According to $Moonbeam13's October Community Projects newsletter, this month is Self-Promotion Month.

Unfortunately self-promotion is something we're all hesitant to do because we think it will make us appear conceited or selfish. Sometimes, we're even embarassed to admit that we believe in our own talent! So, I'm going to kick off Self-Promotion Month with a bit of, you guessed it, self-promotion. I hope more of you will follow!

P.S. If you'd like to join in, and need justification, just link back to my article and say I told you to do it.

ABOUT ME:

Off-dA, I'm a mother of two young girls, an English major, and one of the newest Management Trainees at Enterprise. For fun, I sometimes play old school games on my N64 or more recent PC games, and I also DM a game of Dungeons & Dragons for my common-law husband and his two closest friends.

On-dA, I am sometimes remembered for my previous account name of `PunknEra, which has been shut down for about 9 months. I joined dA in October of 2005 and never left, but simply needed to change my username for its personal implications (long story). It was on that account that I was promoted to senior in 2008.

WRITING PORFOLIO

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I am a writer. Unfortunately, most of my writing, including my best stuff, is not posted online due to it being either for school or intended for publication. I would consider myself more of a proser than a poet, with a great emphasis on nonfiction. I write a lot of essays ad short stories, A LOT. I write some poetry, but I don't believe it is as strong as my prose.

Examples of my work:

Contemplations Over Porcelain (Prose> Nonfiction> Essays, 496 words)

This very personal essay, originally written for a school assignment, explores how a woman's emotions, at any given snapshot in time, can greatly affect her outward reactions to a situation, even if it isn't the first time she's experienced it.

The Truth About Nonfiction (Prose> Nonfiction> Essays, 1038 words)

As part of my effort to push nonfiction to dA's forefront, I wrote this informative article to help people understand that nonfiction doesn't have to be boring and totally literal all of the time. This essay explains the difference between factual academic essays and creative ones that focus on an individual's perspective.

10 Tips for Novel Writers (Prose> Nonfiction> General Fiction, 496 words)

This article was actually awarded a Daily Deviation on my old account, and with NaNoWriMo 2009 quickly approaching, it may be worth another look. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a step-by-step instructional to writing novels, only a list of tips that may or may not be taken into consideration the next time you tackle a novel length prose.

One Night (Prose> Fiction> Life Stories, 496 words)

As an example of flash fiction, One Night will introduce you a young woman named Marta, who lucks into one day of peace after a freak accident cuts off her access to the outside world.

The Hare's Tortoise (Poetry> Human Nature> Open, 14 lines)

This poem is a good example of my poetic style and the potential I hope to live up with the rest of my poetry in the future. Using allusions to a popular fairy tale

Winter HaikuWriMo 2009 (Poetry> General Poetry> Haiku & Eastern, 84 lines)

Last year's HaikuWriMo went very well for me and I got some real gems out of it I think. My favorites from this list include numbers 1, 5, 7, 10, 15, 18, and 25.

There are plenty more examples of my writing in my gallery, so feel free to check them out right now. That's right, I said right now.

MY ONLINE PROJECTS

I founded *TheFavoritesProject in 2006. This project accepts suggestions for poetry to feature, and features one weekly.

I took over as General Administrator of =PoetryPlease later that year, in September 2006, and have been, I hope, an instrumental component in its ongoing success. This club provides plenty of opportunity to hone your poetry writing skills through prompts, contests, workshops, and much more!

In 2009, I picked up the reigns of *ProsePlease which allowed it to become reacquainted with its long-lost sister =PoetryPlease, as the two clubs had been unaffiliated for many years. *ProsePlease runs contests and prompts that stimulate your prose writing skills. It also boasts a relatively new Nonfiction Nook to exercise your nonfiction muscles.

I am the owner of *LITplease, which will become the new joint group for PoetryPlease and ProsePlease when the much anticipated groups system is released. It is not fully operational at this time.

In 2009, I began publishing The Lit List, which is a comprehensive list of all the literature activities available on DeviantArt. The article is published weekly and is now on Issue No. 44! The Lit List has become highly popular and well supported, which I appreciate, by the way, very much. Please check it out if you haven't already.

And that's it, painless right? Do you think I'm selfish, conceited, or a bit of a braggart? If you do, that's fine, it's your turn now!