How it all Began, III

There I was, a year into my new adventure. I had one story with a beginning and one with a beginning and an end but no middle.

(In-joke:
How to avoid the author's dreaded sagging middle?
Have no middle at all!)

Now what?

I met Lani Diane Rich on the message boards at the NaNoWriMo site (see: previous post), the poster child for dreamy pre-published writers. She participated in the month-long novel writing extravaganza one year, wrote the first draft of her first novel

TIME OFF FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR

pitched it to an agent, and promptly received a book contract. She now enjoys a flourishing full-time writing career and multi-layered online presence.

When I asked for her single most effective piece of advice, she recommended joining a writing group. Figuring she knew what she was talking about, I attended a monthly meeting of the Toronto Romance Writers - even though I don't write romance.

To those who are tempted to pooh-pooh this genre, let me say: You think it's easy to write and be published in romance? Try it sometime. Your respect for such authors will rise astronomically, even if heaving bosoms and flexing biceps (or was that flexing bosoms and heaving biceps?) aren't your thing.

The writers in the Toronto group, both women and men, are a lively, witty, intelligent bunch, and the meetings a wealth of publishing industry information. A budding writer of any type could do worse than pay attention to the multi-published, New York Times bestseller list-making authors who generously spend time sharing their experiences.

So I did.