#RomanticFridayWriters - Challenge No 28 - 'Ties That Bind'

Featured Writer - Challenge No 27 - Sparkle!

Hello everyone! No doubt due to Christmas preparations our entries were down this challenge. Some have told me that they won't be able to post til the New Year, but I'll be keeping RFWer operational for those of us who are getting back into the swing of it!

Thanks to each and every one of you for your entries this week. Glad to see such powerful poetry packing a punch again! All entries so different but each so unique for our Sparkle theme.

A warm welcome back to Ruth. It was great to be reading about Stewart again. An excellent snippet. I'm sure we all enjoyed reading Anna's unique entry, complete with personal photos of her charming children. Simran wrote a heart-warming story whereas Francine entertained us with her twisted fairy tale. Roland managed to weave some more sparkle into his characters Victor and Alice while I had a smile on my face the whole time I was writing my Christmas Lights story.

So you've probably worked out by now that I can't help going with our powerful poets this week. All three stole the show with their sparkly imagery.

Tie for Runner Up. Andy, whose 'words are like music on a battlefield' is our first Runner Up, and Adura's poem which was inspirational as she penned a poem based on a real-life experience of keeping the spark alive, shares second place with Andy. Congratulations to Andy and Adura for such wonderful words this week. Both contained that romantic element.

Our Featured Writer this week could be none other than Heaven whose poetry, or prosetry as Adura called it, absolutely sparkled with romance and tragedy. Her Christmas Star poem blew me away with its story of deep love and 'hope...fluttering, sparkling in his chest.' So a big round of applause to Heaven! Her poem can be found on the Featured Writer page. I see two other people as well as myself have voted for Heaven as FW this week.

Please keep those poems/stories coming each fortnight.

Looking forward to reading about those Ties That Bind on December 30. By then your fingers should be twitching to get back to writing.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Denise (L'Aussie)

My little Christmas tree at my apartment. 
A much bigger one awaits at the beach. 

#RomanticFridayWriters Challenge No 27 - Friday December 16 - Sparkle!

Challenge No 27 for December 16 - Sparkle! Challenge open to all!

Our current challenge is Sparkle! There's lots of sparkly things around at the moment so writing to this theme should be a delight. That doesn't mean your stories have to be all sweetness and light - there could be more to the sparkle than meets the eye.

As I've written on the Challenges page -

What sparkles in your life? What sparkles in your WIP? How many sparkly things can you think of? How can you make your story unique? What wouldn't you expect to sparkle, yet it did? Come on, challenge yourself! Sparkle us all with your 400 words of fairy dust!


http://www.wattpad.com/965811-poems-and-short-stories-sparkle-eyes

An interesting little Sparkle poem can be found at the above link.


I got my idea for my Sparkle! story from a newspaper article (well, actually I often get ideas there!) Where do you get your ideas from? We know Nancy Williams dreams hers up when she's ill, Francine sees movies in her head, I get my ideas from a first sentence here or there or a photo, painting - newspaper, magazine, book, film...What about you? Leave a comment and tell us...

Linky will be up this Thursday December 15th so have those works of art ready!

Denise (L'Aussie)

Featured Writer - Challenge No 26 - Response to Image - The House in the Snow

Hi all! Great to be back and writing stories/poems for RFWer isn't it? Just finished my second sweep in quest of a winner for Featured Writer. I heartily plead with you if you have not disallowed 'Word Verification' please help your readers out by getting rid of it. It really serves no purpose other than to slow down your speedy commenters.

Welcome to our new followers. I hope you tippy toed around and read some entries and gained enough confidence to join us for our theme Sparkle! on December 16. I'm polishing my baubles in readiness!

I'm trialling a poll this week. It may be a bit of a dud as I didn't get the word around early enough, but I hope to poll you all on your choices in future. I know it's tempting to just vote for yourself, and that's okay if you really think yours was the best story. To overcome that I've been researching different polls and found one where we can have two votes. The Blogger Poll is very basic - allows one or multiple! (Postscript: Yes, a bit of a dud as only half voted when I went to air and no doubt some self votes there).

So, to our entries this week. The image conjured up largely atmospheric pieces. It was great reading the many and varied descriptions, along with misty characters. Thank you all so much for hours of reading pleasure. Being an Aussie from Queensland in the north/east of Oz, snow is strictly reserved for trips to Europe in the northern winter, of which I've had a few. Even been in a blizzard from Brussels to Luxembourg. Will never forget that! Magical! Whoops, sidetracked. Most of you are quite familiar with snow, especially at Christmas.

As always, it was terribly difficult to narrow down the wonderful entries to two sparkling ones. Most entries had atmosphere, great characters, some romance, some nostalgia, er, and some ghostly apparitions.


I must give an honourable mention to Anna, whose story this week was so great. Anna, participating in RFWer has improved your writing remarkably. I'd be enchanted if you took the Encouragement Award again this week for your sweet and mystical story of Jakob and Jenny.

Now to runner up. Maybe because it resonated with me with the idea of experiencing a different kind of Christmas, yet hot and steamy in the cold clime. I loved the sensual goodness of Kerrin Hearfield's Snowed In. Congratulations Kerrin for a wonderful response to image. Please take the Runner Up badge for your blog.

Featured Writer this week goes to a traditional story of mistletoe, the heart-rending yet heart-warming story of two lost souls finding each other. Yes, Nancy William's story of Jane and Martin touched me. Nancy is a fine writer and her story zoomed to the top of my chart. Nancy, please take the Featured Writer badge for your blog. I'll be adding your story to our Featured Writer page.

