Sadie: Welcome to the fold! 😀
The best advice I can give? Network. Tumblr groups, FetLife groups, all of that. I mean, everybody’s been the ‘newbie’ at some point… seriously, we’ve all been there. So yeah, just hopping onto message boards/groups and finding out if there are any local group meet-ups’ (when you feel ready for that) are gonna be your best bet.