Win A Free Critique from Writer and Editor Sharon Mayhew

Some of you may know the amazing Sharon Mayhew, our BLOM (blog Mom), friend, writer, and editor. She just started her own editing business and is giving away a free critique!

Sharon has critiqued my work and helped me enormously. When I struggled with the opening chapters of my novel (and we all know how important opening pages are) she gave me great advice that helped me re-look at it. This advice helped me land a lot of full requests from agents, and eventually, an offer of representation from an agent.

She has a great eye, is knowledgeable about the industry, and has sat on both sides of the slush pile. She's always so thoughtful, smart and kind with her feedback.  If you're looking for an editor, I highly recommend working with her.

More about Sharon's decision to start editing can be found here.

More about her services can be found here.

To win a free critique, please comment on this post by November 24th.

The winner will receive the choice of the first 250 words of a picture book critique/line edits, the first seven pages of a novel critique/line edits or a query critique/line edits.

Career Assessment

A memory of career assessment.  I was twelve years old. My desk was a flat, wooden arm, winging off my hard-backed seat.  Lead pencil smudged across the bump of my wrist.  I filled in each bubble because I knew, I knew, I'm going to be a writer.  And with every question, my heart would whisper its own.  Is this the answer a writer would give?  I circled. I nodded. I knew.

Days later, a typed description in a printed booklet crossed my desk. Lines dipped and mountain-peaked and soared on a chart.  I scanned the fuzz of wordy descriptions, so certain, so sure.

When I flipped to the final assessment, however, my heart slipped. Writer was low on the list, practically last.  Healer, it read.  Number one.

I didn't understand.  Healer?  I thought I'd be barefoot. I thought I'd hold a flute, charm a snake, rub leaves across others cheeks, touch my hand to a bowed head.

What does this mean? I asked my teacher.

She turned a page, pointed to the description, to the suggested careers.  Doctor. Nurse. Member of the clergy.

I panicked. My grades in science class were abysmal. Doctor and nurse were not in my future.  I'd have to be a nun like Sister Regina at my church, who had made fun of my sign of the cross because it was backwards. Up-down-right-left.  But everyone else went left-right.  Left-right, she had smirked and grabbed my wrist, thunked my hand against my shoulders, over and over, left-right.  

I imagined my future self in a Climb Every Mountain-esque Mother Superior habit, shouting and stomping, left-right, left-right!

Writer was its own separate category with its own suggested careers. Journalist. Novelist.  Poet.  It sat at the bottom of my list.  It sat at the bottom of me.