About an hour for the core lesson and exercise. 

The monthly podcast episodes add another 30-45 minutes of listening, but you can do that on a walk, in the car, or whenever it fits your day. 

Deep thinkers who like to explore every angle might spend more time, and that's perfectly fine. You know your own habits best.

There's no need to "catch up".

Every month stands on its own, and everything stays in the archive. You're welcome to pick back up whenever you're ready.

This isn't a course with a finish line. It's a practice and rhythm you can step in and out of whenever is best for you.

As long as you are a member in good standing—which means financially and following our community behavior expectations—you can log in and access any current or past module (and its discussion threads) at any time.

Scroll down to the bottom of this question list to read the full Code of Conduct.

Yes! Simply cancel your monthly membership inside the Heartbeat platform before your next billing date and you won't be charged, and your access will end at the end of the current month.

When you're ready to come back, just reactivate your membership, and you'll regain access to the entire archive. There's no penalty for taking a break. 

That said, this program is not designed for binging. It's not like Netflix where you can activate for a month, speed through everything new, then turn it off again. You need to spend real time and thought on the monthly exercises, so just take it one month at a time.

No. This is a learning and reflection space, not a feedback space.

I don't critique individual manuscripts or your assignments in this program (that's what my higher-level programs are for).

This is also not a space to critique one another. We encourage supportive discussion, but comments like "I think you should do this instead" or "here's what's wrong with your work" are strictly prohibited. 

My primary goal is to give you a safe space to learn, practice, and grow into your confidence. And you can't do that when you're worried that someone will criticize you for trying.

But that doesn't mean you get no help. The monthly podcast features anonymized examples, and that's also where I answer all your questions in one spot. But, ultimately, the core experience is about you learning to understand your own work.

There are no required submissions of any assignments. You can be as quiet or as active as you like. 

And I'm not grading any assignments or editing any manuscripts. That's not what this program is for.  

If you need personal feedback on a manuscript, consider applying for my Story Sorcery Society program or booking a personal consultation.

You're not paying for access to me. You're paying for a structured way to get better at understanding your own stories, month after month, without needing anyone else to tell you what's wrong. 

The lesson teaches one concept. The exercise helps you practice it on your own manuscript. The monthly private podcast shows you how I think through real examples. And the archive means the value keeps growing the longer you're a member.

The core work takes about an hour a month, and the rest happens naturally as you start thinking about your storywork (and your manuscript) differently.

All are welcome, as long as you are already comfortable writing and completing a full manuscript draft of romantic fiction.

But this is definitely not a space for true beginners or for writers who are simply curious about romance books. 

You won't learn HOW to write inside Enemies To Experts. You will learn how to diagnose the problems you intuitively spot, so that the "fix" is clear, true, and lasting. 

YES. The teaching, the exercises, the examples, and the community are all built specifically for writers of romantic fiction. 

If your story centers on a romantic relationship that drives the heroes' growth arcs, whether that's contemporary romance, historical, paranormal, romantasy, romantic suspense, or any other romance subgenre or mashup, you're in the right place.

It helps, but it's not required.

The exercises are designed for you to practice on your own work, so having a draft in progress (or even a few chapters) will make the experience richer.

That said, the concepts you'll learn here also help you write a stronger first draft, so if you're still working on one, you'll get value from the thinking even before you're in revision mode.

Absolutely not.

I personally do not use Facebook, and I get frustrated when I can't find what I need (because the algorithm decided to hide it). 

Enemies To Experts lives and operates in my private space on a platform called Heartbeat. It's similar to Circle, but with a warmer feel. There is a mobile app, a desktop app, and you can also log in through a web browser, so tons of ways to learn and connect with your fellow members (without getting distracted by ads or the drama of the day).

Short answer: No. Because this is a monthly program.

So if you find that it's not a fit once you've joined, simply cancel your membership before the next month's rebilling.

If you take advantage of any of the special offerings—like the discounted annual offer in March 2026—you receive perks and discounts in return for committing to the full year. So if you're not sure it will be for you, just start with monthly.

If you're not sure it will be right for you, email my team and we'll help you decide. (But keep in mind that we try to observe healthy working hours and may not be able to respond to your email before any limited-time offers expire.)

