Introductions are for the Weak?

I have to apologize up front for whatever ridiculousness I spout out in this post because I already know it's going to be an interesting ride. I just mixed up weak and week in my title; we're off to a great start here in the LTC 'verse!

My terrible grammar aside, hello, and welcome to this new writing blog that K. A. Wyllie made me create sometime within the last several days. Let this be a lesson to everyone: I cave to peer pressure. No, no. I jest. The truth of the matter is that WriYe has this blogging circle thing, and with my main writing journal under lock-and-key on LiveJournal, I was having a hard time keeping up with the reading, which made me less likely to even bother posting. So, thus, this blogger-thing was created. To explain the name? I was looking for something that made you immediately think romance / chick lit, since that's my niche in the writing world, but also wanted it to tie into my semi-series, non-linear, SUDS thing: Lazy Tequila Afternoons. Again, with the help of K. A. Wyllie [different blog link this time!], this name / URL was born. I kind of like it.

Other than the WriYe blogging circle posts, I'm sure you're wondering what you can expect to find here? To be entirely honest, I'm wondering the same thing myself! I still plan to keep my writing locked up on x__hypocampus, simply for the sake of first-rights and publications and all, but I would like to move some of my more general posting about writing over here, where more people will have access to it and be able to participate more freely in conversations via comments and maybe even blogging their responses. So, we'll see where that goes. Maybe book and software reviews, too? Like I said... We'll see.

So, that's the blog's intro... Now how about mine? I am Erin, a twenty-something writer-in-progress, living and working full time in Orlando, Florida. I have a few self-publishing credits under my belt [including my own short story collection, Morphine Kisses, and three stories in each of AugNo's now-annual short story collections, Milestone: v1, v2, and v3], as well as several finished novels in various stages of editing for publication. I work hard helping to keep writing forums that encourage writers to get their words out throughout the year [most notably: JulNo, AugNo, and WriYe] and I am very proud of what the members of these sites accomplish... Including, sometimes, myself -- though not a lot lately.

But, see, that's just the thing about this blog. In 2011, I had a few major losses in my life that were pretty world-shattering. I was able to pick my personal life and my day-job work life back up and get my head back in the game with those aspects of my being. Writing is something I'm still struggling to get back on track. From 2006-2010, I used to be one of those people racing the clock for 2k more, just so I could pop back into the top 25 on the NaNoWriMo charts for highest word count of the month. My two month total for 2012? Still significantly less than 50k [a single NaNoWriMo goal]; but I'm working on it. And the first step for me to getting back to where I used to be? Admitting that I'd fallen down and needed dusting back off. This blog, among other things I'm doing this year, will be partly to keep me accountable for just... Writing. It doesn't matter if it counts towards my count or not, so long as there are letters and words streaming from my brain, though my fingers, and onto a computer screen, I'll be happy with myself.

[And, ideally, a 600k yearly word count would be nice... But, hey! Who's counting?]

--erin