In my last entry, I talked generally about writing groups – what they can do for you and what they can’t.  However, I gave short shrift to the subject of critiquing with the promise to treat it more fully later.  It’s later now.

Everybody who has ever given or received a critique of their writing knows some of the basic rules:

• Criticism is about the writing not the writer – don’t make it personal or take it personally;
  
• The critique is designed to make the story be the best story the Writer wants to write – not to turn it into the story the person giving the critique wants them to tell;
• Criticism is only valuable if the person receiving it can actually use it – it must be aimed just above the Writer’s current skills;
• Criticism should both praise and therefore encourage what is good as well as point out where improvement is needed;
• Only accept the criticism that you feel helps your story (exception – if every critique says the story fails in the same place, change it);
• As a critic, know when to shut up – it is not a competitive sport.  Tears don’t mean you won.

If you understand that much, you are probably ready to give and receive critiques.  Eventually, through practice you’ll learn that, like writing itself, criticism is an ever developing art. 

I suppose I could leave it at that – but when have I ever just left it at that?

The first thing that every critic should acknowledge: You don’t know it all.  Sometimes, the person you are criticising is a better writer than you are.  But they don’t know it all either.  Unless, your writing group is seriously imbalanced, you will have one or two skills where you are better than the person across the table.  To be effective at criticism, you not only have to know the writer’s weaknesses, you have to know your own strengths weaknesses.  Eventually, you have to come to know the strengths and weaknesses of everyone in the group.  You may be able to help writer A and B with plotting; but not writers C and D – because they are better than you!  On the other hand you might be able to help them with dialogue.

A critiquing group is a bit like a Free Trade agreement – each partner has a comparative advantage over each other partner in a specific area and so has something different to offer to each one.  That’s what lifts you above being “the guy who rags about adverbs” or “the gal who hammers on the 3-act structure.”  Because the critique is about the specific work in front of you, you can’t deliver boilerplate; you have to find different ways to help.

The first basic rule I mentioned is the one about not taking it personally.  It was first because it is the hardest to follow – especially for beginning writers.  I’ve seen the look on people’s faces when I’ve overestimated their ability to take it – or underestimated how much my ‘clever’ comments can cut.  To all the people I may have hurt during critiquing sessions, I’d like to say: Suck it up!  (See, Liz is right, I really am incorrigible.)  Seriously though, unless, like Harlan Ellison, you think if you can stop someone from writing, you certainly should; being sarcastic and kicking people when they’re down is not the best long term strategy for a happy and healthy writing group.  And, surprise, surprise, it may be you who winds up leaving the group, not your targets.

Still, a critiquing group should never be a mutual admiration society.  Your comments should always be tough and always insist that the writer improve.  All I’m saying is mix a little honey in with the vinegar and don’t give people more than they can handle. 

Obviously, the longer you’ve been in the business, the tougher your skin becomes.  All those stupid rejection letters have to be good for something, right?  Most people will tell you that I don’t pull many punches at the best of times but I don’t take the gloves off except with the people I think are as good (or better) than me.

Giving a critique is one thing; accepting one is quite another.  I remember when I first started writing plays.  I took a ten-week workshop from two-time Governor General Award winning playwright, Sharon Pollack.  She taught some classes but mostly we did group critiques with Sharon leading the way.  I had written a particularly strange piece based on, wait for it, Dungeons and DragonsTM.  Her central comment can be summarized as: why the f*** would anyone want to write about this anyway?  She then went into great detail about plot, character and dialogue.  I took it all to heart and produced a new draft, keeping only 8 pages out of 68.  Her comment: Why the f*** would... You get the point.

Don’t get me wrong.  It was a truly execrable piece of writing on every level you can imagine.  I learned a tremendous amount from her workshop and Sharon and I became the best of friends – and when I got better as a playwright, she was the very first one to tell me so.  But the biggest lesson I learned: YOU CAN’T PLEASE EVERYONE!  So you better please yourself.

The Story belongs to you.  It is your child and it is your nemesis.  You must struggle with it.  You must discipline it.  You must give it moral direction.  In the end, you must set it free to live its own life.  (You must learn not to overwork a metaphor.)

Listen to all criticism – listen only to that which serves the work. 

Great advice – How do you know?  Everyone has to sort of figure that out for themselves but I rely on two things: instincts and the democratic method.  Sometimes, you just know when a critique has hit the mark.  It feels right.  Usually, the critic has focused on something you feel uneasy about.  You know there is a problem but you can’t quite pin it down.  Or, the critic holds up a fun house mirror to the work allowing you to see it from a completely different angle.  It is that new perspective that will lift the work to the next level.

