At least three times over the years, I’ve posted on my personal blog a paean to critique groups.
And once more I repeat: My critique group is a necessary part of my writing life.
Before I joined my first critique group, I was floundering, rewriting the same material over and over, trying to remember—does this scene come next, or that one? Or something else? And thinking, This is stupid, stupid, stupid, and I’m a fraud, and I’m stupid to expend so much energy on nothing, nothing, nothing. If other aspiring writers hadn’t rescued me, I might have given up.
One thing I’ve never mentioned in my song of praise is that critique groups aren’t necessarily all sweetness and light. Writers who put their work out for comment must have thick skin. That shouldn’t be a surprise: in the dictionary, critique is just three words down from criticism, and in these groups, criticism is Job 1.
Click here to read the original post at Ink-Stained Wretches.
Kathy Waller 