Proof

This is the blog post for the first submission. I thought about everyone’s comments and concerns and let us just work on this for 2 weeks and see how we do. I just read through it and loved it. I do not want to give anything away right now though.

 

While we are doing our critiques let us ge to know each other by posting comments. I will begin.

 

My name is John Peragine. I have been writing full time for almost two years and it has been a hell of a ride. Before that I was a child protective services worker and not a day goes by that I don’t say” Why didnt I leave sooner?”

I have written and  had published 7 books ( some are on the shelves some are in various stages of print) I have written articles for a number of magazines and do other freelance jobs daily.

I am also a classical musician and play the flute/piccolo in the Western Piedmont Symphony (North Carolina). I am happily married and have two daughters 11 and 14.

So that’s me. I wanted to start this group after having some mixed results in some that I have attended. (see my previous blog notes.) I am very excited about this, and Sarah has started us off with a winner. So use the the guidelines and post your critiques.

Amendment Writer’s Group

There was a suggestion that if you post your material online even on a blog that some publishers will not accept the work. SO, instead I will need people to send me their email addresses. I will collect submissions and then email the submissions to everyone in the group. The critiques can still take place on the blog however- I will start a new topic with the name of the submission and each person in the group can still use comments to add their critiques. Again if you would like to send a corrected copy of a work I will send that copy to the author. I would like submissions this week so we can get started. I have a short story ready to go.

 

Thanks!

 

John

Twitter Critique Group

This post is for those interested in the Twitter Writer’s Group. I have posted the information about the format below. As soon as we have submissions I will post them to get this kicked off. If you have questions, please email me at drjohnnd@hotmail or twitter me at Drjohnnd. If this group grows I may limit the amount, as we will not have time to do good critiques. (I would say 10-12 maximum) For now, I will post everyone’s submission since there is only a few of us. Please post critiques over the next week. BE HONEST. This will not work if you are worried about hurting people’s feelings. It is the only way we can grow and expand as writers.

Twitter Writing Critique Group

John Peragine, Group Facilitator

MEETING TIME: Submissions and critiques will be collected and posted on Fridays every week.

Welcome to the Twitter Writing Critique Group! This critique meets online utilizing Twitter, and a central blog. http://drjohnnd.blogspot.com Each member will send submissions and critiques that will be posted every Friday. The facilitator will be responsible for delivering posting submissions and monitoring critiques to make sure that they abide by the guidelines. We are here to help each other develop in our writing. This is an "open" critique group, but is only appropriate for people who write regularly, are seriously interested in improving their writing, and are willing and able to create and receive comprehensive written critiques. For this to succeed, and to maintain our identity as a coherent group, it is essential that this be a "one for all, all for one" group, sharing equally among ourselves. To that end, we offer the following guidelines.

GENERAL

Critique Group members write and critique any sort of fiction, whether short stories or novels. Each member has the same goal: to improve our own writing and to help our fellow members improve theirs. We are honest in our critiques and completely supportive of each other as we nurture our writing talents. Members should be familiar with the basic narrative elements of plot, character and setting and how to interrelate them.

Members are expected to participate regularly (although we're not fanatic about this), attack their own writing actively, and take the time to do thoughtful, helpful written critiques of other members' work, according to a set format. Being in this group takes time. It will not feel good to writers who prefer to give or receive, "That was nice," feedback. This is a critique GROUP; the idea is for works to be critiqued by the group. If you submit a work and don't participate for several months, we may prioritize other material submitted after yours for a weekly critique.

SUBMISSIONS

If you've ever looked at professional critique services, you will know that the members of this group are providing a valuable service for free. At the same time your fellow members are working on their own writing (and research), their jobs, their families, etc. They may also belong to more than one critique/writers group. In recognition of this, your submissions should make it as easy as possible for the members to read and critique your work. Submissions should be made in standard presentation format: they should be created as a txt.doc, or txt format. Pdf format is too hard to reformat. If you know there is a major problem in the text, uneven tense usage for example, you should correct that before submission, even if it means waiting another week. The facilitator cannot make changes once the submission has been posted.

