Reading "Takeover" all the way through to the Farewell Bend Writer's Group.

I write so fast, I rarely get a chance to read more than a third of any WIP to writer's group, so they've heard a succession of the beginnings of novels.

That seems a little unfair, and of course I never get the wisdom of their advice on the latter parts of my stories, but what else can I do? The beginning is probably the most important part.

Anyway, with "Takeover" I decided to read it all the way through to the end, even though I'm almost finished with the next book. Partly, I wanted to write "Shadows Over Summer House" without any input from anyone else (except Linda, of course, and she is incredibly simpatico to my writing and never discourages me.) But also, I thought it might be more fair as well as interesting to read an entire novel.

It's probably only the second or third time I've done so in the 38 years the Farewell Bend Writer's Roundtable has existed.

The writer's group is pretty loosey-goosey. We generally have about 6 or 7 participants, and 2 or 3 readers.

(I think we could probably do with one or two more members if there is anyone reading this in Central Oregon who'd like to join. We are very welcoming, our critique is constructive. We meet on the second and fourth Tuesdays of every month at 7:00 P.M. at the East Bend Library branch's meeting room, so come on by. You don't have to read anything, by the way--there are lots of people over the years that just come to critique. We're mostly old foggies, but we'd love to have new younger blood. Hmmmm, tasty.)

The last two times I've read, the group has basically just said, "It's good. There's nothing we can find wrong with it." Which I can tell you rarely happens. The end of "Takeover" is some of the best writing I've done--and I only wish I could have managed to do that in the set-up of the first half of the book. I'm probably going to need to go back and do something about that, because the book is worth improving.

Linda teared up during my reading, which to me is always a "Score!" All of the members mentioned how strong that chapter was--which was interesting, because I had no clue that it was anything out of the ordinary.

Anyway, one more session and I will have read the whole book, which is kind of cool.