Several years ago I helped an academic research library put several rare book and manuscript collections online. These collections included Greek manuscripts from the 5th century, historic photographs from settlers of the western United States, Eisenhower’s Communiqués from World War II, and a large collection of theses and dissertations. The prehistoric interface I used to create these repositories didn’t even have a spell checker, not that it would have done me any good with this typo.

My boss’s, boss’s, boss, otherwise known as the head of the library, asked me to create a new collection for him to present to a large group of wealthy donors during a fund raiser. When he stood up in front of the donors to showcase the new collection he was mortified because of my typo. Apparently I had created the “Moron Theses” collection.

What is your typo horror story?


Jacob

The “Moron Theses” collection should have been “Mormon Theses”.

by Matt Toler

Last October, shortly before finishing the first draft of my novel, Treadpath, I attended a talk by Coraline and The Graveyard Book author Neil Gaiman in Chicago. The Q&A session at the end largely consisted of questions about writing and process. When asked whether a new writer should write short stories or novels, Gaiman responded along the lines of: “I’d recommend short stories, because it’s important to be able to finish.” I sat there and thought “Dammit, I’m doing it backwards.”

Treadpath began as an amalgamation of the “what if…?” daydreams of bored college library employee and the sort of tribute that’s sometimes required of someone who has been genuinely moved by an experience. I always tell people that I never cared whether it turned out to be a bestseller or even something that could end up published, it was just something I had to do. So, armed with a bundle of loose concepts and an ample amount of drive, I set out to unconsciously make the journey to a completed novel as miserable an experience as possible.

There’s an exquisite sort of self-loathing that comes from re-editing eighty pages to convert the story from first person to third person. There’s a strange sort of satisfaction that comes from throwing away forty pages that don’t fit the outline that only bothered to put itself together once far too much had already been written. I liken these processes to my chosen career as a graphic designer, where the self-editing is all visual and on-the-fly. I have to have something to work with, a content base, before I can start building the final product. With the novel, this became a labor-intensive process because there was no other source for the material other than what I could put down in a night or a weekend.

I imagine that a lot of people who set out to write a novel end up doing what I did for the first three years of the project. I’d take it out and mess around with it for a few weeks, decide it was too much of a mess in its current state and shelve it again. It could even be that some people can actually finish a book that way. I can’t. I had to really ask myself what I wanted out of the project and what it was going to take to finish it. My answer came in the form of spending two to three hours a night after work during most of 2008 stitching together the old pieces, filling in the gaps in the early parts and then finishing the damn thing off.

I made a couple of promises to myself. I promised to stick to my outline, which I strenuously reworked until all the pieces fit. I promised myself that the hard part was getting the thing down and not worrying about every little detail on the first pass. This was a lie, but it kept me going to believe it.

It became apparent soon after reading my first draft that I wasn’t going to be the type of writer who can generate finished material on the first try. The first round of edits may as well have been a new novel for all of the fixes that took place. Each subsequent round got shorter (I ended up doing four) but there came a point where I became aware of the possibility of overworking the material. That’s where I stopped.

So now I’ve got this manuscript. I consider it a readable, if still somewhat flawed, piece. I don’t see it being taught in English 101 two hundred years from now, but it tells the story I wanted to tell, which was my goal. I’m considering sending it to a literary agent since I don’t relish the idea of paying an editor on my own. I’m considering self-publishing. I’m considering donation-based digital distribution. For the moment, I’m content to send the finished product to my friends and family as sort of an ultimate token of gratitude.

I learned that there’s a momentum to the process that’s almost addictive when it’s working correctly. I learned that reading your words out loud is a quick and painful way to determine whether a passage is working. I learned that there’s a price to be paid for getting the first draft down quickly. I re-learned three quarters of my high school English education. I learned that you have to trust your reader. I learned that there’s nothing in the world like holding a printed and bound work in your hands and knowing that the thing is, for better or worse, yours and may outlive you.

Good luck, fellow writers. I’m looking forward to learning from all of you.

Matt Toler lives and works in Chicago as a graphic designer. He took a break from writing political and social rants on his blog to finish his first novel, Treadpath. It is currently unpublished.

Last week I was explaining Review Fuse to a friend. At the end of our conversation she asked me what made Review Fuse different. I replied “there are a lot of online writing groups that praise everyone’s work as literary genius. Review Fuse is different because our mission is to get members to tell each other how to improve their writing.”