Members ARE NOT to send out submissions to other members directly. This is extremely self-centered and disrespectful of the other group members.

For new members, we ask that you submit either a short story or the first ten pages of a novel or novel chapter. We have found that most of the problems you have will show up in this length of a submission. After that we will accept longer submissions; depending upon the number of submissions we have, we may decide to allot two or more weeks for critiquing longer works.

Your work will be posted on a blog. This is for members to read. All critiques should be sent as “comments” to that blog. You may also write shorter comments on Twitter at #writercritique. Picking and choosing who you want to critique your work is against the principles of the group. All the members of the group are expected to write critiques. These should be done throughout the follow week. New submissions will be posted on Friday. Limiting your submissions to those with the most favorable (or least unfavorable) critiques is defeating the whole purpose of the group. Of course you are free to ignore parts or all of any individual critique, though if you are serious about your writing and eventually publishing it you should do so most judiciously. Remember, these are critiques, not just proof-readings, Works not submitted to ALL members WILL NOT be included in the posts that week.

As uncomfortable as it may be for some, you WILL have to read critiques from the members posted publically! Again, this is to be fair to the WHOLE group. You will have a chance to respond to these critiques. Exchanging of written critiques without an oral report is discouraged, except in cases where a member was not at a meeting to present a critique and both the author and the critique agree on this.

It is often best to give yourself some time before plunging back into revising your submission. However, you should apply the feedback you received to your next submission. If the critiques said ((I'll use myself(John) as an example) you should use real punctuation instead of hyphens, look over the punctuation in your next work before submitting it. Again, it will be discourteous to the members if they keep seeing the same problem over and over again.

CRITIQUING

The CRITIQUER actually receives the most benefit. It is easier to see both good and bad parts in other people's writing than in your own. Looking for problems in others' writing trains us to see it in our own writing. Again, part of the fairness required in a group of this sort is remembering that we will all be critiqued at some time!

A good critique will show the author what the work looks like through the eyes of a "good reader". Yes, the eyes of a reader, not another author!. Although you may offer a suggestion or two in your critique, it is not your job to correct the problems or to rewrite the submission as "if it was me writing it".

WRITTEN REPORT. This is a 1-2 page comment that is posted on the blog under the work submitted. In the written report you might note "Too many POV changes" but you don't have to list all of them; maybe just a couple of examples to help the author see what you mean. We use the following six sections for all reviews:

1. PLOT SUMMARY: Just a couple of sentences to give the author an idea of the main thrust of the story as the reviewer saw it.

2. GENERAL EVALUATION OF THE FOUR MAJOR WRITING COMPONENTS (1-2 paragraphs each)

A. Plot B. Characters C. Setting/Milieu D. Ideas/ Themes/ Symbolism

3. THINGS THAT WORKED WELL. There may be several or (again worse case) none. Most of these should be noted on the manuscript; again you only need to give a few illustrative examples Ex.: I really like your settings. I could easily envision walking up to the haunted castle after our car broke down!"

4. THINGS THAT DIDN'T WORK WELL. Same as #3 Ex. "Lots of anachronisms. Like cavemen with cell phones!"

5. WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN NEXT? If you are critiquing the beginning or middle of a story or novel, take a guess at the rest of the plot. This is not to be accurate, but to give the author an idea of what clues and story direction he/she has put in the reader's mind so far.

6. OVERALL EVALUATION. Did this story work for you? Were you interested? Did you want to read more, or was this enough, and what made you feel that way? If you picked this up off a shelf at the store and read this section, would you buy it? In hardback or wait for the paperback? Would you suggest your library get this book,?

Corrected Copy This is optional. If you would like to make corrections on the text and send m to the facilitator or scan them if you are handwriting them to the facilitator, then the facilitator will forward those corrections via email to the writer. This is optional, but all of the comments should also be mentioned in the “comment” post online. The point of a corrected copy is to point out areas in a more efficient way that writing comments alone cannot achieve.

