Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Crit Clarifications

Thank you to all who have emailed me for our little crit partner matchup experiment! This is very exciting. We have a good number so far (approaching 50!), and I hope to see many more. I wanted to make a few clarifications on how this will work, since I have had questions asked.

UPDATE: Please send emails in plain text. That way I can easily copy without dealing with reformatting issues. Thank you.

1. I am not matching you guys up. I am only going to post the information on my blog for you to peruse. Unfortunately, I am not qualified to pick for you, and I think you all have better chances of finding the right partners if you're the one picking.

If this changes your desire to participate, let me know. I have no problem taking you off the list.

2. Joining up does not obligate you to accept any request for a crit, nor does it obligate you to participate at all if you don't find someone you feel is a good fit.

3. Participating also does not obligate you to send a stranger your pages/book right away. This is a chance for networking, to see if there's someone out there who could help/you can help. If all you want to do is email someone for a while before you trust them with your work—by all means do it! If you just want to send a few pages or a partial to give it a test run—go for it. What you decide on is between you and your potential crit partners. I am not forcing you into any serious commitment. Promise.

4. I am dividing the post into four sections that will hopefully help you connect with people who write for similar audiences—Adult, Young Adult, Middle Grade, and Picture Book/Younger Readers. If you put down two of these in your profile, I will place you under the first category you specify. Just so you know.

5. So far, the submissions are very heavily YA, which I assume comes from the fact that I write YA and therefore many of my readers are, too. I would love to see more of the other audience groups if you want to spread the word. I definitely am not doing this just for YA writers.

And that's about it. If you have any other questions, please ask in the comments of this post. I will do my best to answer them quickly.


16 comments:

  1. I missed your original post on this while I was away, but I think what you're doing is incredible (especially considering the number of emails you probably got and the time it's going to take to coordinate this). I always knew you were made of awesome.

    Hope your writing and offline lives are going great too! :)

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  2. Oh good, clarification. I totally thought you were match-making hehehe. :)

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  3. Would it be all right for people who didn't send in a classified to contact those who did send one in? Or are all critique connections are only between those who sent in the information?

    Thank you so much for doing this, Natalie!

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  4. Emy, good question! I think everyone participating would be more than happy to also meet writers who aren't on the list. I have no problem with people doing that.

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  5. Oh good! I'm glad for that detail, because I was getting a little nervous about putting myself out there quite yet.

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  6. This is great! I'm excited. Thanks for doing this!

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  7. I thought you were matching, too, but I am happy for any opportunity to match up.
    If we already sent an email without using Plain Text, would you like us to resend?

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  8. Glad this is getting a good response! Even though I generally write adult, I'm more than happy to match up with a YA writer since I read a lot of YA (probably almost more than adult).

    Looking forward to that post!

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  9. Dawn, don't resend. I have already added all the ones I've received. I'm trying to keep on top of it:)

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  10. Wait...so we weren't supposed to paypal you $35 to match us up with compatible and hawt crit partners? Dang. :)

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  11. I'm in the beginning stages of my first draft for my WIP - should I still put my name down? I'm not sure if I'll have anything to share for a while. Also, I'm not sure if I'm Adult or YA. To be honest, I'm not sure how to tell the difference, other than the length of the book. Is it reliant on the age of the character?

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  12. Heidi, not necessarily age, though it is a fairly good indicator. It's up to you whether or not you want to participate. If not, you can always contact those who do.

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  13. Oh good! I'm glad you're not match-making. I was worried you were going to spend hours trying to pair us all up. I was still totally going to take advantage of you, I mean it, but now I feel less guilty. :)

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  14. Wonderful idea. Maybe I'll do something on my blog for struggling writers like this, too.

    I'll add a link to this post. :-)

    My advice is this...I only exchange a page or two to start and see if working together is something I want to pursue after getting my edited pages back. It is important to find someone with whom you are comfortable with.

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  15. I'm still far from the point of needing a crit partner, but when that day comes I'll be sure to take a look at this list :)

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