It’s been a year since I joined the Romance Writers of America. As with any subscription, it’s time to consider if it’s worth the money.
I joined to encourage myself to finish a romance novel I started in 2012. I had a completed draft of about 22,000 words, but it needed a rewrite to flesh it out and resolve plot problems. I was working on it periodically, and considered an hour a week good progress. I thought joining RWA would give me the incentive and tools to finish the work – if I acted like a romance writer, I’d be a romance writer: Fake it ’til you make it.
The bad new is that a year later, I’m still not finished.
The good news is that I’ve been working more on that novel, getting up to about five hours a week for the past month. It’s taken a long time to get there, but regular social media and email check-ins with other local romance writers has helped me achieve that.
Hanging out with people who have published 2 or 3 or 50 romances, or who see regular income from their writing, is enough to bring on imposter syndrome. Fortunately, there are other unpublished writers in the local group and the RWA, and I feel welcome there.
For all that writing is a solitary activity, a supportive group, like a writing partner, is valuable. I’m renewing my RWA membership, and hope to have the novel finished by this time next year.
Tim Covell 