Member Appreciation Month: Alan Orloff

Today we kick off our Member Appreciation Month with author Alan Orloff. Look for a member post each day this month. Here's Alan:


For me, the yen to write fiction hid deep inside, dormant like a defective daffodil bulb, for forty-odd years. When it finally sprouted, I knew guidance was needed. I had the desire, but not a clue!

So I joined The Writer's Center.

I started by taking an appropriately-titled workshop, Introduction to the Novel, from the wonderful Ann McLaughlin. There, I put pen to paper (okay, fingers to keyboard), along with the other workshop participants, trying to learn how to write. We'd exchange pages and make comments. I knew what I liked and didn't, but wasn't sure why. Every so often, I'd love something everyone else hated and vice versa.
First big lesson: writing is subjective!

It was utterly fascinating reading different genres: SF, memoir, fantasy, experimental, cozy, historical. There might even have been something about Martians--or maybe it was about sea lions, I wasn't sure. Everyone had different ideas, everyone had different skill levels. Everyone brought something different to the workshop table.

Second big lesson: I learned what "overwritten" meant.

After that eye-opening workshop experience, I was hungry for more, so I signed up for Noreen Wald's mystery writing workshop. From the first moment of the first workshop class, I realized I was "home." Mystery writers to the right, mystery writers to the left, mystery writers hiding in the closet with a lead pipe. The sense of community was intoxicating, plus I got to kill people with impunity!

Boy, did Noreen know her stuff (and how cool was it to take a workshop from a multi-published mystery author, giving moi pointers! Tres cool!). I learned plenty about writing in that workshop, but--equally important--I also learned the nuts and bolts of the publishing business (i.e, the business is mostly nuts).
I loved the workshop so much, I took it again. In fact, many of the other participants were also long-time repeat workshoppers and I fit right in. The second time through was just as enlightening as the first.

I found the members of my two critique groups from those workshops. I found out which organizations to join and the "right" conferences to attend from those workshops. I found out how to query agents from those workshops. All vital stepping stones on the path to publication.

Third big lesson: learn everything you can from those who've gone before you.

Looking back on the journey, I realize I wouldn't have gotten this far without the workshops I attended at The Writer's Center. Not even close.

Thanks, Ann. Thanks, Noreen.
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Alan Orloff's debut mystery, DIAMONDS FOR THE DEAD, will be published in April 2010 by Midnight Ink. The first in his new series, THE LAST LAFF, featuring Channing Hayes, a stand-up comic with a tragic past, will be out March 2011 (also from Midnight Ink). For more info, visit http://www.alanorloff.com/