I've been a member of this site since last year, but have been merely lurking on an occasional basis much of the time. Having noticed that my yearly subscription is about to expire, I thought it might be a good idea to scuttle out into the light, mutter 'hello everyone' and go blinking back into my burrow again.

I've also taken a closer look at what's on the site recently & made an attempt to get to grips with it. I'm impressed. There are definitely signs of intelligent life here.

That's it...

Come out into the light. We're a friendly bunch. And, as you say, some of the others are intelligent too!

Nik

Oh alright then. If you insist. Thanks!

So, will you renew your subscription?

Nice to see you, anyway

Yes, I probably will, now I've made the effort to study how the site works etc & made the virtual acquaintance of various literary(-ish) persons. Also, I hate reading those fragments of interviews you can access on the site if you're not a member...

I should think so too, ahem.

I've just re-engaged with write words (having let my membership lapse - it's been sulking in the corner for nearly a year I think). Rejoining is also a virtual kick up the ass: get on with it!! While I'm only on the edges of the community here, it's good to be in touch with other writerly people - especially as I feel a bit isolated at the moment in the far north of NZ, a long way from home! So, don't lurk...renew your membership, join me in the bright scary light and make friends!

Yours squintingly.

I agree. I need a virtual kick up the arse. In fact, I should employ someone full-time to keep on kicking me along... And yes, know what you mean about isolation. But at least people in NZ speak English - after a fashion... I'm based out in Finland, where the local lingo is particularly impenetrable.

"after a fashion"

Ha! I sometimes wonder...quite often I'm left open mouthed and eyes scrunched up wondering what anyone's saying.

I've discover that Kiwis pronounce "here" and "hair" exactly the same which amused me. But then I pronounce "source" and "sauce" as the same word, much to amusement of my Northern Irish and Scottish friends at university in Glasgow (another place where the tenets of English language are stretched to their very limit).

But yes, Finnish probably a little further removed!

Anyway, here's to virtual ass kicking!

Hello RJH - I spy a fellow lawyer. Another schizophremic concentric thinker and turned would-be creative soul, caught in limbo between left brain and right brain?

Hope you start to take more advantage of your membership here...

Rosy x

Something along those lines, yes. Having 'retired' from a perfectly viable career as a solicitor in 2000 (at the grand old age of 29), I've been trying to escape the law entirely ever since. Haven't managed quite it yet, since it's the only way I can scrape any sort of living. Once a lawyer, always a lawyer I suppose. Still, when I finish my new novel...

Fiction is a very necessary and liberating release, sometimes, I reckon, from the grip of having been trained to think only in tidy categories and sub-categories. Ah, the joy of writing things which don't have footnotes!

Rosy

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I'm still in the grips of law for my day job - but freeing my creative spirit in the evenings.