More Recent Posts
Learning from Critique Groups
When I stood to read my assignment to my creative writing classmates, it felt edgy and a little bit ill-advised. I had never shared my writing with anyone, much less dared to read it aloud to a group of people I had just met. The laryngitis that remained after a bout of the Omicron virus made it even more difficult. I could not project my voice above a whisper, and my hands shook the pages, making it difficult to see the words. I was scared. Everyone knew that. It was obvious. This story-writing-reading-opening-to-being-critiqued happened in a creative writing class
Head Hopping
For the last few months, I’ve been mentoring a critique group that meets every Monday night at a local wine bar. The perfect location for the perfect Cabernet or Malbec and pleasant discussions about writing. Most of the members of the critique group are holdovers from my last creative writing class. Once the class was over, they surprised me by offering to pay me (real money) to run a critique group. I declined the cash but instead said that I’d run the group on one condition—that they critique chapters of the book that I was working on at the time. They
Is Self-Publishing Right for You?
Is Self-Publishing Right for You? On a gray, blustery day in late February, I clicked the last period into the manuscript of my memoir, Boys on the Edge. All the writing, workshops, professional editing, critique groups, and beta readers concluded with that period. Thoughts of how I might celebrate quickly gave way to the question dogging me for months. How was I going to publish this book? My seventy-first birthday was weeks away and I had promised the book to lots of family and friends over years. My mom, dad, and brother had passed away a year before I
Motivation for the Writer
I host a creative writing class at the New Bern Library the second Tuesday of each month. I started in September 2023 with a discussion about motivation. So, I’ll blog about that since I’m always in need of motivation to write (and other things, too). I found motivation to be in two parts. One is to get going like starting a car (yeah, it starts). The other is staying motivated like not running off the road. Starting and staying motivated is really hard when your Muse is sitting on the beach and you’re staring at a piece of dull
Submit your local ghost story to Winter Hauntings!
Last year, I launched EPIC Carteret to experiment in a new mode of storytelling – the podcast. It’s been fun to learn some of the tricks of the trade – like “nonlinear, narrative interspersion,” a way of breaking up a story to add layers and depth and to create a more dynamic listening experience. In podcasts, a more fragmented approach creates a rhythm and pacing that keeps the audience engaged. I used the same format when I coordinated the live Winter Hauntings event this past January, where a rapt audience listened to locally inspired ghost stories crafted by the
Member Blog Roll
If you’re a CW member with a blog you’d like to share on our blog roll, email us the link at carteretwriters@gmail.com with the subject line: [Your Name] Blog Link.
