Recently, I had one of the most productive and I'll be honest, one of the most kick myself in the ass already, conversations as writer with Mo and Terri. As much as they've helped me so much in the past, this conversation really hit home like no other for me and clicked.

Within quite a few a-ha moments during the talk there was a topic that I'd never wanted to approach before, having a real honest-to-goodness CP. See Mo and Terri have supported me, guided me and even helped me with a synopsis or two, but I've never ever considered sharing my work with them for actual feedback and critique  Again, to be honest I've totally shied away from the idea.

Why?

Well as much as I'm a HUGE believer in the idea that a real CP or CP group is a wonderful tool, nay even essential, for a writer I've always felt that I'm just not there yet.

How do I ask someone "I'm a beginner and light-years behind you in learning the writing tools and rules, but would you give me time out of your super busy world to be my one on one CP?"

Likewise, what do I have to offer them? I mean aren't they looking for someone who's light-years beyond them to give critiques?

So all of this came to a head during our recent conversations and it's lit a fire under me. I'm back to really rewriting my first WIP - really tearing it apart and reworking it so that I can actually send scenes for critique. So that I can actually take a big step forward in my writing - the step of allowing myself to be open to feedback. And I don't mean just the "Okay it's good." feedback you get from friends, I mean the brutally honest "You suck at dialogue and need to work on pacing." kind of feedback.

I've come to the epiphany that this is a step along the way to becoming a professional writer. Having a CP and being open to seeing your work from the eyes of other writers is a natural progression and again, I believe an essential one.

This isn't about letting others tell me what to change, and how they hate this or that. It's about having a critical eye tell me where it lags, what writing tools I need to develop more and so on. As a writer our goal should be to get better and better as a writer and I believe a CP or CP group will help do that.

So pirates, do you have a CP? Not just a group you share with or are accountable to, but a real exchange scenes, get critiques, be honest with each other about the writing type partner? If you do, is it helpful? If you don't, why not? Are you scared to death about the critique like I was? 

Lastly, who here is gearing up for NaNoWriMo? Do you have a story idea in mind that you have researched and ready to go on Nov. 1st? Will you use it to push your current WIP forward? 

Come on crew - let's talk, let's chat! :)

I've been seeing this book a while now at the library. It looks gloriously sinister: gray dark cover with a young woman in red holding a crossbow. You don't know if she's going to be a sort of Robin Hood or Buffy, but you know it's going to be good.

Once I checked out GRAVE MERCY (Robin LaFevers) by the cover alone, I read the first page to see if it would truly grab me. It did. First person usually does, and this author wastes no time getting down to brass tax. (It probably means something too that in her acknowledgements she's good friends with Barbara O'Neal. For some reason I think writers tend to congregate with writers who "get them" or sorta kinda have similar voices. Anyway, whether this is true or not, I immediately assumed this author was probably going to be bitching awesome at description and atmosphere, and Fellow Readers, she was.)

The year is 1485 and as you might imagine, it's grim. Especially if you're a girl. And Ms. LaFevers doesn't sugar coat just how bad our heroine has it. We learn right off the bat that her own mother tried to have an abortion to get rid of her, but found out too late that she was the daughter of St. Mortain and therefore a demigod, of sorts. St. Mortain is a Brittany-esque/Celtic-esque god that the people of Brittany still worship, even though everyone is supposed to have converted over to Catholicism and not be worshiping these false gods anymore. He's basically your Hades god; and he's even got a Persephone god he's paired with. I'm not sure where Ms. LaFevers got her lore or if she created it outright, using hybrid blends of gods we know from Greek/Roman/Celtic and making them her own for the purposes of the nunnery where our heroine ends up going to and learning the arts of being an assassin.

When I first read about the nunnery, I laughed. Not only are they not your typical nuns, but they practice the martial arts as part of their training. (Okay, sure.) Still, as improbable as this is, there is a bit of fun plausibility to it. It could have happened. Plus there is the work with poisons, knives, crossbows and archery, and all the other various ways to kill a man. You want to believe these marginalized, ill-treated women could have found a nunnery that would teach them how to kick ass.

But Ms. LaFevers isn't content to give us a heroine to root for. Oh, no, she has to give us a hero to swoon for. Meet Gavriel Duval. [insert swoon here.] But can we trust him? [swoon again]

Now we get to the actual historical portion of our book: a princess named Anne, of Brittany, who is in danger of being married off to the nearest French guy so France can take over Brittany like it wants to so badly. Apparently once upon a time before countries, there were a bunch of duchies (sp?)--anyway, Brittany was probably one of the last good ones and this story revolves around this young girl's fight to keep it. Our heroine (Ismae) needs to protect the princess and also keep an eye on Gavriel, Anne's half brother on the wrong side of the blanket.

