Have you been wondering what your writing needs?

Are you talking to yourself… out loud?

Do you wonder what it would be like to talk to someone else about your writing?

Do you yearn for the passion of other writers?

If you answered Yes, you’re ready to join or create a writers’ critique group.

Critique members are supportive, critical, and attuned to the work and not the personality of an individual member. Also, they intend to publish their work.

You can find critique groups online through organizations such as the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), Children’s Writers Coaching Club (CWCC) or you can form a person-to-person group where you live. If there is no writing group in your local area, check with bookstores and libraries. Create flyers; post them in coffee shops and bookstores. Network with local organizations.

Here are 10 tips for a successful critique group:

1. Find a group with similar goals and focus. Is your group open to all genres or is it specific? Memoir? Do people want to publish? Explore character? Having similar goals and a focus will create commitment and synergy.

2. Limit the number of members. Four or five is a good starting place. If one person leaves the group, replace him/her with a new writer. Fill empty spots by invitation and agreement by the group. This builds trust and respect in your group.

3. Establish a time and day that is suitable to everyone. For example, one evening every two weeks or a weekend day. Twice a month is usually better than weekly because it gives the writers a chance to write and edit in between meetings.

4. Establish a meeting place that works for everyone. Find a coffee shop or meeting space that can accommodate the size of your group or take turns meeting at members’ homes.

5. Create a deadline for submitting work to each other by email. This way, every member should have time to read the work before the critique session.

6. Critique the writing, not the writer. Find what works and what is good. Be objective, as if the writer is absent.

Example critique: “There is a POV shift in this section…I want to know more…perhaps another word would work better here…”

Get the picture? Give the writer time to explain unanswered questions.

7. When receiving critiques…sit back and take notes. Be quiet. Let the questions and comments fly. Don’t throw heavy objects. Also, don’t spend time defending your work or explaining why you wrote things the way you did. Your writing needs to work on its own, without explanations.

8. Critiques must have a time limit. Calculate the critique time based on the length of the meeting and numbers in the group. If you have a large group you can divide up critiques every two weeks.

9. Don’t socialize too much. Your purpose is to get feedback about your work. Be reasonable. You can get to know each other in many other ways.

10. Most importantly, respect confidentiality. Make an agreement with the whole group. Don’t steal ideas, and don’t talk about the work outside the group except in general terms if necessary.

Follow these tips and soon you’ll be enjoying the support and constructive feedback that a strong writers’ critique group can provide.

Tonight at 7:00 central time, we’ll talk about their 100 stories (and other manuscripts members have submitted for critique this week) during our weekly manuscript critique telesession.

It’s easy to tell a story in 1,000 or more words. But it’s quite challenging to tell a complete story - with a beginning, a middle, and an end - in 100 words or less. Yet, this is often what publishers of easy readers are looking for, so we’re practicing that this week as part of the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club.

Members of the club also have a teleclass tomorrow afternoon with children’s author Margot Finke. She’ll talk about writing winning query letters.

Here’s what you’ll receive as a member of the club:

1. Every month you will be invited to attend a LIVE teleclass with a successful children’s book author and/or illustrator, then you will receive a CD of this recorded event.

You’ll get the “inside scoop” on what it takes to become published in today’s markets.

2. Every Monday morning you’ll also receive an email with a short writing assignment designed to improve your skills in some area of children’s writing.

You can choose whether or not you complete this assignment and turn it in for review.

3. Every week you can submit a children’s manuscript for review. Then, every Wednesday night you can attend a manuscript critique telesession, where you’ll receive constructive comments and suggestions about your manuscript from at least one published children’s book writer.

Your writing career will really start to take off after just a few months in our club.

And, you’ll receive all this help - each and every month - for only $27.00 per month.

But wait, there’s more.

Don’t just take my word for it.

If you’d like a FREE trial membership for the month of January, email suzanne@workingwriterscoach.com and put the words, “free trial membership” in the subject area.

Try membership in the CWCC first to see how you like it, without paying a cent. Note: This offer applies to new members only.

But you’d better hurry.

This special offer will only be available today, January 7th. It expires at midnight tonight.

Make 2008 the year you finally DO something to create the writing career you’ve always dreamed of!

See you in print!

First, tonight is our weekly manuscript critique telesession at 8:00 central time. It’s good to see at least a few club members are ready to refocus on their writing now after taking time out to enjoy the holidays.

Children’s Author and Speaker Margot Finke

Second, next Wednesday night, January 9th, at 8:00 central time, children’s author and presenter Margot Finke will present a special teleclass for members of the CWCC about how to design and present a super school presentation.

