Manuscript Monday #27: Critique Corner Recap

Manuscript Monday is a series of blog posts which chronicle the life of my latest manuscript. It follows the journey I take to turn my week old baby story idea into a fully grown, polished novel. Take the journey with me. 🙂

Hello friends!

Happy Monday and Happy March! Could it be that we’ve entered the final month of winter? Could it be that spring lilacs and daffodils are in our near future? I choose to believe they are, and that an abundance of sunshine will fill our lives once again—very soon!

I am overwhelmed with the abundance of writing wisdom and care that I witnessed during our February Critique Corner Round. This round surpassed my expectations. I felt like I jumped into a quiet corner of a virtual coffee shop with all of you as I read each entry, gave my thoughts, and read the comments. And by all of you, I mean our six brave and talented writers, Melyssa, our fabulous honorary critiquing guest, and of course the countless rest of you who stopped by to read the entries. The number of people visiting this site over the last week hit an all-time high. I “watched” in awe as many of you clicked away at the entries. And though, I’ll never know specifically who was stopping by, it was an amazing feeling to see that this round had an impact on so many writers from all over the world.

It was fun for me to read the entries. The work by our writers was varied, but so intriguing in their own way. It’s safe to say there was something for everyone! I thank each of you for putting yourselves and your writing out there for readers to see. I don’t take that leap of faith lightly. I know how difficult it can be! I can tell that you all are some serious writers…your 500 words were pretty polished already. I hope you found the comments helpful, and that you can take what you’ve learned to make them sparkle even more. 🙂

I was blown away by the thought that went into the comments too. I’ve known for a long time how special the writing community is. It’s encouraging to be surrounded by so many writers who not only want to make their own writing better, but want to help writers they don’t even know make their own writing better too! So thank you for the time you took to do so.

And that brings me to Melyssa Mercado… A giant, heartfelt thank you, to her as well. When she offered to give feedback on all the entries, I never dreamed that she’d give a full-blown, detailed critique on each one! The amount of time she must have spent reading and thinking and crafting comments is beyond crazy! Besides that, she helped me promote the round on Twitter. She even gave us a hashtag! #critcorner…A Hashtag! I feel so important! (Too bad we didn’t use it until the very end, but in future rounds I’ll be sure to keep the idea going.) So, now you guys know why I think she is the best critique partner ever! So thank, thank you, Melyssa. You’re amazing!

I hope you all found this round to be helpful. I’m not certain when we’ll hold another one, but I’ll post details in Critique Corner when it’s confirmed and announce it on Twitter too. As always, I’d love to hear what you liked about the round or what you’d like to see in future rounds. So please feel free to leave a comment. Please also note that more comments may appear on the entries over the next few days, so please keep checking back. I hate for anyone to miss constructive feedback.

As you can imagine, I didn’t make much progress on my own new manuscript this week. But, it’s all good. Anytime I have a chance to critique other writers work, I’ll take it. My own writing always benefits from doing so too and I’m certain things that I’ve picked up will make their way into my own WIP somehow!

I guess now that this round is coming to a close, I’ll be diving back into my day-job project. The deadline for the chapter outline was pushed up to this Friday. Phew! It was nice to have some breathing room during Critique Corner, but now the push must resume. And then of course drafting will begin and the chaos in my life will ensue. What fun…and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

I hope all of your projects (writing or not) are coming along too. It’s always great to feel a sense of accomplishment in whatever we do. I hope you can stay motivated and focused and keep that imagination swirling. Our creative ideas have positive effects on everything we do, so make sure to keep yours swirling!

And again thank you for checking in today. *Virtual hugs* to you all!