I’m very pleased to have been invited to join Fairwood Writers (though not without considerable self-promotion on my part.  A guy’s gotta pitch.)  They’re a critique group with a long and proud history, not the least of which is organizing Norwescon’s Writers’ Workshop every year.  Many notable authors past and present have been members and I’m fortunate to be in their company.  Good, good people.

For my audition I had to submit a new piece for review (which ultimately became “Through the Looking-Glass, Darkly”), a rewrite of that piece to show that I can utilize constructive criticism, and the beginning of a second new piece, all within a 4-week period.  Lots of stress and work, but very much worth it in the end.

My writing output has always been erratic (or shall we say nonlinear), and that’s putting it nicely.  It takes me forever to complete something new.  Fairwood will challenge and hold me accountable to improve my output, as well as point out when my narrative is less than good.  That’s exactly what I need.  The second audition piece mentioned above is now a finished work called “Cold Ink”, word count 14,500 – twice as long as it would have been without Fairwood’s critical input.  Follow-through, baby, and a commitment to get it done.