Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Nano critique group

This is topic Nano critique group in forum Hatrack Groups at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by sholar (Member # 3280) on :

Hello! I used to post over here and then got massively busy with life and stopped writing for a while. I finished my master's and became a SAHM and decided that Nano was the perfect time to jump back in to writing. I am hoping to make this novel into something publishable and would love to set up a group to work on it. I would love to read and critique other people's novels as well. Fantasy is my preferred genre. For sci-fi, I have a master's in biochem, so I have some problems accepting hand waving with certain scientific concepts.

Ideally, I would like to set up a group to start reviewing in January of next year. This should give some time to get the first few chapters out of crap mode and into something worth sharing. Having a group set up to start with a deadline would help motivate me to keep editing and not abandon it to the pit of unfinished work.

My novel is YA fantasy, currently 55k, but with editing will probably be more like 65k.. It is a re-imagining of Journey to the West (aka Monkey King). In my story, a young man, Inesh, is blackmailed by the gods into accompanying a young monk, Ani on a journey to another country to get scriptures, which will make mankind better. While Inesh's fighting skills make him extremely useful, he is rash and violent, which conflicts with Ani's piousness and pacifism. In order to reach the scriptures, they must escape from demons who want to destroy them, avoid enemy troops who view them as possible spies, overcome exhaustion as they cross difficult lands and learn to trust each other.

And since I doubt anyone remembers me or my writing, I can give you my first 13 lines- I have not yet edited so by January, these should be better.

Inesh did not see his father die. He always thought that when that moment came, he would know. He would be aware. The battlefield had been intense that day, picking out a specific scream would have been impossible. And all his focus at the time was used on staying alive. Watching another man’s fight would have left him dead. Over a hundred demons had attacked, with nearly a thousand of Inesh’s warriors falling in the effort to repel them. But even knowing this, he felt deprived. He should have been beside his father at that moment, sung the songs of mourning. Instead, after two days on the field, exhausted from the efforts, but exuberant with success, he had stumbled back to the camp, to his father’s simple tent.

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited December 02, 2009).]

[This message has been edited by sholar (edited December 02, 2009).]

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

sholar, you might want to start a topic in the Open Discussions on Writing area to let people know about this group. Or at least in the Nanowrimo 2009 topic.

Posted by ScardeyDog (Member # 8707) on :

I would probably be in for this, though not too soon. (I need a bit of a break from that novel. Also I need to buy Christmas presents.)

I was originally just going to join the NSG. Is there a good reason to have this separate?

Posted by sholar (Member # 3280) on :

I was envisioning this more as a crit group then support. So, we would read each other's novels, once they were edited. My reading of the NSG was that it was more for encouragement and motivation then critting.

Posted by Kitti (Member # 7277) on :

NSG is more for motivation than for critting, but you can ask on the thread and see if anyone there is interested in doing a chapter exchange, whether or not their novel was a nano project.