New digs for my blog

          It isn't that my old blog was bad, it was fine. But "fine" to a writer about her blog is the equivalent of an airline pilot confessing that his company's safety record is just "fine." I am looking for "spotless" or "unblemished" or "immaculate" when it comes to flying. (Can you tell I'm a little obsessed with airline safety?  Even my analogies incorporate the fear of flying.  I need to get over this.) So when I created my website last year, I had the web designer toss in a blog at the last minute, in a "yeah-I-guess-I-can-do-a-blog" sort of way. So the design wasn't important.  In fact, I found the design template online and installed it myself.  It wasn't that big of a deal to me.
          But then I started liking my blog--not that I paid much attention to it--but I had a desire for it to be more than "fine."  It was like a messy, undecorated office; I didn't feel like working/writing there because it wasn't pretty.  Sure, I went because I had to, writing snippets and travel journals, mostly to keep my close friends and family updated on our travels to see our son play baseball.  But it just didn't feel like ME.

Charmaine's artwork of Jordyn

        So, enter the fabulous Judith Shakespeare (you'll have to go to her blog to find out why she calls herself that).  I stumbled onto Judith via someone else's blog that I had seen as a link on someone else's Facebook page (a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend sort of thing) and enjoyed another benefit of social networking (finding new stuff) I've grown to love nearly as much as finding out where my friends are eating lunch (shout-out to Dave).  Judith's designs are original pieces of amazing artwork, similar to my friend Charmaine D'Silva's, whose digital doodles and paintings have graced my home and various business cards.  Judith specializes (in my opinion) in branding people--their business, rather--by creating a consistent character or image to use in every aspect of your company or service (Twitter, Facebook, websites, biz cards, and more).  Judith (that isn't her real name) took my personality and ideas, and, with my business in mind, created this blog design with matching accessories. She even used my own handwriting to create the logo and buttons.

Judith's version of scary Dana

          Like a brand new office (more on that later), I now have the equivalent of matching furniture and decor among my social networking sites--you can see that my Facebook and Twitter pages match and so will my biz cards.  The BEST part to me, though, is that Judith created an alter-Dana logo, too, an entire set of matching buttons, pages and cards to match the alter-ego I assume every October (shout-out to my Talladega Frights peeps).  I can't WAIT until October.
          Now, about that office.  I recently remodeled the front of my house, but beyond slapping on a fresh coat of paint, decorating my office wasn't a priority.  Mistake!  I spend at least eight hours a day in my office, and with boxes on the floor, stacks of paper and books, and plain, mocha-colored walls around my desk, I have been in a creative funk.  So, when Rob left for Florida at 12:30, I had furniture delivered at 1:00.  Now, with my palace and blog decorated, I am fully functional again. Don't tell Rob; he'll find out soon enough. 
          Onward to creativity!  Let the writing commence.

Why join a critique group?

I was asked recently to talk about the critique groups that Writers of Kern facilitates, and I thought it was an interesting enough topic to bring up here.  Many writers have never belonged to a critique group and don’t know how they work.  In fact, some of you might even be hesitant to join for fear of rejection or worse—fear someone will steal your idea.  Thankfully, none of that happens at WOK. 

Critique group discussing a submission.

Let me begin by explaining what makes a good critique group.  When I became the Writers of Kern president in June 2009, we had only one active critique group, the Sci-Fi/Fantasy group that currently meets on Thursday nights.  To date, they have survived the longest run, and I think it’s for three reasons: One, the core group has remained consistent and has had very little turnover; two, they meet in a home; and three, they are dedicated to their novels and are invested in each other.  The other critique groups floundered, though, and when asked for an update at meetings, most of them said they weren’t meeting because no one showed up.  It became frustrating to the members who had volunteered to moderate those groups.

Part of my goal as president was to see a resurgence of the critique group, and the best way I knew to do this