Friday, February 17, 2012

A Service Call For My Writing



At our house we subscribe to a satellite television service. We made sure to include the DVR option because it is something we simply can not live without. A week ago the receiver box in the family room wouldn't work. A blue screen with the message "Acquiring Guide Info" is all we saw. It was bad, very bad. Our favorite shows weren't watchable or recordable! After doing the whole reset thing a million times and coming up with the same message I called my husband in to check things out. He checked all the cables - at least he said he did - and determined that it must be something else. Finally I gave in and called the company. After walking me through some receiver box tests she determined that we had to have someone come out to fix it. Ugh. More waiting. Today, a very nice man named Luis came to our house to restore television watching AND recording capabilities. I showed him to the basement where it took him all of ten seconds to determine that a cable wasn't screwed in where it should be. Seriously. You see, my husband moved one of the receiver boxes (the one without DVR) down to the basement so he could watch football. This required rearranging some cables. Seems he didn't re-do after the un-do and we were left without TV in the upstairs family room. Silly, silly man. So, twenty dollars and the shortest service call in history later our TV is back on track and doing what it is supposed to do.

What in the world does this have to do with writing? I was thinking about how much I value my critique group. I don't know about you, but sometimes I get to a point in my writing and revising where if I read through my story one more time I may claw my eyes out! I know it's not working the way that it should, but I've tried all the ways I know to make it better and I can't. Sometimes it's all the fixing that I've tried to do that has messed things up in the story. When I finally turn it over to my crit group it takes them no time to point out what's wrong and offer suggestions to make it better. Submitting my story to them is like a service call for my writing. The piece has a problem, they diagnose what they think is wrong and offer repair options. Then I take the fixes they've offered and get my writing back on track. It's a good thing.

4 comments:

  1. Dear Lisa Ann,
    I know exactly what you're talking about. It's like we are too close to the situation (the unplugged cable). We can't see it. We're too overloaded with wondering if it's this or wondering if it's that. But someone else coming in who hasn't been there the whole time can sometimes notice something rather quickly to point out where the problem lies.
    Sometimes it can be us noticing after we've left our manuscript rest in a drawer for a month. We notice spelling errors and say, "Gosh, how could I write its when it should be it's."
    Thanks for putting my blog in your blog column. I am honored.

    Never Give Up
    Joan Y. Edwards

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    1. Joan, Thanks for visiting! Your blog is an inspiration to me. :) Lisa

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  2. Oh! I know the feeling, Lisa... esp the one where you could claw your eyes out if you have to read your story one more time lol!!!

    You guys come in and save my story and I am so thankful for you all <3

    Thanks so much, Lisa... and I see my blog over there ---->
    Thank you! Now to figure out how to do it for you!

    Lisa, I can't sub to this page... do I do that?

    Love,
    Denise

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    1. Denise, You all have saved my story more than once already! ~ Lisa

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