Questions about this group should be submitted to John Peragine at Drjohnnd@hotmail.com.

Writer’s Critique Group

I have tried out a writer’s group, and I think it will be good, however it is so long between sessions and they do not even meet every month. That reduces it to less than 10 times in a year. This just not seem to be the most efficient group, as my writing would never get finished if I dragged it out waiting for critiques.

I belong to a couple of the greatest networking sites on the planet- Facebook and Twitter. I am sending out the call to fiction writers, that are dedicated to their craft and to a writer’s group. It does not have to be large, in fact a cap of 10 members would be best.

I envision exchanging each others work (small chunks) every week. Each member looks at the work and writes a short critique of it and maybe on online chat for oral critiques. These would need to be brief because every writer’s time is valuable.

I have some guidelines from a group I am in now that would be helpful to use. I want this to be honest, professional and fast paced. I would love to see Sci-Fi or fantasy, but at this point any fiction genre would work. 

Send me a comment here, on twitter or email me at Drjohnnd@hotmail.com if you are interested.

Memories all Alone in the Workshop

This morning I went to a Memoir workshop. I was ready with pen , paper, an open mind and a willingness to learn. What I learned in the first half an hour are these obvious truths-“memoirs are mostly written by women” and “ publishing is a hassle, you are better off going to a vanity press and paying to print your book.”

I was still willing to have an open mind. The majority of the rest of the class was a sales pitch for the facilitators’. We were given a prompt and were asked to write using “I remember…” We then had the chance to read what we had written.

There is always that one person- that dominant person that will suck the very life out of class. By the time it was mine turn, I had one minute. I had written about my childhood in Florida and times I went with my parents to go clam digging. I spoke quickly and that was that.

I did meet some nice people there and had some interesting conversations about what they were interested in writing their memoirs about.

I did get some tips such as creating a theme throughout the memoir, use chapter headings that followed along with the general theme. The other bit advice I will pass on is that you must continue writing long enough for your writing to improve. Don’t give up- just write.

 

 

Writing Group Blues

I took the plunge last night and went to an advanced fiction writing group. It was in a little quaint room at an arts center. There were 7 of us, and of course I made a grand entrance of being late. It seems that GPS systems do not update as often as they should and my directions were OLD. There is a whole new highway for goodness sakes. I digress.

 

Members of the group submit work in the form of a chapter or short story. The submissions are really for the next months group, so what I was listening to had already been read by members in attendance. Two short stories were critiqued: I wished I had a copy of because they sounded interesting.

The critique takes three forms- writing on the piece ( grammar, spelling comments), a written report that is broken down into sections such as setting, plot, ect… and then the third form is an oral report. These reports are what take the bulk of the meeting. I listened to the reports intently, but I began to wonder if the folks had all read the same piece because their comments were so divergent. This is not a bad thing, because  the writer definitely has different viewpoints to consider.

At the end I submitted the first chapter and a half of “Erl King” for next month and then we introduced ourselves. Half of the people in attendance last night were new just like me.

When it was my turn I told them I was a writer of a few magazine articles and an author of some non fiction books. I was asked what kinds of books I wrote and I told them some of the titles.

The reaction I received from a couple of the writers was a big shock. I was challenged by the notion I was not an expert in these fields so how could I write a book. This is a fiction group right? Creative people writing about people and events that never happened?

My response was that I did A LOT of research and talked to many experts. I assured them that by the end of the book I was an expert on the fields I wrote about. I had some responses that referred to my act of writing as fiction just like making a fictional resume. These comments I ignored.

Writing non fiction is about making boring information interesting. It is about research and spinning factional information into a book people won’t yawn about. Marketing these titles to a publisher is not easy, but these are areas I was sure I could right about due to my life experiences. This is what I encourage other non fiction writers to think about.

We will see how next month goes. Maybe I was the victim of a green eyed monster. (Shakespeare- Merchant of Venice)

America’s Heart was Vanishing

I had reached the conclusion that the true heart of America was vanishing forever. Communities were no longer cohesive collectives of people helping people and neighbors actually knowing each other’s name.