Writing for children is different from writing for adults. There’s more to it than simply featuring children in your stories.

Learn the “tricks of the trade” to become a published children’s book author by joining the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club here at the National Writing for Children Center.

For just $27.00 a month you’ll have the opportunity for weekly writing exercises, weekly manuscript critique telesessions, and a monthly hour-long teleclass with a published children’s writer and/or illustrator.

As a member of the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club you won’t need to GUESS at what you should do to write marketable stories and articles for children. You’ll KNOW what you need to do to succeed.

This week’s practice writing assignment was to write a short, short story in The Core of Three. So we’ll be going over those, too.

Join the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club for only $27.00 a month and get the help you need to become a published children’s book author yourself.

Need help creating your career as a children’s writer and/or illustrator?

OR - do you want to learn ways to make more of the writing and illustrating career you already have?

Then join the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club.

Our club not only helps beginning writers and illustrators learn the tricks of the trade for children’s writing and illustrating, it also helps established children’s writers and/or illustrators learn to market their books, author visits, and even their own writing courses and workshops more effectively.

You’ll work with both published children’s writers and illustrators, and those who want to become children’s writers or illustrators, to create the children’s writing or illustrating career of your dreams.

And the best part is, you won’t ever have to leave your home - so you can enjoy your coaching club sessions in your pjs or bathrobe, if you like. What could be better than that?

Membership - only $27.00 per month

Become a member of the Children’s Writers Coaching Club and attend a live teleclass for children’s writers and illustrators each and every month.

Each monthly teleclass will focus on writing for children and will feature an interview and/or lesson from a published children’s author and or illustrator.

In addition to this live teleclass, members will receive a CDs of the recorded teleclass, so, as a member, you can listen to it at any time and never have to miss the monthly session.

You will also be invited to join a club listserv so you can discuss each month’s teleclass via email. In addition, you will have the opportunity to take advantage of short, weekly writing lessons and exercises for guided practice about some aspect of children’s writing.

Through the years I’ve belonged to several critique groups myself.

Quite often though, I’ve seen writers get discouraged from the feedback they received through critique groups and a few of these writers even gave up trying to write for children.

That should never happen!

Here are some tips for helping everyone make the most of a critique group:

1. Be sure to join or start a critique group that includes at least a few published children’s writers. If no one in your group has been published, it is a case of “the blind leading the blind.” Writers in the group might not know what to look for in a manuscript. As a result, comments and suggestions will be based more on personal tastes rather than any real knowledge of what makes a children’s manuscript marketable.

2. Make sure the comments and suggestions given to each writer are positive and constructive. Too often, manuscript critiques turn into attacks on a manuscript rather than any positive and constructive criticism of the work itself. Also, beginning writers tend to nit-pick over small details (the color of a character’s hair or the word used to describe something) rather than the elements that will make or break a story - elements such as conflict, rising action, point-of-view, etc.

3. Start by critiquing short pieces rather than novels-in-progress. I recommend this for a couple of reasons.

First, critiquing short pieces will allow time for everyone in the group to submit work for critique at each and every session. You want each person to feel he/she received something of value at each session. With shorter manuscripts there is less of a tendency to get bogged down with a single manuscript and spend too much time on it, leaving little or no time for critiquing all the other manuscripts presented for critique.

Second, shorter pieces are easier to critique, especially if everyone is checking to see if these short works include all the key elements of a marketable story. It’s often difficult (particularly for beginning children’s writers) to identify just what needs to be changed or revised in the chapter of a novel, for example. But generally, the problems in a short work, like a picture book manuscript or a short-story, can be easily identified if writers know what these are.

4. Give yourself time to get to know and trust each member in the group. Your critique partners can become valued friends and associates over the years. But it takes a while to really get to know and trust someone new.

When you join or start a critique group, before each and every meeting, remind yourself to be positive, helpful, and constructive in your criticism.

Try to never leave the session knowing that you’ve made a writer feel hopeless about his or her work. Do everything you can to make each writer in the group feel comfortable, even if you are not the leader of the group.

Over time, members will begin to trust each other and be willing to share more and more of their work with the group.

5. Celebrate each member’s publishing successes.

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For a professional critique of your children’s short-story or picture book manuscript, join the Children’s Writers Coaching Club today and submit your manuscript for critique by Wednesday, October 31st.

Then join other members for a live critique telesession on Thursday, November 1st, at 8:00 p.m. (central time). You’ll receive the call-in information for this session with your membership verification.

Join the club Here.

Happy writing!