Hi Theresa, it's Jori, and Megan! And we are
coming to you from the beloved Pro-write couches.
If you have followed the Pro-Write Studios
(PWR Studios) videos than you'll know where
we are, you'll have seen them before, I'll
put the link somewhere up there. Anyway, so,
yeah! Here we are! And we're coming to you
this week from the C. S. Lewis Colloquium
and we've been hanging out with all sorts
of really smart people and learning a lot
about C. S. Lewis and Tolkien and all of the
other Inklings, so that's kind of what we've
been doing and why we're back on campus. But,
for now, this is our merch for the week, it's
a C. S. Lewis and Friends t shirt for 2018
so that's fun, I'm excited to wear this. I'm
here with Megan, (Hello) the lovely Megan
Burkhart, and I decided that today it would
be a fun thing to do a Q and A with Megan
about what she's writing and how her summer's
been and have a fun way for you to catch up
with both of us! (Yay!) To start off, I know
you've been doing a similar internship or
the same internship as Theresa, so what are
your thoughts on that whole thing? Yeah, so
I am doing pretty much the same exact internship
as Theresa, we're both working for the same
literary agent, and I know as she's said to
you that we look through a lot of submissions
that come in and we get to decide whether
or not we're going to pass that on to the
agent or whether we're just going to pass
on it and I've definitely learned a lot about
evaluating manuscripts and what makes for
good writing and what's not so great and definitely
I'm learning a lot about what's popular in
the industry right now where the trends are
going with children's picture books, board
books, and fiction, like YA, all that stuff.
So it's been a lot of fun and I'm definitely
learning a lot and I feel like I'm becoming
a better writer through the process. How do
you see that? How do you see--are you working
on writing anything or editing anything? Yes.
I am working on my YA novel right now I actually
had it go through critiques this last semester
with Theresa and one of our other fellow pro
writes and they gave me lots of really good
feedback which I was really grateful for and
so I've basically sat back down and have started
rewriting, taking their comments into mind
and kind of reworking the story, working out
plot holes, characters, all that stuff, and
after watching your video this past week I
definitely have taken your advice of starting
from scratch, I don't know, more or less starting
from scratch, I am rewriting the first few
chapters and they're very different and I'm
taking in a lot of new things that weren't
there before, so I'm going to be following
the trajectory of my novel that I already
have set in place, but it's going to look
very different since I'm very much doing a
major rewrite. I'm glad that it's going to
help your novel get better and I'm very excited
to read it. When she's published, you're gonna
hear about it. So, that's exciting. (And you'll
hear about it when she gets published!) I
know you also mentioned critique group. What's
one of your favorite things about being in
a critique group, or one of your favorite
memories from being in critique group. Yeah!
I love that question, that's a really great
question. Because I definitely love Critique
Groups especially... I was really nervous
when I first came to college and started one
cause I was like "I've never really given
my writing to anybody before" besides family
and things like that and they always tell
you "oh yeah, I like it." So it was definitely
a very scary, like intimidating thing to give
my work over to these people who I know are
good writers who are going to give me good
feedback, so I think my favorite thing about
critique group is just the fact that people
are coming at it who are good writers and
they can give me good feedback. And there
are things I know deep down that I need to
fix but it's so helpful having someone actually
say it to you, be like this is what you need
to work on. You're like, I feel like I already
knew that but coming from you it's like now
I can really go forth and work on that. As
for a favorite memory from critique group,
Oh, okay, this is really great. So one thing
about critiue group and the way we do it obviously
is working in Google Docs and we just make
comments on the side of people's manuscripts.
What I love is that sometimes you just end
up misreading a word you know and you just
like I didn't realize that said that. So I
think it was last semester we had it where
someone was reading along, I don't remember
who's manuscript we were on, but they made
a comment on the side and said "So I thought
this said CHORP, but it was actually CHOP,
so now that's an inside joke we have where
we just say chorp every now and again just
as a joke. So one more question for you, Megan,
do you have any advice for writers who are
just starting out or writers who are trying
to get better at their craft? For writers
starting out, I would definitely say that
you need to find a good community of writers.
That's a definite thing that, obviously besides
just improving the craft, obviously you need
to read a lot in your genre and just kind
of really know what you're writing, and all
that sort of thing, but you definitely need
to find a good community of writers because
once you have your first draft done it is
so important to have people who are writers
look at it and help you out and give you feedback.
So find your writer people. They're nerdy,
they're awesome, and they're just the best
people ever. And you will love having a community
of writers to be a part of. That's all we
have for today. I'm so glad Megan was able
to join me today. It's been really fun hanging
out with her and learning all about C. S.
Lewis and Tolkien and a lot more in depth
about all of their writing than I've ever
gotten before. So that's amazing and great.
I'm really glad that you're here and I'm so
glad we got to share this time with you. If
you like what you've seen please go ahead
an like and subscribe and share and make sure
that you're following Theresa as well her
videos are up here, go find her up there.
And I will also post a link to the PWR Studios
Youtube channel which is where Megan is from
(Like and follow!). Go find both of us there
and you'll really enjoy watching the hillarious
skits that we've put on that are really writing
humor. All of the writing humor. So Yep. It's
great to see you and until next time, Theresa!
Bye. Bye Theresa!
