I’ve been spending a lot of my spare time reading. In this past couple of weeks, I’ve plowed through the Hunger Games, 3 romance novels, most of the Eragon series, and a novel called The Angel of the Opera, where Sherlock Holmes meets Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera. Ah, crossovers, such fun. It is in these sporadic bursts of reading fury that I recall just how much I love, and am addicted, to books. I just…love them!
Yet, while I read, I cannot help but think, sometimes in the back of my mind, and sometimes in a pause as I digest what I’ve just read, of how I would play out that scene, how I would have developed that character, how I would twist the plot. What can I say? I’m a writer. It’s our bane to always be thinking “if I were to do it…”
It is during these periods of word overdosing that I sometimes allow my critiquers (friends/colleagues whose opinions I value) to read my current work in progress. I find I don’t hover so much when I’m mentally messing with another author’s work (could Katniss survive in Alagaesia? What if she was a Dragon Rider, and the Hunger Games were part of Galbatorix’s tyranny?). Yesterday, my critiquer came back with my WIP, and said, “This is your best yet!”
Ah, what better prompting to write could you ask for? The desire to please, surprise and impress is overwhelming. Who do you go to for your “how is it?” critique?
jennifermandelas 