Techno Trials – Part One

This is my week for new technology, it would seem.

On Saturday I was invited to join a Google Wave picture book critique group.

Google Wave? I’d never heard of it! But the idea of a critique group devoted to PBs was one I couldn’t pass up – so I waded in.

Sunday night was just for fun, splashing around in the wave zone… learning the new technology. That was a bit confronting at first, because everything appears letter by letter as you type it. So if you dither around (as I do – type delete type delete…) while you’re cogitating – it’s fiddle-fingers for all to see. No spellchecker to save you, either.

Monday night was down to the serious stuff. There were three of us in the group, and we were working on Karen Collum’s manuscript, ‘Slow Down, Stanley’. Poor Stanley – telling him to slow down when Karen, Susan Stephenson and I were giving him a real wriggle-on to publication!

We’d loosely allowed 1 – 1½ hrs to critique Karen’s story, but this stretched to two helter-skelter hours. There was lots of deliberation and discussion – a plethora of great ideas sprouting forward. The most difficult thing was keeping track of the changes to the text – and getting continuity of reading with the changes. But we were all very patient (ha! – as scatty as) and soon, Stanley’s story was sparkling.

Our beach scene.

Just like any real life splash in the waves, I would have to say that riding the Google Wave with Karen and Susan (and Stanley) was an exhilarating experience!