Mentors and Critique Partners

My writing has always been very self contained. Only I read what I write, sharing it with a select few friends and family members, before I submit it for a class or I self publish it (I still can't believe that happened). I've often heard while scouring the internet for advice from established authors, that a critical part of the writing process is critique partners. Often the best people to read your work before it is submitted somewhere, is someone who either writes - or reads - a lot of fiction.

My only exposure to writing communities was through my creative writing course in high school. I am considering taking a creative writing course to satisfy my pesky arts credits at university but that won't be for a while.

Now that I have enough patience to want to do this properly - go through the right steps to make sure that my stories are as awesome as possible - getting critique partners has piked my interest. The video that really convinced me that it was time was one done by a debut author Alexa Donne. I mean, why wouldn't I want to have a lifelong buddy to write with?

But I will start slow. Right now I am halfway done my edits of my novel (undecided on the title) and I am working hard to finish before March 15. The reason is that I am planning on applying to a mentorship program pairing unpublished authors to published authors. It's called Author Mentor Match and the application opens March 16th.

I have no idea whether I will be chosen, but it also gives me a deadline for my editing. I am aiming to get through, on average, five pages a day. So whether or not I get a mentor, my book will hopefully be edited before the end of March.

My plan after that is still undecided because I am trying to take this process slow, instead of my usual desire to race through it all. I seemed to have developed a single-minded determination to make this current book as great as I can before I ever decide to publish or query it.

But I do know that I want to start writing the sequel to my published book when university is done at the end of April. So with that on the horizon, I can take my time and enjoy writing - because that's the true reason I do this.