{"id":59419,"date":"2015-06-10T10:10:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-10T14:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/?p=59419"},"modified":"2015-06-10T10:10:00","modified_gmt":"2015-06-10T14:10:00","slug":"appreciating-my-writing-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/?p=59419","title":{"rendered":"Appreciating My Writing Community"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"by<\/a>
by woodleywonderworks on Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By the time I completed\u00a0the final draft of my novel, Provenance<\/em>,\u00a0I had worn out\u00a0my alpha readers. Specifically,\u00a0my writing group,\u00a0Janet, Kelly, Kristin and Molly,\u00a0as well as\u00a0my dear husband, Granville. They’d been\u00a0with me through every word,\u00a0page and chapter – revision after revision. They’d helped me work through plot points, story arcs, characters who were cut, revived,\u00a0only to be\u00a0cut again. They read through the 500+ pages\u00a0that started out as one novel and then became two. I cannot thank them enough for their\u00a0wisdom and\u00a0patience,\u00a0and they deserved a break from my writing.<\/p>\n

I realized it\u00a0was time to leave the safety of my writing family and let strangers read my novel. To help move my novel along to publication, I needed an unbiased reader –\u00a0someone with\u00a0fresh eyes, an open mind and no knowledge of me or what my book had been through. The best way to find out\u00a0if I\u2019d told my story in a credible and entertaining\u00a0way was to\u00a0test the book in the same way it will be tested\u00a0when\u00a0published –\u00a0I needed a\u00a0beta reader.<\/p>\n

In the world of available beta readers there seems to be no dearth of readers and authors connecting over YA, fantasy, sci-fi, thrillers, paranormal and hardcore erotica manuscripts. Provenance<\/em> is none of these. It is a work of literary\/historical fiction that explores, through one man\u2019s story, the role that race plays in the choices we make about who we are and what we lead others to believe about us. The novel begins in the early part of the Twentieth Century and spans four decades of the protagonist\u2019s life, taking the reader from\u00a0the segregated south, to Europe before World War II and ultimately to the\u00a0New York in the early 1970s – more than\u00a078,000 words or about 280 double-spaced pages.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0needed a beta reader\u00a0with experience in life and in writing that was\u00a0willing to make a\u00a0commitment to read what I wrote and give me honest feedback in exchange for my promise to read their manuscript in the same way. After searching and\u00a0not finding a good fit\u00a0on Goodreads\u00a0or LinkedIn writer groups, \u00a0I struck gold – literally California gold, on SheWrites.<\/p>\n

A writer in Los Angeles\u00a0that is in\u00a0the perfect target group for my novel was\u00a0 looking for exactly the same kind of beta reader that I was. Her story was similar in length to mine and also\u00a0dealt with racial themes. She wanted a beta reader who would also commit to reading her manuscript and provide honest feedback. After a series of email introduction, we exchanged manuscripts and began, promising to return our respective manuscripts within two weeks. We both honored our commitments and I know my manuscript is the better for her input and, I did my best to give her the feedback she was looking for.<\/p>\n

I’ve always been a little reluctant to put myself out there –\u00a0I think writers by nature are a shy and solitary bunch. However,\u00a0I learned through this process that powering through the discomfort can make me a better writer and a more valuable part of the writing community.<\/p>\n

I believe that the Universe always conspires\u00a0on\u00a0our behalf and\u00a0the only thing it asks in return is our gratitude. This post is a thank you for my Alfa and Beta readers and for the SheWrites<\/a> community, with all three,\u00a0the Universe outdid itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By the time I completed\u00a0the final draft of my novel, Provenance,\u00a0I had worn out\u00a0my alpha readers. Specifically,\u00a0my writing group,\u00a0Janet, Kelly, Kristin and Molly,\u00a0as well as\u00a0my dear husband, Granville. They’d been\u00a0with me through every word,\u00a0page and chapter – revision after revision. They’d helped me work through plot points, story arcs, characters who were cut, revived,\u00a0only to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[36,57,89],"class_list":["post-59419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing-craft","tag-beta-readers","tag-gratitude","tag-shewrites"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}