Every year, Brenda Novak holds an auction to raise money for juvenile diabetes. This is hardly news to anyone in the romance writing community. When I first joined the RWA® and became aware of the fundraiser, I eagerly bid on critiques by various Regency authors. I  had a Regency manuscript drafted, and I was concerned I might have gotten details such as title and gowns wrong. I won a critique from Vanessa Kelly. She didn’t have a lot to say about titles and gowns, but she did have a lot of suggestions along the lines of clarifying my heroine’s motivations and making my hero less passive. Thanks to her critique and follow-up phone call, I’m proud to say I finaled in the Golden Heart®. I went on to sell that manuscript, my debut. It will be coming out sometime early…