What can you learn from listening to outsiders discuss your grant application and your writing?
In February, I applied for an Indiana Arts Commission grant. In April, I attended the panel discussion where the decision-makers review each grant application. Unfortunately, it took place on a Tuesday morning, when I teach a music class, and this year I was early on the schedule. I arrived just after they finished discussing mine.
Knowing from past experience that I would learn from hearing other reviews, I stayed for the rest of the morning. It’s amazing the things you can pick up.
I heard about applications with no public benefit (required), very poor writing, poor planning or lack of understanding of what the writer’s project would really entail, or that didn’t fit the category. I also heard that early-career writers are welcome to use the money for writer’s conferences, that conferences and workshops need to be a good fit, that self-published fiction isn't worth diddly-squat, and that they don’t really feel like paying to upgrade someone’s computer.
Now, however, we’re all waiting to hear who will be awarded the grants. I went to the website where, unlike previous years, they had a link to listen to a recording of the panel discussion.
To hear four or five people talk about your work is a experience we should all go through, whether the comments are good or bad. These are people who don’t know me, who don’t know what else I have written, who have never seen the rougher drafts of my two writing samples. One thought the sample of my current project was “spot on,” that I nailed the dialogue of an eight-year-old, etc. Another thought that same project needed a lot of work, that I need to show sooner what the story is truly about. Only one panelist commented on my plan to teach writing workshops at schools in low income areas, but she loved the idea.
I was encouraged listening to them. It was like my critique group in a way, but more like a group of editors than people who are rooting for me. And again, I have to take what they said and decide for myself what to change. But they gave me a perspective I don’t usually get, and I’ll re-read my story with their comments echoing around it.
If you have the chance to have a group (not just one reader) critique your work, take it. And if it’s for a grant, all the better. I’ll let you know the results of this one.