Democracy works. too.  If everyone focuses on the same scene, you know it must be changes; if they all see the same problem, you know how.  Sometimes, there is a split opinion.  Then I choose the side that I feel is closest to the mark.  Just remember though, this is an Animal Farm democracy – some critiques are more equal than others.  After a while, you come to know that some people’s strengths are a perfect match for your weaknesses – or to put it more bluntly, they are a better reader of your work than anyone else, including you.

Which brings me to the final point.  The purpose of critiquing changes over time.  When you first start out, you pretty much take whatever is offered.  Everyone seems like a better writer than you.  Over time with practice, confidence and success, you will seek out different kinds of critiques and different kinds of critics.  I no longer rely only on other writers – I seek sophisticated readers, as well.  I even tell people not to bother with certain elements of the work – I don’t want to change them because they say what I want.  It is my work and I’ll live or die on my own judgement.

Eventually, some writers internalize the critiquing process, they learn to examine their work with alien eyes.  Or they simply follow their highly honed instincts and the responses of few perfect readers.  I’m not there yet and maybe I never will be.

It’s all about the work.

At some point in every writing career, almost everyone either joins or considers joining a writing group.  Depending on how you define them, I’ve belonged to at least two (more if you count the extended writing courses and workshops).  I was active in the Imaginative Fiction Writers Association (IFWA) of Calgary from 1992 until my move to Ottawa in 2002 and I still remain an honorary member.  For the last five years I’ve been part of the East Block Irregulars (EBI) here in the nation’s capital.

Clearly, I’m a fan, but only up to a point.  Not every writing group suits every writer; some suit none.  Nor does a group that works at a certain point of your career, work forever.  In this, as in much else, there is nothing constant save change.

Everyone has to make up their own mind about the value of writing groups but one useful guideline you might use: if you feel better about your writing when you leave a group’s meeting that when you went in – you’re in the wrong group.  A writing group isn’t there to make you feel good; it’s there to make you a better writer.

Don’t get me wrong.  Participating in a writing group shouldn’t be as painful as going to the dentist and you shouldn’t hang around with people you can’t stand or who abuse you on the off-chance you’ll get a few clues on being a better scribe.  So while writing groups are not mutual admiration societies, drinking clubs or places to get dates (though they are occasionally all of those thing – I met my wife in a writing group), they can still be a pleasant social break from the usually solitary life of pounding the keyboard.

To me, a good writing group will help you be a better writer; a great group will make you a more frequent writer, and, yes, a happier writer.

In a nutshell that’s what belonging to a writing group should do for you.

First, it should help you improve your writing.  There are several ways this can happen.  The most common is through the critiquing process – whereby you read each other’s work and offer suggestions as to how to make it better.  Because critiquing is so important, I’m going to devote an entire blog to it in the next few days.  But a few points before I leave the topic:

Critiquing is not about you, it is about the work.  That means more than simply not taking comments too personally; it also means that you aren’t trying to impose your vision on someone else’s story and you don’t let them distract you from the story you want to tell.  You, in the end, want to write the best story YOU want to tell (and vice versa).

Criticism has to be useful which means it has to point out strengths as well as weaknesses in story telling and it has to be aimed at the person who is receiving the critique.  If someone is having trouble with the mechanics of writing, a critique focusing on the use or allegory is not likely to be much use.

There are other ways that a writing group can help you improve your writing.  Writing exercises can help you focus on particular elements of the writing process.  Along the same lines, group members may be able to direct you to useful resources, books or web-sites on writing or even good examples of fiction similar to what you want to write.  I’ve actually heard (beginner) writers say: Oh, I never read science fiction (or mystery or whatever) because it might contaminate my writing.  What nonsense!  Writing is a conversation with other writers.  If you don’t listen, you don’t learn.  What’s more if you don’t know what has been done in the field, the chances of you doing something fresh are virtually zero.

Some writing groups arrange tours (labs for SF writers; singles’ bars for romance, etc) or bring in guest speakers.  Write what you know sometimes means (though not always) write what you can find out.

A second thing that a writing group can do for you is to help you write more.  While I don’t quite ascribe to the need to write one million words of crap, there is no question that the more you write, the better you will get at it.  Although, there are exceptions to every rule.  Certainly if you wind up getting so involved in writing group activities that you are actually writing less, you need to step back and reconsider.

