeg, so I don't have a cover on my ebook, but I figured for my purposes that was fine. I like that I can choose how many downloads and I could have more than one ebook floating out there. I chose some expiration dates, but I'm glad I can change them if I want. Evaluation of my process
I knew Scriviner was awesome, but I always told myself I'd "figure out" the compiling after I finished drafting and revising because I thought it would be really challenging to compile the book. I'm relieved that it didn't take that long and that it wasn't too difficult. Scriviner is designed by and for writers, so it makes sense that it would have the exact compiling options I needed. BookFunnel is really cheap! It cost me $20 a year for 500 downloads or something like that. That's plenty for my needs! The only problem I had with BookFunnel was that it seemed too easy. I uploaded my files, made my landing page, and got my link to share out in less than an hour. I thought I had messed up somewhere! But I didn't. The ebook option is great for beta readers because it saves on printing paper and buying binders (which is what I was planning to do originally) and allowed for mass sharing. It also allowed my readers to access the book anytime/anywhere. Concluding thoughts So there you have it! Sending out to beta readers is more than just saying, "hey, you, read this!" and throwing them an ebook. I guess it could be that way for some people, but I wanted the experience to be as rewarding as possible. In the future, I want to have thank you gifts for my beta readers. It might be cheesy, but I'd like to give bookmarks or (if I was rich enough) $5 gift cards to an indie bookstore or something like that. I invited all of my beta readers to subscribe to my blog because I thought they might enjoy reading more about my writing and publishing journey. Plus, all new subscribers get a behind-the-scenes excerpt. I wish I could do more! If you're one of my beta readers, thank you for reading my book! I really appreciate your support, encouragement, and eye for detail! In part 1, I talked about finding beta readers. In this post, I want to focus on how to work with those beta readers. I don't think I need to say this, but just in case, remember that when someone agrees to beta read your book, you need to be grateful. In my case, I was probably overly grateful, but that's better than the opposite, I think. I suppose it could be easy for someone to forget that beta readers have lives and may not get to your book the moment you send it out. You want to argue with readers about what they say about the book, but don't. I know these are our babies! It took me four years to complete my first draft, so I'm pretty protective of my work. Still! When I asked people to read my book, I acknowledged the greatness of the task and groveled at their feet for anything they could give me. Signing up This leads me to the sign up form. When I started asking people to beta read (even close friends), I asked them to fill out a simple (online) form. All it asked for was their name and email address. I did this for a couple reasons.
Expectations: Providing resources I knew that for most of my beta readers (particularly those in my first hand-picked set), this would be their first experience in reading an unpublished work and giving feedback on it. Along with telling them that a beta reader was simply a test reader, I also provided some resources. The links to these resources were subtly mentioned (and given) in the form and then popped up again in the email with the downloading instructions. I never said they had to read the articles, but I said they may want to, especially if they were new to beta reading or were unfamiliar with my genre. Here are the resources I provided (and how I worded it in my email): Before getting started, you may want to...
More on Expectations: the Email So, after the sign up form and setting up my ebook draft (more on that in part 3!), I sent out an email. Maybe it's because I'm a teacher, but I wanted to make sure my readers knew what I expected of them and make sure they had what they needed in order to do what I was asking them. I shared the resources mentioned earlier, for example, as well as some other stuff... I definitely didn't want my beta readers looking for misplaced commas or grammar errors, so I told them to please not to do that. I also gave them a list of things I did need their help with. My list varied between the two beta reader sets, but I said I was looking for a better title, wanted them to note where the story seemed to slow down too much, or if there were any moments where they got confused about what was happening in the story, etc. Most importantly, in the email, I provided instructions for downloading the ebook and gave some flexible but hard-fast dates. I told them I wanted their feedback as soon as possible, but also gave them a month if they wanted me to incorporate their suggestions, but also told them that I would take feedback anytime. Lastly, I included a link to the quick-comments-form. Similar to the sign up form, I drafted some multiple choice and short answer questions. If you want to see what questions I asked, see my quick comments google form template. Evaluation of my process
As I mentioned, the signing up form turned out useful for not only confirming readers' email addresses, but also subtly made my readers commit to the beta reading experience. Providing resources turned out to be useful for those who were new to beta reading. It gave them the option to learn more if they wanted to but it wasn't required or pressured, so I didn't get any pushback from readers about having given them something "extra" to read. I recommend doing something like this because it for sure increased my chances of getting better feedback in the end! Drafting the email took a long time, but once I had it, I could use it for both sets, all I had to do was tweak what I wanted my beta readers to look for in the draft I was giving them. The hardest part was, actually, after sending the email, because I wanted to call up everybody and make sure they got it and that they were able to download the ebook draft. Instead, I made my husband check his email and download the book and assumed that it worked for everyone else. I put a note in the email that if they had any questions or problems to let me know, so I assumed that no news was good news, and it turned out to be true. The quick comments form was awesome because it put all of my feedback in one place. I still gave people the option to email me back, by the way. If that happened, I plugged in their answers into the form myself so everything stayed organized. Feeling anxious When the comments started rolling in, I got really nervous and a little overwhelmed. I reached out to more experienced writers and was told that what I was feeling was totally normal! One friend said to read the emails/feedback when I notice them because otherwise they will haunt me, but then set it to the side for a couple days and let them simmer. That proved to be good advice! Sometimes our reactions to criticism is to fight back or (for me) cry. It's best to read it, let it sit, and then come back to it in a couple days with a more level-head and make the tough decisions. More to come in Part 3! |