(btw, if you haven’t signed up for the challenge yet, you have until July 13th to do so - remember, we built in a 5 day window because of the RWA Conference…more details are in this post, as well as the code so you can get the Sven sweating button for your blog sidebar!)

Thanks so much for the kind responses to my post below. The thing is, even though I still feel very new and just starting out myself, I’m always reminded of how writers like PBW and Holly Lisle and Alison herself talk about paying it forward and how they walk the walk when it comes to helping out new writers. And I’d always promised myself I’d do that for new writers whenever I could.

I just think it’s so cool to not only see names on the challenge list who are contracted (because like I said, I remember them when we were all just starting out and struggling to get that first break) but what really made me smile were all the new faces, the ones who said things like, this will be my first book, or this is the first time I’m going to finish a book. Look around at those people if you’re a newbie, because that’s your group - your thisclose club. Whether or not you become friends with them, they’re still your grouping, the ones you rise through the ranks with.

You’ll end up with writer friends who are farther ahead than you as well…I remember back in 2003 or so when Alison had this huge sidebar of links with a message that said, want to be added? Email me…and I was this just starting out writer and she was ALISON KENT (well, she still is to me *g*) and I had her books on my shelf and I was like, maybe she won’t accept my blog link?

But she did. And now look, she can’t get rid of me.

Okay, I’m off to continue the neverending packing that’s happening around here in preparation for RWA. And then it’s time to get going on my pages.

Here’s to a productive Sunday for everyone!

Steph T.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 8th, 2007 at 4:25 pm and is filed under Seventy Days Challenge, Publishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.