I felt pretty good about my mission statement until spoke with a creative writing professor after demonstrating Review Fuse in one of his creative writing courses. While the students were busy critiquing each other’s essays I asked the professor how he helped students improve as authors. His reply made me question my mission statement. He said “there are enough people out there to tear you down. I build my students up by focusing on telling them what they do well. When my students try to publish their writing they will find out how good and determined they really are.”

In order to understand what you really expect from a critique I reviewed some of the critiques given on Review Fuse this weekend. I found that

• Critiques that told the authors what they did well and pointed out how to improve received great feedback scores.
• Critiques that only pointed out how to improve generally received average critique feedback scores.
• Critiques that simply praised the literary genius of the author tended to receive low feedback scores.

My new critique mission statement includes both building up and pointing out how to improve. What do you expect from the critiques you receive?


Jacob

Congratulations to Chlöe Kübra (Review Fuse user ckubra), her story, “The Jailer’s Daughter,” is the winner of our Valentine’s Day contest.

This was a very close contest. Reading the entries, we laughed, we cried, we bit our fingernails in suspense, and we wondered how some people completely missed the reminder on the upload page to adhere to the clean content policy.

Thanks to all who participated and thanks for making it really hard to decide by writing so well. Also, thanks to Chlöe for allowing us to post her story here on the blog. Here it is for all to enjoy:

The Jailer’s Daughter

Valentine knew that she didn’t love him. It was the particular way the jailer’s daughter moved tentatively around him to place down his meals. In her curt greetings, he heard the irritations of her service. Her sunken cheeks betrayed years of exhaustive labour, entering the rooms of criminals and giving them their only company. Still, having the futile task of feeding the stuff of graves was something for which Valentine did not think her suited.

Nonetheless, she came in every day, skirts swaying just above her ankles. It was the first part of her Valentine saw, for he lay in the corner of his cell, his bed made of sheaves of wheat. He would hear the lock on the door slot out of place in a heavy thud and soon enough, she would appear, ankles, the long tunic of a lower-class Roman, slender waist, arms outstretched with the usual offering of plain pottage. Her face was plain; thin, unmoving lips beneath a nose slightly hooked that rose between lifeless eyes.

Barely a greeting and then she was gone. He would watch her tender fingers carry in his meal, watch while her ankles stretched upwards to place it on an inlet in the wall next to him. Her eyes were always steady; she would never let them lose their balance, pupils caught calmly in the centre of the deep brown iris. Her expressionless face was an open canvas for the accursed priest. Valentine wondered whether she knew what he had been accused of, if she ever asked her father what it was each man new to the Mulvian jail had done so evilly to deserve execution. He wondered whether she had commented on Valentine’s quiet, willing resolve while other men were dragged kicking and screaming to their cells.

It was in the Porta del Poplo that they found him, marrying two young lovers. The boy, only seventeen, was to be sent to Gaul as reinforcement. The Emperor had outlawed marriage, dictating single men made better soldiers. At a time when the Roman Empire had expanded beyond expected limits, Claudius needed soldiers in excess. Despite Roman law, Valentine had continued to conduct these marital vows in private. He could not stand aside to the grand union of marriage.   Was she married? The priest could not be certain. She was not young, but past marital age. Her father would have made an effort to make links with a good family no doubt; she had the beauty to fetch a high price. She would have made a good wife; a silent provider, submissive, perhaps. Yes, Valentine imagined the lucky soldier who would come back to her arms, his scarred and war-broken body willingly subject to her warm embrace and smooth limbs –

Valentine gathered the crucifix in his robes and let his mind relax. The cell was stifling, isolated from the outside; there was no barred window through which he could look out of. The soldiers told him that the Emperor Claudius was suspicious the priest may attempt to conduct marriages through the bars to young hopefuls outside. Valentine was left quite alone with his thoughts, and recently he had begun to fear them more than the knowledge of his own death.

The weeks had turned to months and though Valentine had attempted to mark time with the burning of candles, this too had been lost in the depths of time. As each candle weakened and died, so Valentine’s love for the jailer’s daughter began to grow into obsession. As she walked, each shifting in her robe revealed a new, soft shape. Her feet were bound in cloth that betrayed the curve of her narrow ankles and feminine heels. The priest imagined her returning to her home after a day of work, slipping out of those shoes, dipping her bare feet in clean water, her robes loosened, water cooling her fragile figure, then scrubbing away the filth of the prisons; slowly, silent.