There are several ways a group can increase your productivity.  Most groups require you to submit work for critiquing on a regular basis.  IFWA used to require at least two stories a year to remain an active member (though exceptions were made for professional editors).  EBI requires you to have at least one paid publication credit before we’ll even consider you (and even then we keep the group small and require a fairly lengthy review process for admission).  Anyone who isn’t actively writing on a regular basis feels our approbation – though we’ve never had to throw anyone out.  Yet.

Challenges are another good way to keep the words coming.  At many groups, there are open challenges to write stories on specific themes for readings (IFWA has been doing that for years for the local SF convention) or for as many members as possible to submit to the same anthology, for example, this one. 

About 15 or 16 years ago (long before NaNoWriMo) IFWA invented write-off weekends, a short form writers retreat.  Groups of writers – as many as 20 or 25 – all gather in the same place to write together.  It’s not collective creation but it is creating collectively.  Usually we shared meals and had a reading from what we produced.  The concept spread – I’ve attended several gatherings at Robert J. Sawyer’s place and at EBI we’ve gone one step farther.  If it works for a weekend, why not a lunch hour?  You can often see 2 to 5 members of EBI gathered at a local mall (we all work downtown) bent over our laptops or journals producing as much as we can over fast food.  My personal record is 780 words fuelled by General Tao chicken.  Competitive?  You bet.  Useful?  No question.

But how does a writing group make you a happier writer?  Writing is a solitary pursuit but it doesn’t have to be a lonely one.  A good group can offer support when you’re feeling down about your work or when you’ve had one too many rejection and they can help celebrate your victories.  Most of all they can give you a place where being a writer isn’t ‘odd’ or ‘special’ but a normal part of everyday life.  And, if you’re lucky, you may find some people who can be friends for life.  I know I have.

The big problem for many people is finding the right group or, sometimes finding a group at all.  Most cities have one or more writing groups active at any given time.  You can often find info about them at libraries, community centres or on-line.  Some groups like IFWA are open to new members; others, like EBI, are semi-private or even closed.  Starting your own group is another possibility.  Attending a workshop (IFWA started that way) to find like minded writers is one way; social media (EBI began on FaceBook) is another.

The key thing is to find the right group and not be afraid to move on if it doesn’t or stops working for you.  A few rules of thumb might help.

The group should have writers with a range of experience – but the range shouldn’t be excessive.  You should feel you have something useful to say about writing to every person in the group.  At the same time you shouldn’t feel intimidated or think you have to do what the most experienced writer thinks.

The main focus of the group should be on writing, writing technique, getting more writing done, and, of course, writing.  The social component or discussions of the business of writing should be there but shouldn’t eat up more than a quarter or, at most, a third of your time together.  Less is probably more.

The group should meet regularly for critiquing – IFWA meets once a month, EBI, between once every two weeks and once every two months, depending on how many stories are being produced (we’re a much smaller group). But it shouldn’t meet so often that it gets in the way of writing.  If you meet more often it should be for collective writing sessions.

Size matters – EBI has 8 members (though one is currently in China for a year) and we find that about exactly right.  IFWA is much larger (at one point it had 40 members) but encourages smaller groups to form for critiquing based on genre or experience-level.  Too large a group can lose focus of members let it.

Finally as you get experiences, your needs will change.  You may begin by needing help with story structure or writing mechanics but eventually begin exploring allegory and meta-fiction, if you really must.  Hopefully, your group will grow with you.  If not, find a new one that serves your needs.  Your group may go but the friends you make will be with you forever.

You can’t roam the writing blogosphere without tumbling over someone’s take on the transition from traditional publishing to whatever is going to replace it – print on demand, e-books, self publishing,
alternative publishing.  Here’s another one.

I am largely catholic in my views on the matter.  Books will be written; books will be published; books will be read.   The mechanism by which that happens is largely irrelevant – except to those who make money from it.  Because ultimately this is about: the transfer of information/ideas/art
from creators to consumers in exchange for value.  I use the term value deliberately because not all writers (or musicians, painters, actors) are in it just for the money.  Some want recognition; some want to make art.  But make no mistake; a value transaction does take place.  It all depends if you are feeding the id (money), the ego (recognition) or the superego (art).

Personally, I tend to side with Samuel Johnson, who said: “None but a blockhead writes except for money.” Obviously, I’m not simply in it for the money – if only because I can make way more money doing other things. I write because I like to tell stories and putting words on paper (screen) is more socially acceptable that dominating social gatherings with endless blah-blah-blah.  Who wants
to be a bore?  And it gives me an excuse for avoiding things I don’t want to do: “I’d love to come to your son’s recital but I’m trying to finish my novel,” or, more commonly, “Honey, I’ll clean the bathroom as soon as this chapter is done.”

