Brittany Maresh

writer

Tomorrow, I’m going to be another year older. A good time, I think, to consider what progress I have (or haven’t) made this year:

• I wrote a book so unlike me that it made others laugh just at the mention of it. It was probably the best book I’ve ever written, or at least it will be once I’m done editing.  It makes me happy, too, just thinking about it, and I think it will appeal at least to my writing groups.
• I wrote a great NaNo novel, albeit a messy one, and one that is much more my style–it was horror, dark, and had no romance–as well as some not so great Nano novels. What can I say, 50,000 words just isn’t a challenge.
• I’ve helped edit several novels, from people all over the scale–published authors, new writers, and so on. I’ve attended writing conferences and writing meetings, some virtual, others not.
• I picked up Twitter, Facebook, and Mafiawars.
• This year I joined Absolute Write, and I think it’s a fantastic resource.  I also keep poking at joining Melissa Marr’s fansite, but I’m easily intimidated so we’ll see if I ever get over it and just jump in.
• I moved upstairs so my sister and her fiancee could move in while my soon-to-be-brother-in-law went through chemotherapy–he’s been declared cancer-free and we had a party to celebrate this weekend.  His hair’s growing back, too, though right now it’s still thin fuzz, and they’re getting married in July.
• One of my best friends is also getting married in July.
• I made some amazing new friends–Heather, Shauna, and Christina definitely require mentioning.
• Bridget and I are working on a shared novel.  I’m having a lot of fun with it, even if it does include some romance.
• Did I mention that novel that floors me, but perplexes everyone who knows me?  It really is a shocker.

What makes my online writing group so awesome?  None of us know each other, very few of us have ever or will ever meet one another, and yet, so often, we’re still all right on the same page.

If I’ve heard of an agent, so often, one of them has, too, or they want to hear about it and get a link to their blog, website, twitter, and so on.  We follow the same general circle of interest–agent blogs, writer blogs, similar websites, writing events, contests, read books along the same vein, so on and so forth.

And (here’s a big and) I trust their opinion.  If I hear from three or four of them about something particular, it tends to be true.  I can trust them to say “your vocabular is entirely too weird” or “these characters are beyond wooden, they’re like faded chalk outlines left on the pavement.

Yeah, they’re all pretty awesome.

-Brittany Maresh