Valentine turned in his bed, removing a stalk of wheat from the neck of his robe. Dreams of the jailer’s daughter had plagued him for a long time, but these particular dreams were ones the priest shook to think himself subject to. All those years devoted to joining two people in pure love, defying government to obey the laws of the divine; what was that to Valentine now but false pretense; a painted mask over a grotesque face. He had found solace in that mask, believed it for all those years but now, in solitary confinement with only his thoughts the mask strained and the monster emerged. What was the sanctification of souls, he disgusted himself in realizing the basic instinct of his own emotions. No refuge in books, no one in whose conversation he could escape. Valentine had found himself and he was lost.

The Tiber rolled against the shores of the town, hushing its locals with every wave. During the day its sound would be lost to the busy carts rolling along the Mulvian Bridge, weighed down with spelt on their way to Rome. The Bridge was his only messenger, his only reference to society. At night, Valentine would be lulled to sleep with the sure, steady sound of the Tiber’s tides. Tonight, he had no solace in its secure rhythm. The tortured priest hopelessly tried to keep his emotions in check, but each glance towards her turned his thoughts to desire. With each shift in her robe he imagined what it would be like to touch that yielding, warm flesh –

Valentine squeezed the crucifix in his hands. This was his punishment, to realize the fragility of the human mind. Death was his consolation now. Prayers were nothing, but still he prayed for the soldiers’ clubs and the hangman’s noose to finish his desperate misery.

The day must be nigh, he thought. To keep himself from his dangerous mind, he began to save the wax from his candles, to spread it flat against the cold floor and let it cool into a slate of sorts. It became habit, waiting for the wax to dribble down, just enough so the wick wouldn’t be caught in it and douse the flame. Whether the jailer’s daughter didn’t notice or didn’t mind, Valentine wasn’t sure, her eyes never strayed from the windowsill and then back to the door. Five candles later and he had managed to make a modestly sized canvas on the floor of his cell. He ran a hand over the hardened wax. A thin film remained on his index finger, tightening the skin. Retrieving a bone stylus from his robes, he pressed down on the wax and made an impression, curving the stylus, from abstract shapes, eventually constricting to series of letters. Valentine did not know what he would say, but he always knew the subject of his unformed words.

“The fourteenth.” Said the dutiful soldier who stood in front of Valentine.

“The day before the Lupercalia?” the priest allowed himself a chuckle at the irony. He would be executed before the Romans’ official holiday for purification and the coming of spring. He habitually dusted down his robe. This jail would certainly be cleaning out its cobwebs. There was Valentine, a dirty fingerprint on the Roman calendar, ready to be dabbed off. He could see his body swinging from the force of the rope around his neck as the spring wheat tickled his ankles. The celebrations would continue as normal the next day; he would be cut down with the rest of the harvest. The wheat would be strewn through the houses of the elite to mark the sanctification of the household.

Armour clanked uneasily in front of Valentine and he gathered his thoughts. The foot soldier informed him that he would be buried further north on the side of the Via Flaminia. That meant they would have to cross the Mulvian Bridge. He nodded, and noticing a sorrowful expression in the soldier’s eyes, forgave him for his sins.

“You are not to be judged.” Said Valentine, groaning inwardly. The hypocrisy of his response repulsed him.

The correct words still eluded him. He could not reach his subject; a mist had developed which he could not clear. Still he wrote, pressing the stylus down, valleys of wax without coherent meaning. Valentine had lost all count of the days; the fourteenth was just a number. At least the wax impressions kept him occupied; Valentine now valued each action towards the jailer’s daughter as a failure to keep his evil temptation in check. He scratched his newly created letters and reheated the curling wax, smoothing it out once again. Most of the words were endlessly changing, endlessly morphing into new expressions and new confessions, but three words he was sure of, three words remained when all else had been removed.

The fourteenth came and the wheat was harvested. The jailer’s daughter made her way across the Mulvian Bridge, as she had done every morning, to feed those men who had sinned.

He left it for her there, stuck fast on the floor next to where he had slept. A lengthily note declaring himself, saving himself from his believed sins, all scribbled and scratched away, leaving three words. From your Valentine.

We are considering making two changes to the review framework and would like to know your thoughts before we decide whether or not to make these changes. You can see an example of a review framework below.

