Even though she doesn’t know me, I have a fantastic writing mentor in Jane Friedman, one of the top editors at the Writer’s Digest empire. She’s always posting a lot of great, free advice for writers all over the Web. I found this fantastic article on why netting and platforming is so important to do BEFORE you finish your first book.

I was so glad to find it because even though Dakota Blues isn’t quite polished enough to start querying, I’m netting like mad. I even took an officer position at the Palm Springs branch of American Pen Women to upgrade my netting skills and expand my reach. In that job, as in so much else that I’m doing, I’m working my ass off on a lot of things that don’t directly involve writing (e.g. raising money for scholarships for local women.)

I long to sit at my keyboard and hang out with my main two characters, Kristen and Frieda. They’re somewhere in the Black Hills, camping and bickering as usual, with newly-fired workaholic exec Kristen chompin’ at the bit to get back to the corporate world, but 90-year-old Frieda trying to put on the brakes because she knows that as soon as she arrives at her daughter’s house in Denver, she might as well curl up and die.

But I digress. I was thinking, “All this advertising and still no product!” However, Jane says if you wait until your book is done to start netting, you’re stoopid. Well, I’m paraphrasing. Miss F would never be so uncool. But that’s seriously her point, so adios! I gotta go platform…