Who are you people?

I tried to think of a theme for my first post at Affairs of the Pen and my brainstorming went something like this—Weary Wednesday? Wallabee Wednesday? Whirligig Wednesday? Wacky Wednesday? Wet ‘n Wild Wednesday? Weirdo Wednesday? Wee Wednesday? Wowabonza Wednesday. Hmmm. Go back to we. How about We Wednesday? Might work. We really haven’t introduced ourselves. We-- as in who in the heck are "we"? -- Wednesday.

You’ve met Macy "Bring it on" O'Neal and Samantha "cautiously optimistic" England. I’m Alyson Love and here’s my story.

In the beginning, there were the words and the story sparks and Gotham Writers’ Workshops, the most comprehensive creative writing classes online and in New York City. I had taken an online fiction writing at Gotham in 2004. It wasn’t my first stab at writing fiction, but more on that later. Let’s just say, for now, literary short stories weren’t my cup of tea. Lots of imagery getting in the way of the action.

A quick digression: The reason it took me sooooo long to pursue my dream of writing a novel was twofold—first, I had no idea how to actually go about writing a novel, and second, I thought that I had to write something worthy of Fyodor Dostoevsky, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, Harper Lee, Emily Bronte, Jane Austen. The class didn’t help me much in either respect.

The truth of the matter is I tend to read women’s fiction and romance novels. For me, not much beats a week at the beach with a stack of romantic comedies and a chick lit novel or two. So, in 2006 as my son turned two and the notion of returning to work full time loomed large, I thought, Good lord. If I’m going to write a novel, I should do it now—get the first one out of the way before I have full time work to add to the mix of outside distractions. I had no idea what I wanted to write, but I had just returned from Florida, a week at the beach with a stack of romantic comedies and a chick lit novel or two. The light bulb went off and I decided to give writing romance a whirl.

I signed up for a ten week romance writing workshop with Leigh Michaels, through Gotham. I had no idea what I was doing—didn’t know my characters, didn’t know how to develop conflict, didn’t know how to plot, didn’t know how to build sexual tension. But over the course of ten weeks, I had a strong story idea and a handful of characters that I loved. In addition, I met Samantha and Macy. I thought they both were amazing writers.

Samantha created a yahoo group, Affairs of the Pen, for anyone in the class who was interested in participating. We all signed up initially. I believe there were ten of us. Seven of us stuck with it—setting goals, submitting work, providing critiques and encouragement. Some of us have taken additional writing workshops and classes together, including the second level romance writing class with Leigh. For me, it’s been a steep learning curve—but an exciting, adrenalin-producing ride. There’s nothing quite like the high of seminal creative moments and finding the flow.

Samantha and I both write contemporary romance bordering on women’s fiction with strong romance elements. Same subgenre, but completely different voices. Samantha has an eloquent, smooth, lucid, flowing voice. Mine is decidedly more “edgy” and “quirky.” In fact, I started out writing chick lit.

Macy writes steamy romantic suspense. She started out writing contemporary romance.

As for the others in our group, they write historical western adventure, hot historical Highlander romance, witty historical fantasy romance (think Princess Bride or Ever After) and paranormal romantic comedy (A-rooooo). All in all, it’s an eclectic mix that keeps us highly entertained.

Another quick digression: Why is it that whenever I write or say “the others” now I think of the others on Lost and wonder what in the heck is going to happen to my beloved Jack? I don’t watch much TV but I do watch Lost pretty faithfully. Don't worry, our "others" are not scary.

I adore my writing group, and I love technology. Without the internet, we wouldn’t have met until we were published. We’re scattered all over the country—Florida, California, Illinois, New York, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii.

No, unfortunately, I’m not the one who lives in Hawaii.

My unsolicited bit of advice for anyone out there wishing to pursue the writing life, besides writing, writing, writing and reading, reading, reading, is to (1) find a writing group--or, at the very least, a writing partner and (2) learn everything you can about the craft. I say the latter with a caveat—learn everything you can about the craft but don’t use that, or research, as a way to avoid the writing, writing, writing. Been there, done that. Learn from my mistakes.

If you are into blogs and you want to know what it’s like to be a published author, I highly suggest you read The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing by JA (Joe) Konrath. Here’s a link to his post about New Year’s Resolutions for writers, newbies and otherwise. I also enjoyed his post on crushing hope—which is not quite as awful as it sounds.

Till next time-- Soulful Sunday. Scintillatingly Sinful Sunday just wouldn’t be appropriate. Or would it? He, he.

Cheers, Alyson