Crit Group & Master Class

Yesterday, my kid lit crit group met for the first time in a couple of months. First Claudia, Amy, and I sat around Amy's kitchen table (with a fantastic view of Cahas Mountain through the window), sipped coffee, and caught up on things.

Then we adjourned to Amy's living room where we watched a DVD that Amy had heard about at the SCBWI convention last winter. The DVD was a Master Class, conducted by Richard Peck: "On Writing the Novel for Young Readers." In it, he is interviewed by SCBWI Executive director Lin Oliver. She asks really good questions about the craft of writing and Peck gives really good answers.

The 74-minute video was something I really needed to watch because I'm about to revise my middle grade novel Stuck again. I have a bit more motivation to revise because I learned today that Stuck was runner-up in the Smith Mountain Arts Council Fiction Contest. It lost to a doggone fine novel that my Lake Writer buddy Besty Ashton wrote—a women's fiction/thriller that will do doubt go on to greater things. The $400 I'll receive for second place will go a long way to paying for printer supplies, paper, and postage when I'm ready to query again.

Peck said a lot of things that I needed to hear. I especially liked what he said about the character having an epiphany, about writing in the first person, and about not having an outline. I bought and read his Fiction is Folks: How to Create Unforgettable Characters book years ago; now I need to go back and reread it.

I've read and enjoyed several of Richard Peck's novels, the latest being The Teacher's Funeral. Now I want to read more.

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