"Plague time" fell down on me like a domino run: first, cancelled exercise classes, then on-site work was restricted, then shelter-in-place throughout first the county and then the state so everyone would STAY PUT. From there, it was a frantic race as organizations, businesses, friends, and family set up virtual meetings for nearly every aspect of life.  I now attend Zumba on Zoom, participate in work meetings with WebEx and Microsoft Teams, take part in a weekly Feldenkrais body awareness class that uses Jitsi, and attend virtual critique meetings on Google Hangouts Meet. For family and friends, we use whatever folks are most comfortable with, usually FaceTime, Zoom, or Meet. My mind is a whirl as I try to keep it all straight. It's like going zero to sixty in—wait, I have to look up how quick the the fastest cars can accelerate —two-plus seconds. It's ludicrous. (And who knew Tesla made a model called the Model S P100D Ludicrous+ model ??) Anyhow, it has b...

One of the things that will make this an awesome writing year for me: I belong to the best writer’s critique group ever . My group is called Raintree Writers and currently has seven members, three women and four men. How this group evolved from its 2003 all female beginnings to 2020 is a long story, but we’ll leave that for another time. For this post, I’ll focus on the high points for the best ways to find or create a group that works for you, what makes a successful critique group, and how to be the best critique group member ever. Finding or Forming a Critique Group Pexels Back in 2003, I took a well-attended novel-writing class here in Northern Colorado from author Brian Kaufman . After the class ended, a couple of the women proactively invited several classmates to form a new critique group to keep each other writing and to help with “eyes-on” submission evaluations. In my opinion, this is the best way to find an existing group, find a critique partner, or form a ne...

Happy National Espresso Day to you!! If you are a tea drinker, your day will come ( April 21st , specifically), but no need to wait to celebrate. You are welcome here today as well. Whether coffee, tea, or something else, gathering together with people of like minds to hash through things over a cuppa is a wonderful way to connect. In the world of writing, such kaffeeklatsches can often be found in the form of critique groups. As for me, I'm a critique-group believer and an unrepentant consumer of triple-shot lattes. Image by StockSnap from Pixabay Right now, I belong to two face-to-face critique groups. One meets regularly every Friday at lunch. We share chapters by email beforehand (sometimes the chapters come flying in the night before), and gather for sandwiches, coffee, and critiquing a bit before noon on Fridays. We are fast and efficient. Our meetings usually last about an hour, occasionally stretching to an hour and a half, if there's a lot of material to g...

https://www.pexels.com/photo/flower-roses-red-roses-bloom-15241/ My year didn’t start out too well. I had just lost my mom two days after Christmas 2017, and early in 2018, I also lost my dear aunt from my dad’s side of the family (she was like a sister), and an uncle from my mom’s side. It was a sad time, and I almost bailed out of my registration for Left Coast Crime scheduled for the end of March. It might have been better if I’d stayed home, but I’d already decided it might be my last out of town convention or conference ever, so I attended and made sure I went to every single event and panel and performance, and whatever that I could fit into the schedule. I also roomed with my wonderful Five Star editor who lives far, far away from Colorado, so we had the extra fun of getting caught up on all things. LCC2018 in Reno was a great mystery fan convention, as always, and I did have a good time, but I overdid it and came home with a terrible cough that turned into a sinus in...