Part #3 of our chat with @reginakyleauthor LUV: Are you part of an author community? If yes, how did you find it and what makes it valuable to you? Regina: I am very, very fortunate to be part of a couple of awesome writing communities. First, there’s my plot group, The MTBs. It stands for “The Most Trusted B%&ches,” which some of us saw written on the back window of an SUV as we were leaving the Romance Writers of America convention in New York City back in 2015. Well, actually, the window said, “The Bride’s Most Trusted B$*ches” (clearly, they’d been at a bachelorette party the night before), but we liked it so much we adapted it and borrowed it as our plot group name. I met all of the MTBs (there are six of us in total, including me) through the Connecticut chapter of RWA. We write in a variety of genres, from women’s fiction to mystery to all sorts of romance, but that doesn’t hinder our ability to help each other plot our stories. We communicate often via Facebook chats and on the telephone, and we go away together for extended plotting weekends three to four times a year, usually in Vermont where one of our members has a cabin that’s bigger than my house LOL. I’m also part of a mastermind group that I started with a few other writer friends (again, six of us in total) during the pandemic. As an uber extrovert, I was really missing out on contact with other people during the lockdown, and I felt that I needed another outlet in addition to the MTBs. The mastermind focuses primarily on stuff other than plotting: business news, agents, publishers, marketing, social media, writing trends. Basically, any writing-related topic we want to cover. We have a private Facebook group where we vent our frustrations and share questions, and once a month we have a Zoom chat on a specific topic that we choose in advance. I think it’s important to have a safe space to vent and ask stuff that you might not want to ask in a more public forum, and my mastermind gals are great for that.

Posted by LUV Team at 2022-09-07 19:00:04 UTC