You gotta have friends

This is my critique group. [click to see enlargement]

That's me sitting at the desk, struggling to get the images out of my head in the form of words on the screen.


In the other chair is Lisa, struggling to get me to stop thinking so much and trust my talent.

Behind me is the Fiction Fairy, struggling to push me out of my own way so she can tell me about this great new idea she has that will be really great if I just trust her...

All joking aside, I'm equally envious and perplexed by writers who have enough confidence to get the manuscript finished without ever showing it to anyone except their editor or maybe their agent. Maybe this is something that comes with more time and experience? From the very beginning when I was lucky enough to find a critique group that included then-pre-published authors Kelsey Roberts and Cynthia Bailey-Pratt and multi-pubbed Linda Shertzer. I can't begin to tell you how much I learned from this group and I'm glad to say that Kelsey and I still keep in touch.

There were a couple of other attempts at critique groups but ultimately we didn't mesh or outside commitments needed to take priority. Then in 2003 I was lucky enough to hook up with this fair dinkum Aussie gal... And it's the best thing that ever happened to me. It took a while to build trust and work schedules, but now even though we don't write the same genre and have very very distinct voices, Lisa and I tend to share a brain. In re-reading a published book, it's difficult to tell which suggestions the other one made- we've learned to mesh when we need to. And I will say without hesitation there is no way in hell I could have written my last two books or my last five proposals without her.

What about you? Who are your critique partners and what do you call your Muse?