ieva melgalve

Reading those young-and-promising writers I’ll be critiquing, I understood two, no, three things: 1. There are very many things I think I need to tell them, from the nuts and bolts of writing to the general principles they seem to have no grasp of. 2. There is no way I’ll be able to tell it [...]

I am preparing for a local workshop where I’ll be critiquing four young Latvian writers. This has been quite a challenge for me for several reasons. 1. I feel very much in the beginning of the road and am learning, just like they are, and don’t feel qualified to teach. (Which is funny since just [...]

On Monday, 1000+ words. Today, 800+ words. I really have to get myself together to write all the stuff I’ve intended to do until November (including writing three new stories to stack up in the queue, since I won’t have the time to write anything else during NaNoWriMo). Also, next time I have to schedule [...]

I’m beginning to understand why I feel so upset about writers feeling so upset whenever they are handling negative reviews. Well, the real reasons are two: 1) I have a nasty mouth and I know it, 2) I am dead afraid that at some point I’ll react to criticism just like them because it’s, well, [...]

1. You go to a restaurant and eat something that makes your mouth blister. You: a) politely empty the dish and say thanks for the effort, b) leave the dish unfinished, never order it again, and warn your friends too, c) announce, while still sitting at the table, that the dish is inedible, and try [...]

This is vaguely prompted by this excellent post at Holly Lisle’s, concerning people giving and receiving advice on her site. Now, first, it figures very much; I’d be pissed too if somebody went over to this blog and critiqued (especially if badly) somebody else under “as Ieva would say” premise. My house, my rules and [...]

I just got enough incoming critiques for my short story, “The Final Turn”, to realize one simple, baffling thing. While I myself am fairly good critiquer (able to point the flaws, ask the right questions etc.), I so often fail to ask these same simple questions to myself or point out these same flaws in [...]