The book wraps up nicely despite some rather fearsome near death experiences, and I'm excited to learn this is a trilogy, but it seems each book will have its own heroine. Excellent! You're not missing out on anything! I believe the stories can stand alone.

Anyway, if you want some history, but you don't want to be bogged with it--this is the novel for you. I enjoyed it immensely!

The second book in this series, DARK TRIUMPH, comes out next April.

What are you reading this week?

Anyone freak out like this? What do you do to curb your panic?

Do not adjust your screens. I realize this is not the normal "strange stirrings" we talk about on this ship. Heck, this is a downright SERIOUS book, and I want to talk about this book on our ship! But why not? I came by the book honestly. I'd been bugged by the latest political gaffes in press, glaring reminders that women's rights aren't free and they're not that old. I was born in 1975, and by the time I came of age in the 80s, women doing things were so commonplace I had no understanding that just five years before I was born, it was rather commonplace to have married teachers QUIT if they got pregnant. Seriously? I mean, now they only quit if they happened to get pregnant by one of the students.

I remember studying about women's right to vote in high school; and we probably had the most basic gloss over of women's rights in the 60s and the ERA. Of course, back home with my mother the original homemaker, I remember being almost embarrassed that she didn't want another life. She was so smart--she could have been anything--but now, especially after reading this book, I realize, that's so not the case. SO.NOT.THE.CASE. Of course, in high school and college, looking back 20-30 years, and that was a long time ago. Now I look back and realize it's ONLY been 40 years or so and I'm appalled. My goodness, haven't women been on the planet at least as long as men and only in the last five decades or so, we're starting to get some credit for having a brain and that wanting to exert it doesn't make us unwomanly? It's so silly...and it's so insidious.

A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s is immensely readable and jawdropping. I think the part that gets me is the damned if you do, damned if you don't messages women would get during the 1950s. If you wanted a career, you neglected them and ruined your children; if you stayed home, you smothered them and ruined your children. Women literally couldn't win. Nothing they did was right...or enough. No wonder everyone was batshit crazy.

Of course, most of the time I can mute the political ads, so really this little journey about women of the 1960s, which I took for granted was just a bunch of women who rebelled because they knew what was right all along--but now I see, they really were making a big deal. They were picked and belittled much of the time for their assertions. I didn't know. Watching all those June Cleaver and Lucy reruns really does warp your mind about how things were.

I recently read a women's fiction book--and I'm sorry if this is repeat, but it was so good it was worth repeating: The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton. Women in the late 1960s who are all "homemakers" of a sort, some with kids and some without, and they meet regularly, become a clique of sorts, and start writing. The writing part is so hilarious and fascinating because it's like any critique group. If you've been a part of a critique group, you KNOW--so hilarious. But the other half is like a history book of 1968-1973, and it boggled my little head. Just the women not sure they want to admit they have an ambition to write a book, let alone publish it, because they're not really allowed to want more, to have dreams beyond being the wife of Mr. Perfect. And the one character, a brilliant scientist who can never be an astronaut because she's a woman. Mind you, she's smarter than her brother--and HE got to be an astronaut (or something like that.) They're not even really doctors then, or anything that has a science or math background.... You can be a secretary. At least until you marry and you stop working. It blows my mind. Only 40 years ago. (Now I understand why my mom was so proud to have her own checking account. I thought she was nuts because she couldn't have had more than a couple hundred dollars in it at a time. What was the big deal--NOW I know what the big deal was. Married women didn't have separate accounts until the mid 1970s. They literally weren't allowed. WHAT?)

I wish my Mama were here so I should share the books with her. I bet she'd have some stories.

Have you ever been tempted to read more non-fiction about history you discovered or enjoyed in a fiction book? Ever realize something that just blew your mind because you took it for granted all this time? What do you think of the Women's Movement and ERA era?

I should start this by saying today is our 5th anniversary. *throws skull shaped confetti* I think. *throws more confetti anyway* Hard to remember since we miss it every damn year. This past summer, we considered boarding her up and calling this voyage over, but the momentum shifted, winds filled our sails, and we decided to stay the course. I, for one, am very happy we did. Now on with the blog.