T.D. Severin - Award-Winning Medical Thriller Author

I'm moving along with the revision. After several weeks, I finally have a grasp on the final tweak I needed to get my antagonist's motivation clearer and stronger. Again, a testament to the success of  writing groups  as it was the combination of thoughts from different writer's that led me to where I need to go. In the meantime (as I'm writing away furiously) I'm going to post this helpful little list of overused words. i came upon this list several months ago, on a number of different sites, and felt that it could add value to all of our writing. As we discussed in the  Ten-Point Revision Strategy , weak words need to be discovered, isolated and excised like skin cancer. Hopefully this list will help you find your own favorites, words that we habitually rely upon. These words are weak and as descriptive or powerful as we'd like to think they are. amazing awesome awfully bad beautiful big fine good great happy interesting look nice quite really so very well the...

  As I mentioned, today I'll give some details on how my second writer's group works. The first group,  Mimi's Boys , is a local group where we meet once or twice a month. Those are easy to put together and easy to find. Around here, the SF Bay area, a quick look through Craig's List can turn up any number of groups looking for new authors. The bulletin board at local bookstores is another good source to find a group. Or you can do it my way and form a group from the students in one of your writing workshops. My second group is very different, since we've only met each other once, haven't seen each other since, but have been actively working as a group for more than seven months now. This is my internet based group. The group came about at the end of an intense two-day advanced writing workshop with Bob Dugoni in Chicago. In hindsight, the emergence of the group seems obvious. Throughout the course, Bob often referred to the writing of four of the participants t...

  A few final thoughts on the subject of writing groups, and I'd like to thank Beth from  Writer-in-Progress  for her insights. If you haven't yet, you should check out her blog and her website, both are full of interesting tidbits. As you can see from her comments (see  last post ) the decision to join a group isn't quite as straight forward as you may at first think. Unfortunately, the wrong group can probably do more harm than good for your writing. Having said that, I'm in two groups right now. The first group, I'll call "Mimi's Boys," came about after taking a UC Berkeley writing course with Skirts author, Mimi Albert. While the course itself was fun and useful, what struck me the most was the quality of the critique I heard from my fellow students. Having been in other classes, I know that usually students are either too hesitant to be honest in their critique or too angry/mean/arrogant to be of use. This class had just the right balance, honest,...

  In the last two posts, I wrote about what you need to be aware of before you decide to join a  writing group . Understanding that a writing group that fits you well will be a tremendous asset to your writing, today I have to give the biggest warning of all. I firmly believe that a writing group should be used with caution when you're writing a first draft. At this stage, you should be a burning cauldron of creativity. Your entire focus needs to be on getting the story out of your head. You don't want anyone or anything to squash that, particularly not the opinions of others. What you need to do is close the door, lock yourself in a nuclear bunker, and write, write, write. Get the draft done. Get your thoughts onto paper (computer?). Once that draft if done, you can unbarricade the door, readjust your eyes to the light of day, take a deep breath of fresh air, and let your group know you're ready. You may disagree with me on this point, thinking that it'd be helpful for...