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I regularly partake in giving and receiving pain. When you're with the right people it's quite an enjoyable, uplifting experience. It's called "critiquing." The custom is to bring your current work-in-progress (WIP) and allow a group of your peers to chew up and spit out your deathless prose. The group members then give advice on how to improve your writing.

An additional benefit to having your work critiqued is that your critiquing partners help you develop the thick skin needed when you finally send your work to editors and agents. Often a rejection letter from an agent is more gently worded than a critique by a peer who is expert in point-of-view (POV) or plotting.

Just last week, a physician showed up during our critique group meeting at a local bookstore. He read from his first chapter. He was lucky to have found his way to our group. He needed us real bad. His concept was good. The style of his narration was okay. His plotting appeared sound. Everything else was amateurish. We stopped him in mid-chapter. The man's head swiveled as several members treated him to Cliffs Notes-style explanations of dialogue, POV, backstory, tense, first person versus third person. We loaded him down with books. I hope he passes his initiation and shows up at the next meeting.

Critique groups meet in private homes, libraries, and bookstores. The meetings are more fun when open to the public because you never know who'll show up. I recall an engineer attending several meetings at a bookstore in Oak Park, Illinois. When he missed a meeting, another member said in a stage whisper to the man next to him, "Frank and I used to live in the same apartment building. He on the first floor, me on the second. Many times I walked down the back porch steps and passed his kitchen window to see him sitting at the table with his wife. He was dressed in a ruffled dressing gown and wearing lipstick."

I didn't comment because the man ripping Frank traveled the world with his close female relative. They were the inspiration for my short story "As the Seed is Sown." The story was quickly acquired by a publisher and is a free download on my web site. Another of my short stories, "All the Gods' Gifts Being Equal," was inspired by critique group members. The main character is a composite of persons from several groups.

If you want the muse to sit on your shoulder, you'll likely find her at a critiquing group. Where else could you find a more interesting bunch of people? Writers are a breed apart. We enjoy socializing with other writers, who speak our language and understand our motivations. But then, a person can't drink heavy cream all the time, so we equally enjoy the sweet tea companionship of our non-writer family members and friends.

For more than 20 years, I've belonged to critiquing groups, and have formed life-long friendships. Although several of us have scattered to other parts of the country, I'm still in touch with the core members of my first critiquing group.

Same Place Tomorrow,
Carol