I joined Georgia Romance Writers in 1993 (dang that seems like a long time ago– I suppose because it is:p). I can’t tell you how exhilirating it was to be among people who were doing what I wanted to do. A few months after joining I participated in a hands-on workshop where we broke into small groups of four and five people. There was this one really nice woman in my group.

I used to be painfully shy. I’m better but it’s absolutely worst in big groups. Anyway, I’d show up at the monthly GRW meetings but I wouldn’t talk to anyone. I mostly wouldn’t even look at anyone. Crazy as it sounds, I can stand up and present a workshop in front of a hundred people and I’m fine but put me in a cocktail party with a room of strangers or a room of people I don’t know and I go into shut-down mode. So, back to the story at hand — and, yes, there is a point — at one of these meetings where I was sitting like an island unto myself, a woman asked me if she didn’t know me from somewhere. Looking a bit like a deer caught in headlights (her interpretation) I said very hurriedly, “No. No, I don’t know you.” Then I leaped up from the table and went to the bathroom. Thank goodness, in the bathroom I realized she was in my workshop group a couple of months before and a long-enduring friendship began.

We discovered we’d grown up about sixy miles apart. At the time we met she lived about ten mintues from me. We became critique partners and invaluable champions of one another. She sold about three months before I did and I was thrilled for her. Over the years we shared joys and sorrows, writing related and personal. We logged in numerous hours at Chick-fil-et and her pool when our kids were younger. Then when they were older we had a Waffle House table with our name on it (yep, give a southern gal a sweet tea, grits, and some fried pork matter). Then her husband was transferred. Instead of ten minutes away she was 1100 miles away.

It’s been five long years but today my bud is coming home…for good.:)(y) Her husband has retired and there won’t be anymore transfers. She’s not ten mintues away but an hour and a half is a heck of a lot better than 1100 miles. :d We’ve already decided on a standing date once a month to get together. I bet there’s a Waffle House near her house.:p