Romy Sommer

No matter how much support you get from friends and family when you set out on your journey to become a writer, it is still a lonely experience. The best-intentioned of relatives is simply not going to understand when you want to discuss issues like how to fill in back story, or how to increase the levels of conflict between your hero and heroine. This is why it is vitally important that writers find (or build) themselves a community. Whether it is a formal organisation, an online crit group, a few writing friends who meet regularly, or joining a web-based discussion forum, I highly recommend getting yourself a support system of other writers. For me, my writing friends have become so much more than crit partners. They are my soul sisters, my own personal cheerleading squad and my hardest taskmasters. Without them, I would probably not have finished an entire novel. They set an example of what could be done (Liesl, you know what a star you are!) and pushed me to keep going. Thanks to a...

I'm new to the wonderful world of blogging, so I'll start with a bit about me. I am married, and have two inspiring young daughters. I live in Johannesburg, South Africa, where I work as a film production manager for a company that makes television commercials. And that is not as glamorous as it sounds. All my life I have been a writer. I still have schoolbooks from my earliest school years in which I wrote down my dreams and stories. My first class teacher told me I'd amount to nothing, because I spent all my time day dreaming. Well, I still day dream and I'm happy to say I'm pretty pleased with how my life has turned out. (So there!) It was my husband who made me sit down and write. At the time I was working for a very small film company and we were experiencing a quiet patch, so I spent a lot of time in the office researching Arthurian history and legends (still a passion of mine). Exasperated with my obsession and how much of my time it monopolised, my husband ...