Change 1
Get rid of the star ratings. This would leave the comment boxes as the only feedback mechanism. I like the stars because they provide additional feedback. Others hate the stars because they seem so arbitrary. Do you think we should keep, remove, or make the star ratings optional? Is there something you think we should replace the star rating system with?

Change 2
Provide a “not applicable” checkbox to allow reviewers to skip a section of the critique framework. For example, if a story doesn’t have dialogue the reviewer would not be forced make up feedback for the dialog section. Should we continue to require everything to be filled out in the review framework or should we provide a way to skip sections?

Sample Review Framework

Thanks for your help,

Jacob

Two months ago we asked you which new features you wanted. It was a bit of a slug fest, but in the end writing lessons came out on top. We are pleased to announce the release of writing lessons.

For those who have not already noticed, writing lessons can be found in the blue box on the right hand side of the My Account page. We have also added writing prompts just below writing lessons on the My Account page. When you have a chance, please read a lesson or prompt, perform the assignment, submit it for critique, and let us know what you think.

If you are not already a member please join our writing group to access these features.

Jacob

Our goal is to get authors critiqued within 72 hours of completing their assigned reviews. We give priority to members with high review quality scores and who have completed their assigned critiques. If you want to get critiqued as fast as possible, then give high quality critiques and maintain a strong review quality score.

If it ever takes longer than 72 hours to receive your critiques please let us know. If you have writing you would like to get critiqued please join our writing community.


Jacob

I don’t want to offend anyone, but as writers, I think we’re pretty great at making excuses. Maybe it’s because our creativity makes us better at it than non-writers. Just look at all the reasons we’ve invented not to write: lack of time, too busy, lack of motivation, fleeting muses, and, of course, the dreaded writer’s block.

While I’m sure not all writers make excuses, I’ve met enough to know that most do, me included. My pet excuse is I’m sick of sitting in front of my computer. My job requires me to sit at a computer all day. Then, on top of that, I usually try and put in a couple hours a day trying to get the word out on ”the internets” about Review Fuse. By the time I’m done, the last thing I feel like doing is staring at my computer screen trying to write… and so most days I don’t. However, when I force myself to overcome my excuses and write in spite of them, a funny thing happens, I get so into my stories that I spend hours typing away without realizing how much time has passed until my wife asks if I’m ever coming to bed.

I call this concept “Perspiration before Inspiration.” Despite what Heinz Ketchup or more recently Guinness Beer would have you think, the best things DO NOT come to those who wait (remember those commercials? the ketchup one is quite a bit older, but you should still recognize the actor). Good things come to those who work. Come to think of it, this even holds true with ketchup–after all, Heinz does sell a squeeze bottle now. Maybe that whole axiom was just made up by clever marketers trying to sell products that don’t provide the instant gratification that their competitors’ products did.

Of course, others have expressed this same concept far more eloquently than I. Here are some favorite quotes that get me going when I find myself wanting to make excuses:

“We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.”
- Frank Tibolt

“Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working.”
- Pablo Picasso

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
- Jack London

“Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time… The wait is simply too long.”
- Leonard Bernstein

So what gets you going when you “just don’t feel like writing”? Have you found proven ways to motivate yourself or get new ideas flowing? If so, share your success in the comments.

One thing we’re working on at Review Fuse is putting together a system of writing prompts as well as writing exercises and assignments? When it’s done, will you use this feature? Share your thoughts and suggestions in the suggestion box.

- Clark

The results of the bug I reported Monday have largely been erased. When I reported the delay there were over 100 stories, poems, and essays that should have been critiqued, but had not been as a result of this bug. As of Wednesday morning only 23 stories and poems were still suffering from the side effects of this bug. These works should receive their critiques by Friday.

I would like to thank Jobaby for reporting this bug to us and again apologize for the delay we caused. Our goal is to get members critiqued within 72 hours of completing their assigned reviews. If you notice delays in getting critiqued, encounter issues with our site, or find a bug please let us know.

Jacob

Two weeks ago a bug wormed its way into our review assignment process. By wormed its way in, I mean we messed up. We found this bug a week ago and squished it. However, this bug has put us behind on getting everyone in our writing community critiqued.

By the end of this week the lingering results of this bug will be erased and people we will receive their critiques 2 or 3 days after finishing their assigned critiques rather than a week after.

We apologize for the delays we have caused and are prepared for any berating you have for us.

Jacob