I have a dilemma. My writing is going so well right now that I don’t want to break the flow to do other things. Past experience has shown me that if I stop for one day, I’ll stop forever (well “forever” might be going too far, but you know what I mean).

However, I have obligations to meet. I’m a member of two crit groups and should be doing crits in order to post my own work for critiques. Although I love receiving comments, I find giving them tiresome. I know that sounds selfish, and it is. The thing is…I read slow and I dislike reading on the computer, so I have to print the chapters/stories out. It takes forever (there’s that word again) to read the piece and then I find I have to let my thoughts stew for a day before I can write the report, which usually takes a few hours in itself. In other words, it takes at least two days to do one critique.

But the worst thing is that by reading a story in edit mode, I have to switch off from my own story and I find it difficult to switch back. I’m not good at multi-tasking. I’m a one project at a time kind of person. Yet if I leave the crit groups I get no help for my own writing.

Hence, my dilemma!

I would like to allocate one night a week for critting. For this to work, I would have to be able to read the piece and write the report in one night…and I honestly don’t think I can do that. What am I going to do?

Filed under: Personal