I thought the quality was very good this week, maybe because there was more time to think about our stories/poems. I won't forget Adura's 'misled toes' for awhile, or Li's poignant story of homecoming, the romance of a place. We saw Andy speak with a somewhat different edgy voice this week with his cruel lover. And Donna's creepy ghost story will have me looking over my shoulder should I be renting a Christmas Cottage, lol. Everyone, you are such a great group of writers. I can't mention you all, heck, why not - Marsha, your story enchanted me, Roland, loved your Inn at the End of the World, Ballerina's Smile, a beautiful sensuous poem, Francine, as always your historical romance sweeps me away and I quite liked my little girl and her Dada. There were many potential winners this week! Can't wait to see you Sparkle!

Have a great writing week.

Looking forward to your entries for Sparkle! on December 16!

Denise (L'Aussie)

Challenge No 26 - Response to Image - House in the Snow

Don't forget to read the post on critiquing below!

Guest Post No 5 - Nancy Williams on Critiquing - are you a 'blaster' or 'respectful?'

Hello! Today we have our final guest post before we begin our writing challenges. I know most of you have been super busy. I've been visiting many of your blogs and been inspired by the body of work. 


Welcome to new followers. You're most welcome to post to the challenges, but you need to become a member to be eligible for the Featured Writer, Runner Up or the Encouragement Award. Becoming a member is easy, just read the Submissions Page then join up using the linky in the right sidebar.


I hope you're ready to post to the first challenge for this Friday, December 2. On Thursday linky will go up, ready to receive your fabulous prose or poems in response to the image in the left sidebar. Don't forget to click on the image for further inspiration. This challenge is open to everyone as are all our challenges! I'll be asking for help in choosing a Featured Writer so the award system will continue.


I'm also putting up the next challenge, Sparkle!, for two-week's time, Friday, December 16. This is my response to those who thought a month was too long between challenges. Will be great to have another challenge before the holidays.


So over to Nancy, a RFWer member from Denver, Colorado. Nancy has been very ill and I wish her a speedy recovery. Thank you for rising from your sick bed Nancy, and posting for us...

Critique: What works and what doesn't.

Hi everyone:

Denise has asked me to put together a post on critique. I hope this is helpful.

I have been a member of a local writers group for over eighteen years. In those years I have been a member of an in-person critique group and after only a few years I became the moderator of that group. That said I know a little about critique.

There are two types of groups. One that is hard core, nothing withheld, blasts you out of the water with their comments. The other type is respectful.

The 'blasters' believe that only this type of group will benefit a writer. They give no positive feedback. They tell it like it is. What's wrong with that? Critique is opinion. Many of the 'blasters' are not published. Often, they don't know what they are talking about. For example, I had a friend who was advised to change her voice. What is our voice; it is who we are and what we present our characters as. Why? Because she is an Italian American and thinks and talks in that kind of lingo and her series is a suspense drama featuring mob bosses. But they are misguided and totally hilarious. Not the average mob story. However, after reading only one chapter to the 'blasters,' she was told to change her voice. None of them knew what the story was about. (An editor has requested her book.)

A respectful group is the best. Why? Many of us are sensitive people. When you read our writing, you have a window into our hearts. It is hurtful to leave comments that are over the top negative and it isn't necessary. All of us had to start writing at some level. I trust that no one here is perfect, I certainly am not. A 'blaster' may easily harm a new writer, even a seasoned writer making it hard for that person to continue to write. I know several talented writers who put away their stories after being 'blasted' never to write again. A tragedy.

Examples: In my group I once had a married couple and the lady would start her comments with; "I would never buy this book, but…" Hello! Don't tell someone that. You're not looking at the final product. I repeatedly had to correct her and finally they left.

I was once told that my characters, (not in a current published book), were spoiled and he didn't want to read about that. Guess what, I couldn't work on that book for over a year. The argument for such a comment is; I need to show the characters change and grow. This person wasn't into fantasy and had a journalist background. His mistakes were always the same because he brought a journalistic style of writing to a fictional piece. This is different than voice, since it is dry and concise writing.

How to give feedback:

Our comments to each other are limited because of the blog structure.

The most important thing is to start with praise. What works? There is always something that the writer created that stands out.

Next, find one or two mistakes unless the writer has asked for more. If I have come across a 'blaster' comment for one of you all, I try to say something that helps elevate what that person has said. Remember, 'blasters' do not know everything even though they pretend to.

Don't touch a person's voice. We all have our own unique voice, if it doesn't work for you leave it alone.

In the blogging world, we come into contact with people from all over the world.

Don't assume they share the same writing rules. If you don't understand a reference, you’re a writer, look it up, increase your vocabulary.

I hope this will help. In January, 2012, I will add a critique post to my blog and take your questions. I believe examples are the best tools we can provide.

To all my RFW's friends, I look forward to reading your stories.

Thanks for having me Denise.

Nancy

http://nrwilliams.blogspot.com/

Thank you Nancy for your informative post. Critique can be problematic so we need all the help we can get. 


Madeleine has made a checklist for us to consider when commenting on each other's writing. In conjunction with Nancy's post, this should prove very helpful, along with the critique postcard that is available to use with your posts.

Now, let's get our stories and poems ready for linky on Thursday. Have a great weekend reading each other's stories. Don't miss Sparkle! the challenge for Friday, December 16...


RFW challenges are back!

Denise (L'Aussie)