The Romantic Novelists Association is a group I've been a member of for 21 years now. I always recommend that any aspiring writers join for it is such a supportive group of people. No matter how many novels you've written or whether you are just beginning there is always help and support for one. We all get in the doldrums and believe that what we are writing is total rubbish and what is the point - then confess to the RNA and there's someone there who will give you advice, reassurance and suggestions. Needing to know something to do with your research then there will be someone who knows the answer. There are writers who turn their noses up at the idea of being associated with anything when the word ROMANCE is mentioned - honestly you would think it was a dirty word as if the work is inferior because of its involvement with love. But then what did Tolstoy write, or Austen and so many of the classics - romances pure and simple. At the Oxford Literary Festival I heard two writers say "I don't regard myself as a writer of romance." I'd like to know what they are then! Romantic fiction is such a broad church. In the RNA are writers of chic lit; contemporary fiction looking in depth at relationships in general (I've written many of these); historical novels (again I've several of these); regional sagas; generation sagas (My series The Cresswell Inheritance belong here); romantic comedies; and the romances pure and simple. And then there are the writers for Mills and Boon. It seems that people think that is an easy option - it isn't, to write those books with the conciseness necessary, with the level of pace and characterisation in such a short space - well I admire them more than I can say. I could not do it, I know. It needs a certain skill that I don't have. By the way I enjoyed the Oxford Festival.