Of course, people are always cagey about their income – they either are making a decent income and don’t want to make you feel bad about the fact you’re not (or are worried you’ll ask for a loan or, worse yet, a recommendation to their agent/publisher). Alternatively, they are making very little and are embarrassed to tell you – because low income from art is another way of saying: “no one cares about my work.”  Take comfort – even the most successful writer in the world has more people who don’t care about their work than do.  (Harry Potter books have probably been read by 200 million people; that leaves 5.8 billion who haven’t read even one – including me).

The first thing to know is that the vast majority of people who work in the book business make little or no money from their efforts.  Writers, editors, publishers, distributors, book sellers – far less than 1% of them ever get rich from doing it.  Only a minority have made decent livings (and all I mean by that is a lower middle class income).  Most – even those who do it full-time – live in poverty or depend on a spouse to support them. I have a friend who won the Governor General’s Award twice but only had a regular income when the Old Age Security kicked in.  I have another friend who has been widely published but has never earned more than $30,000 a year from their art, usually a lot less.  There are lots of publishing interns in NY living on less than $10000 a year (how, I don’t know).   

Oh, some people are still making big bags of money – Rowling and Brown, the owners of Amazon, a few of the biggest publishing  companies (though maybe not for much longer).  At the same time, advances to new writers are in free-fall and the average a typical writer makes per book has
declined too. The most successful writers are taking an ever larger share of the market at the same time that the total number of books available (thanks to e-book self publishing) have sky-rocketed. Meanwhile, no one seems to know if the total market for books has increased at all. 
The impact on writers incomes suggests it isn’t or at least not much.

I spent six years writing full-time (well except for the teaching, acting and occasional stint as a bartender).  In my best year I made the princely sum of $18,000.  Let’s say $24,000 in 2012 dollars.   But on average I made about $12,000 ($15,000).  Doesn’t sound like much does it?  It isn’t but, thanks to a supportive spouse, I could live on it.  Then came year six, when a combination of factors dropped my income to a mere $6000.  End of full-time artistic career.

Since I went back to a regular job, I’ve averaged between $1500 and $3000 a year, writing part-time. This is despite a significant web-presence and having won numerous awards for my writing.  It’s a nice hobby (one I spend 20 hours a week on – earning $1 to $2 an hour, before expenses.)

Yes, I know there are people who claim to make millions self-publishing their e-books.  They even write books to tell you how you can do the same.  You probably can’t.

There have always been people in the right place, at the right time, with the right product (yes, I called books, a product).  In other words, luck, persistence, talent –those are the keys and you not only need all three, you need them in just the right mix.  Oh, and sheer volume helps too.  Six crappy books a year might make as much or more than one good one.  There is nothing new about this and it is equally true whatever delivery system was used.  (Tennessee Williams – who always claimed poverty – died before the Internet was born with an estate of $11 million; Bulwer Lytton (“It was a dark and stormy night”) lived like a king off his writing: hundreds of plays and novels, proving quantity is an alternative to quality when it comes to making dough.)

Does this sound discouraging?  Maybe – but if you can be discouraged from writing by what I’ve said, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it anyway.  The fact that bank-robbing is a low income, high risk job doesn’t discourage bank-robbers either.  (Maybe because there is nothing more high status in prison than bank-robbery – feeding the ego!)

Money.  Just a couple more thoughts.  Does e-publishing (self or through traditional publishers) give more money to writers than traditional publishing?  
 
First, writers receive a royalty based on sales.  For traditional books, that royalty runs from 8% to 15% depending on format (hard-covers pay more but sell less; mass market paperbacks, the opposite), publisher and fame/success of the writer.  That means roughly $0.80 to $5.00 per book sold.  Given the bias toward paperbacks: $2 to $3 a book seems about right.

E-books pay a higher royalty – quite often about 25% but given that e-books sell for less than an equivalent paper book, that works out to, oh, about $2 to $3 a book. Self-published e-books often sell for even less (to attract more buyers to make up for the loss of even the minimal publicity publishers provide) but can garner as much as a 70% royalty.  Oh, look, $2 to $3 a book (and no guaranteed income from the advance).

So how many books do you need to sell to make the poverty line in the USA?  5000 a year.  That’s 14 a day, every day for a year.  To make my best income as an artist.  10,000 to 12,000 books a year.  To make a decent lower middle class living –at least twice that.  Which by the way would put you half way to being at the low end of best-seller.

