A writer's woe

In the world of writers there is a lot of criticism about our works. Some days we take it well, others...not so well.

I have had a bad week of not so well. First I posted the end of a chapter on Miss Snark's First Victim. Great blog, by the way. In her drop the needle critic section for this month. I had so many grammar errors everyone who commented thougth English was my second language. I laughed, everyone I shared this comment laughed too. I made fun of it.

It sat in the back of my mind every time I sat down to try to rewrite my story. In those times I did not find it funny. The serpent, who some people named self doubt, and others have a different name for him, had crept in. I just took the time to check a dictionnary to see if crept or creep is correct. In case you are wondering I had creep written first. People I found this comment funny because I have an hearing loss, I know for a fact I don't hear the ending of words. So I mess up on present and past tense when writing as well as when I speak. People always want to know where I'm from. At the time I posted part of my chapter I was not thinking about my grammar. In fact I believed I pretty good grammar. Wrong! I glad I know now. I'm taking it with a big shovel of salt.
And then today I sat in my writing class after reading the first two pages of my YA novel, taking more criticsim. This time I'm told I need to state what my main character wants. While I had a hook, no one could tell what my MC wanted. The teacher also said a few things, basicly saying I had to learn how to set up my plot. Needless to say, I wanted to quit.
By the way, I'm not quitting!
I'm taking the writing class for a reason. To learn!
So back to the drawing board.
What does my main character want?
At what point does she start wanting it? Start the story there.
Find out how to increase tensing in plot.

Dear Reader,
What do you think?

3rd sweaty day

ok it the 3rd day of Alison Kent's seventy days of sweat! This challenge is just what i need to sit my butt down to write! Goodness know that what authors do day in and day out they sit at thier computer and write. And most days I never get around to writing. It like I'm scare or something. Scare i fail and i have yet to try so I have failed if i haven't tried. Now thanks to Seventy days of sweat I'm trying and I'm now farther in my book.
As I said in the earlier post my goal is 85000 words in 70 days. I figured out that about 1300 words a day. That number alittle over but still doable.
So on sunday I found out about the challenge from Marjorie M Liu's LiveJournal Blog. She didn't say much but I was then curious so I click the link to Alison's blog. Wow like I keep saying just what I needed so I signed up. It was late on sunday but I started writing. I wrote least then a page but it got me started! Yesterday (monday) I read the posts that Alison linked in her blog, realized that I don't have so much on my plate as some of the authors in this chanenge it was a wow moment. also on monday I wrote my words count for the day I still behind becouse of sunday but it's ok I'm writing!! that what matter! and i'm closer to finish my book then i was on sunday. That what I keep telling myself I'm closer. I'm closer! Great feeling! So I need to go write for today. Thank you for visiting my blog! ~A

Learn to Write online

Harlequin has a webpage on learning to write, here. It feature a guide to write a book in a year. Also their writing guidelines for their books are there too.