Thursday's thing to love...critique groups!

It's funny that critique groups form the next topic on my "staying motivated" list, because I spent this Thursday meeting with some of my favorite people: my critique group. (For those of you just coming to the blog, I have a list of ways to stay motivated that I've been discussing over the past few weeks.)

I actually belong to two active critique groups. One is small--just three of us who get together every month at our local Barnes & Noble for coffee, conversation, and (usually) some manuscripts to critique. The other group is larger--fifteen or so of us from the Boulder/Denver region who meet once a month during the day. In the small group, we often critique a chapter or two at a time; in the large group, we tend to stick to whole-book critiques. Both are fun!

This week, no one had a full book to bring in, but we got to help one member brainstorm title ideas for her next book with Little, Brown (yay, Denise!) We shared good news and bad, toasted a few new contracts (yay, Julie and Wick and Sean and Hilari!,) and got to listen to a read-aloud of the first few chapters of another members' new sequel (yay, Jane!)

There's a wonderful synergistic magic that happens when a group of passionate writers get together. This group is willing to tackle anyone's writing problem, whether the genre is fantasy or picture book or edgy YA, whether the topic is plot or character or title. We bounce ideas off each other until somthing clicks and the author gets a delighted gleam in his or her eyes...it gives me chills!

I'll write more about finding a critique group soon--but for today, critique groups make my list of favorite things.

:) Cheryl

PS--Thank you, Heather, for encouraging me to post!