Romance Writers of America

On Tuesday night I attended RWA/New York City's annual wine and cheese party. A friend of mine, the very lovely Barbara Daly was being honored as author of the year, and I wanted to go lend my support (and applause). Anyway, when I was there, I remembered why I like RWA so much. There's just a very warm feeling when you're among other writers. Possibly due to all the marabou feathers, I don't know. People have the most fantastical impressions of what romance writers are like, and the truth is much more mundane. The ages are from the very young (some writers are in their 20s) to the grand old dames of romance (not giving away names here), who are in their 80s. I've known judges who are romance writers, lawyers who are romance writers, lots of computer people who are romance writers (not sure about that correlation, but it's definitely there), and then there's Julia Quinn, who gave up medical school to be a romance writer.

People ask what goes on at a writer's meeting, and I'll tell you that it's lot of fun. Sometimes the meetings are on serious writerly thing like character and plot and dialog. And sometimes they're on sexual tension, which usually ends up being a laugh-fest because when a group of women discuss sex, well, there's usually laughter involved. Anyway that is seriously considering writing should look into their local rwa chapter.

I've been picked to sit on a grand jury, so posts will be hit or miss for the next four weeks. When you're sitting there on Wednesday night (actually, pretty much any day of the week), watching Law & Order, just think of me. Duh-dum!