Not A Butterfly Yet - confessions of an emerging romance writer

I've been writing for many years (ok many many years), but I'm still a caterpillar in my writing journey. I'm still feeding on knowledge and experience and validations and slowly emerging from the  comfortable cocoon of 'haven't submitted to a big publisher yet'.

I have poked my nose out of the cocoon a little bit. I successfully submitted to a (now defunct) small publisher a few years ago and