I remember my early critique days. I would get all of these suggestions but I was closed off to them.

I would say, “They don’t understand!” or “This is the only way this story can be told!” or even “What? I’m not doing that!”

It took me a while to realize that my novel is not something [...]

Do you remember your first *paid* critique?

You know, the one with the agent/editor/published author? The one where you just *knew* they would be blown away by your genius and offer you a book contract on the spot?

Okay, so maybe that was just me but I do remember my first paid critique. Back in 2004, I [...]

Today I’m wrapping up my series of the 2010 Florida SCBWI Mid-Year Workshop highlights.

For those of you who attend conferences, you might already know about First Page sessions. It’s where agents, editors, and authors read the first 250 words of anonymous manuscripts and then give their immediate reactions. This has become one of my favorite [...]

I entered a writing contest at the beginning of the summer. The entry requirements were to submit the first 10 pages. I had just started on my Summer Challenge, but I did have an early draft of my first chapter, so I decided to submit an entry. This contest had the perks of getting editorial [...]

Oooh, I love when editors read first pages of a manuscript. I first had this experience at a Southern Breeze SCBWI conference. At this year’s SpringMingle conference, for the first time EVER, my first page was read after submitting several times in past years. Learned a lot!
So extra summer blog post is brought to you [...]