I'm so glad you asked, because it's really important for everyone to have the same expectations. This is the verbatim copy from what is posted inside my Heartbeat community platform:

Our Goal

The Sue Brown-Moore Heartbeat Community is dedicated to supporting writers of romantic fiction. Our intention is to provide a harassment-free experience for everyone.

We do not tolerate harassment of community members in ANY form.

Applicability and Scope

This code of conduct applies to all of this community's spaces, including public channels, private channels, threads, direct messages, voice rooms, comment sections, and live events, both online and off.

Anyone who violates this code of conduct may be sanctioned or expelled from these spaces at the discretion of the administrators.

Toward a Welcoming and Safe Environment

We hope to create an environment in which diverse individuals can collaborate and interact in a positive and affirming way.

Examples of behavior that contributes to creating this sort of environment include:

• Using welcoming and inclusive language
• Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
• Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
• Focusing on what is best for the overall community
• Showing empathy towards other community members
• Referring to the romantic fiction genre (and its vulnerable subject matter) with respect

Anti-Harassment Statement

This community will not tolerate harassment of any kind.

Examples of harassment include:

• Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, pregnancy status, veteran status, political affiliation, marital status, body size, age, race, national origin, ethnic origin, nationality, immigration status, language, religion or lack thereof, or other identity marker. This includes anti-Indigenous/Nativeness, anti-Blackness, anti-Asian, and anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiments.
• Unwelcome comments regarding a person's lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, relationships, drugs, and employment.
• Deliberate misgendering, using inappropriate pronouns, or use of "dead" or rejected names.
• Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behavior in spaces where they're not appropriate.
• Simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like "hug" or "backrub") after a request to stop or when consent has clearly been withdrawn.
• Threats of violence.
• Incitement of violence towards any individual or group, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm.
• Deliberate intimidation.
• Stalking or following - online or in the physical world.
• Harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes.
• Sustained disruption of discussion.
• Unwelcome sexual attention.
• Patterns of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others.
• Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease.
• Deliberate "outing" of any aspect of a person's identity without their consent except as necessary to protect vulnerable people from intentional abuse.
• Publication of non-harassing private communication.
• Jokes that resemble the above, such as "hipster racism", still count as harassment even if meant satirically or ironically.

If you have questions or concerns about these issues please feel free to message an admin or ask for an opportunity to explore the issue with a moderator and volunteers.

Reporting

If you are being harassed by a member of our community, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact the administrators via hi@suebrownmoore.com. If the person who is harassing you is on the admin team, they will not be involved in handling or resolving the incident.

The admin team will respond to any complaint as promptly as possible we can. If you do not get a timely response (for example, if no admins are currently online) then please put your personal safety and well-being first, and consider logging out and/or contacting the admins by email at hi@suebrownmoore.com.

This code of conduct applies to our community's spaces, but if you are being harassed by a member of our community outside our spaces, we still want to know about it. We will take all good-faith reports of harassment by our members, especially the administrators, seriously. This includes harassment outside our spaces and harassment that took place at any point in time. The abuse team reserves the right to exclude people from the community based on their past behavior, including behavior outside of our spaces and behavior towards people who are not in this community.

In order to protect Team Sue and our volunteers from abuse and burnout, we reserve the right to reject any report we believe to have been made in bad faith. Reports intended to silence legitimate criticism may be deleted without response.

Enforcement Process

Every code of conduct violation report will be treated with seriousness and care. If a member's immediate safety and security is threatened, an individual admin may take any action that they deem appropriate, up to and including temporarily banning the offender from the community. In less urgent situations, two or more admins (if possible) will discuss the offense and mutually arrive at a suitable response, which will be shared with the offender privately. Whatever the resolution that they decide upon, the decision of the admins involved in a violation case will be considered final.

We will respect confidentiality requests for the purpose of protecting victims of abuse. At our discretion, we may publicly name a person about whom we've received harassment complaints, or privately warn third parties about them, if we believe that doing so will increase the safety of our members or the general public. We will not name harassment victims without their affirmative consent.

Consequences

Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately. If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the administrators may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from the community (without a refund) and identification of the participant as a harasser to other members. At the discretion of the admins, or by request, one or more of the parties involved may request to discuss the violation and how to avoid similar situations in the future.

My team and I would be happy to chat about it! Email us at hi@suebrownmoore.com

We answer most emails within 48 hours unless it's over a weekend or one of us is traveling. (But keep in mind that we try to observe healthy working hours and may not be able to respond to your email before any limited-time offers expire.)