And free books?  70% of nothing is still nothing.  And as for 10000 downloads of your free book. 
I suspect, they suffer the same fate as Steven Hawking’s A Brief History of Time.  The most widely
distributed science book ever – but how many were actually read?  I’ve downloaded a few free books (not counting the famous public domain ones) even a few for 0.99.  I’ve started few and finished none.  I  don’t bother anymore – my experience has confirmed my prejudice that if it’s
that cheap, there must be something wrong with it.

And pirates?  Oh, I know they’re just sharing (though how so many of them get rich from doing it is unclear to me).  I’ve heard all the arguments – they increase your readership, your fame, your
popularity and influence blah, blah, blah. And it will eventually increase sales. Yeah, you know, like the way shoplifters return to buy things in the stores they stole from.

Have I discouraged myself? Not in the least.  I still hope to make enough money to pay for travel to SF conventions and book fairs, to subsidize my own reading and art consuming habits, maybe even pay for a trip to Paris or a few meals at a five-star restaurant. Strictly research, of course.

Besides what else would I do to fill my empty hours?  Housework?

I know I’m three weeks late but in my defence let me remind you that it is Chinese New Year – time for Rabbits to become Dragons.  Not a bad metaphor for the year just past.

Last year, I experienced both highs and lows but generally I feel I’m at a better place today than I was a year ago – not a bad result given the laws of thermodynamics and the inevitable effects of entropy.  

Let’s start with some statistics: I started 35 books and finished 34 of them.  The best was Room by
Emma Donahue, followed by Robert J. Sawyer’s Wonder (made sweeter by being dedicated to my wife and me).  I read six books and countless articles on Paris between the wars – research for my new novel – ranging from good to excellent. I learned a great deal but I’m not finished yet.  I also
watched 45 movies though I turned six of them off before the end. An even dozen were seen in movie theatres – the most in quite a few years.  The best of the bunch: Hugo and The King’s Speech, though Midnight in Paris was a close third – Woody’s best in a decade.  My best video
experience was Paris, je t’aime, a quirky little film anthology.  I also watched a lot of TV on DVD – notably The Big Bang Theory, Stargate Universe and British shows, Sherlock and Being Human. 
I saw several great concerts – mostly at the Ottawa Jazz Festival, including Paco De Lucia, Elvis Costello and Robert Plant.  Joshua Redmond was also excellent.  On the down side, I didn’t go to live theatre even once – perhaps for the first time in almost thirty years.  I went to three SF
conventions.

My writing career took several odd turns as well.  I didn’t publish a novel or even a single short story – my first dry year since 2003. Still, my novel, Stealing Home, was nominated for both the Sunburst and the Aurora Award and my short story, The Burden of Fire, published in Neo-Opsis Magazine in 2010 won the Aurora for best short fiction.  These were my 8th nominations and second win.  Despite the lack of publications, I was plenty busy as a writer.  I conceived and researched a new series of mysteries set in Paris between the wars and wrote the first/second drafts of the first book.  It is out to first readers and I will write a fresh draft this spring.  My research included a six-day solo trip to Paris in October and I have another eight day visit planned in June.  This time Liz gets to come.  It looks like my Ottawa French lessons are finally paying off.  At the end of the year, I took on a fresh challenge when Bundoran Press hired me to edit their new anthology, Blood and Water, due out in August, 2012.  And I managed to write four short stories as well, all currently in the mail or in revision.

My writing group, the East Block Irregulars, had some changes and some big successes this year. 
Founding member, Derek Künsken, sold his third story to Asimov’s become SFWA eligible, while Matt Moore and Marie Bilodeau were both Aurora nominees.  Another long time member, Peter Atwood, left Ottawa for a year in China but remains a full-fledged if inactive member.  We welcomed
Geoff Gander and Agnes Cadieux to our ranks. We strongly encourage each other to keep writing and submitting and actively critique each other’s work.  And we have loads of fun, too.

On a personal note, Liz and I moved from The Place That Shall Not Be Named to a lovely downtown condo. We are poorer but much happier. We became grandparents for the second time and Liz started a new job (and developed asthma).  And we both were successful at our diet – though our plan to lose years rather than pounds seems to have fallen by the way-side.

Of course the year was not all about me.  We had the astounding rise and untimely death of Jack Layton, the long-sought majority of Steven Harper (rabbits to dragons indeed), financial crisis part 2, the Arab spring, Canadian climate cowardice, pipeline battles and Republican turmoil – notably the rise and fall and rise of Newt Gingrich.  And of course the usual round of marriages, deaths, shootings, election triumphs and losses, books
and movies rise and fall (a few perhaps destined to be classics but not nearly
so many as the media hipsters think). 



Gosh, can 2012 possibly match that?