Friday, November 30, 2012

taking the time to say thank you

I did something this week I've wanted to do for a long time. I wrote a thank you note to a writing tutor I had many years ago before I was even published.  His name is Felix Baron and he tutors for a Canadian writing school called Quality of Course. It's based in Ottawa and offers correspondance courses for different genres. I took their Erotica course, and I recommend them highly. I learned so much. www.qualityofcourse.com

At the time, I was working full time at my day job, taking the odd writing workshop when I could, and harbouring a dream to one day be published. I hadn't actually even seriously considered writing erotica. It just seemed like a really fun (and slightly naughty) course to take. What was great was that what I learned in that course crossed over all genres. Good writing is good writing, no matter the genre, so I've applied many of the techniques learned from Felix to my romance writing, my non-fiction writing, and even the play writing I did for a while.

Because life can sometimes throw monkey wrenches into plans, I never managed to complete the entire course. I finished about 2/3rds before being struck down by a series of serious illnesses, one of which put me in hospital for six months. I was never able to get back on track to finish the program. But what I had gleaned from the course to that point did help when I finally made the jump into the publishing pool in 1999.

I'm now published by multiple small press publishers in both the romance genre, and erotica. I'm enjoying a good level of success. And I'm loving the writing journey.

So, Felix, again I say thank you. Your expertise, patience, and encouragement helped me forge a career in a field I love. You're the best!

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