I grew up in the 1970’s. During the summers I would play outside all day with my friends. It took a stern warning to be in when the first street light came on at night. Many nights I would pretend to ignore this, but then I would hear my mother’s voice calling my name. Everyone on my street knew everyone else. I made a couple extra dollars by mowing and raking some of the elder’s yards throughout the year. People would sit on their porches and community barbeques were common during the spring and summer months.

My parents never worried where I was playing. They knew they could call a couple houses and find me quickly. They threatened me on nice days to get outside and stay out of the house. Times have really changed.

Now kids stay home and plug themselves into computers and 800 channels of satellite television. They play video games and chat online with their friends. The streets in my last town were absent the sound of children’s voices. I never really knew my neighbors and they never seemed to care to ever introduce themselves to me. We live in a time of distrust and fear, at least that was what I had come to believe.

I recently moved into the West Salem community. I could go on about what a monstrous move that was, but now that I am settling I have had a change of mind. The old communities of my youth still do exist. I know my neighbors and found that there was an actual community organization that passed on news and sponsored events. People wave and I am able to walk on real sidewalks that I share with children running with dogs and playing till the street lights come on.

For the first time since my youth I can say that I feel like I have come home again. My home as a child was in Clearwater Beach Florida, but I did go to high school in Winston- Salem. When I say home, I mean that I feel neighbors look after one another and plan activities and celebrate life together. I can sigh a relief that the heart of America has not died yet, it is exists in the tiny community of West Salem.

Parent’s Estate

Have you been dreading what to do with your aging parents? If you are like most people, the thought of what you are going to do should your parents become incapacitated or even pass away can be a very emotional task.

When people read the word estate, they may figure that means that they have millions of dollars to deal with. This is not totally true. Everyone of us must face that when we pass from this world it is not a free pass. There are funeral arrangements and burial considerations. Each of us has some items that we leave behind. If you do not make arrangements ahead of time, it can be a real mess.

Nobody likes to think about all of the costs and activities that go along with settling a parent’s estate in the midst of grief and heartache. My book Complete Guide to Organizing Your Records for Estate Planning: Step-by-step Instructions makes it easy to create a plan, and more specifically create an organizer ahead of time.

My book Complete Guide to Organizing Your Records for Estate Planning: Step-by-step Instructions  is not a replacement of a estate lawyer or expert. Instead, it helps you organize all your necessary records and documents you will need when the day comes that your parent’s can no longer take care of themselves or they pass away. Planning ahead takes some of the burden and streamlines the overwhelming process we all must face.

Complete Guide to Organizing Your Records for Estate Planning: Step-by-step Instructions  includes a CD ROM that contains all of the forms listed in the book. You can print these forms, fill them out, attach the necessary information and create a estate planning folio for each of your parents.

You will thank yourself later for planning ahead. My book Complete Guide to Organizing Your Records for Estate Planning: Step-by-step Instructions contains a day be day planner that you can follow during the first few days and weeks after your parent’s death. It makes your grief stricken time easier to handle, and alleviates the questions and concerns we all have when faced with this difficult time in our lives.

Bog Man

Today my wife and I went to a small local Celtic Music festival. They had pipers and fluters (yes that is a word because I say so) and fiddlers and drummers.

There was Haggis in a can, ice cream being sold by the bikecream man (he had a bike welded to an icebox). We saw it all in the wonderful little Bethabara Park, a historical preservation park.

There are small buildings and other historical landmarks. Our favorite is the medicine garden in which we were lucky enough to buy seeds from to plant at home.

I have to say the absolute pinnacle of the day besides the Irish Car bomb Cupcakes we ate, was the man selling peat logs. He had a grill burning peat on a day that it was close to 95 degrees. It was hot and smelled like he was burning green peppers to ash.

I am an open minded person and my wife was interested in peat as a church back in her native Iowa sold peat logs as a fund raiser every year. It is supposed to recreate the smell of a little cottage on the Moors.

So Kate decided to buy a little bag of peat pieces. This is where things went really badly. The man in full kilted attire challenged her about how she intended to use it.

She replied she wanted to burn a little in our fire place on the bricks. Peat won’t burn itself, it will only smolder. It creates a definitive vegetable smell that people like to smell and add a smoke flavor to their foods.

This kilted bog man began to convince her that she was not buying the right peat. He began chewing on a 500 year old peat log and then continued to chew on a 1200 year old peat log. This was to demonstrate it was made of vegetable matter.

He then said that he way of using peat would not allow the volatile oils to be released and it would burn black. He then licked the black sludge off a metal bowl he was using in the cooking barbeque.

This was not enough because he then scraped more black sludge from the inside of the barbeque lid to show more volatile oils and then stuck it in his mouth. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever eat barbeque again.

He handed Kate a peat log and then walked away as he told her to think about it. We quickly left when his back was turned, ate cupcakes and went home with no peat for our trouble.

The thing that I walked with today is an untapped way to get more oils and fiber into your diet.

The Complete Guide to Organizing Your Records for Estate Planning Step-by-Step Instructions With Companion CD-ROM

I was so excited when I opened my door yesterday to find a cardboard box. On it was stamped, “Atlantic Publishing.”  I knew immediately what was inside. It was my newest book on Estate Planning.

I ripped open the box with a cork screw, it was all I had handy. I grabbed a book and flipped through it, and I was extremely pleased. The wonderful artists at Atlantic had transformed my words into a easily readable and interesting book.

In the back was the companion CD ROM. I slapped it into my computer and went through the numerous files and it looked great. I can’t wait to use them myself to create a organized book of my estate records.

I am so inspired that I am going to offer three ebooks if you buy my book through my site.

1. Jazz up your Records. This ebook describes how to make your organizer look great as well as informative.

2. Tax laws and your estate. This ebook talks about different tax laws you may not be aware of when preparing your estate.

3. Estate planning for your pet. This book looks at what you can do to  prepare for your pets passing.

For your free ebooks you must:

1. Go to this website  http://osirispapers.books.officelive.com/mybooks.aspx . Click on the link to purchase the book. It will take you to Atlantic Publishing. YOU MUST click the link on my page first, or I get no credit for the sale.

2. Once you have purchased your book, send me an email with you confirmation number from your receipt, along with your email address. My email address is drjohnnd@hotmail.com. I will then email you the ebooks.

You will find all you need to create an organizer for your important records and tips on preparing your estate for loved ones. I will highlight different areas of the book in the upcoming weeks here on my blog.

Repo- The genetic Opera

I am a huge movie buff and am guilty of going to see movies when they first come out. I read the reviews, I save my pennies for popcorn and drinks. Alright, I take out a small loan to buy popcorn and drinks. I always felt that I was on top of what was going on at the local cinema. So how in the world did I miss Repo- the genetic opera?

It did have a limited release, so I don’t have to beat myself up too much. A few weeks ago I saw the video sitting in the horror section at Walmart and did not really look at it too closely. I saw a preview on a video I recently rented. To my surprise it was a musical. That got my attention and then I looked a little closer to who was in it- Paul Sorvino, Alexa  Vega (Spy Kids), Sarah Brightman (Phantom of the Opera- London), Anthony Head ( Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Giles), and even Paris Hilton. I went to Best Buy with my Rewards Card Voucher and bought it. I sat down and was blown away!

 

It is the next generation of Rocky Horror Picture Show only a hundred times better- the music was rock opera, the story was right out of a classical opera set in the future in which people are buying replacement organs on credit only to have them repossessed if they miss a payment, and it is a graphic horror movie.

 

It is not the faint of heart. It is from the producers of “SAW” but it is so ridiculous it is easy to overlook the violence because they are singing and it is comical in parts. I read that there is a movie tour in the US and even Europe with a shadowcast much like Rocky Horror. You must rent or buy this movie. It is totally wild and awesome. I want the soundtrack now!