Julia Slaughter

I’m going to confess that this isn’t my first shot at blogging, but generally I start with enthusiasm and then I miss a day, that day rolls over into two, the next thing I know the blog has gone untouched for months and in my shame I can hardly bring myself to even log in again. However, the other day I started poking around with WordPress for another project and I really liked it, I also liked that I could tie other things into it so here I am. My goal is simple to update it, at least once a week (I’m shooting for Wednesdays), four entries a month – surely that’s doable?

I’m a writer, an aspiring author, but not yet published which is what makes the distinction between the two in my head. My writing aspirations go back to first grade where in a black marbled composition book, in childish fat pencil scrawl, I penned the tale of “My Secret Pal” a story about a squirrel I befriend in my tree house and the adventures that we had. I had a tree I liked to climb and perch in, but there was no tree house, and the only squirrels around were vaguely hostile and indignant that I was encroaching on their territory, so clearly even in my tender youth – I was a fiction writer.

I have always written, I write the way artists doodle – fragments of a poem, a verbal sketch of someone who captures my attention in line at the grocery store, there’s always something worth writing somewhere. In grade school I adapted a book and made it a play, I wrote volumes of poetry that I gave my friends and family. In my teen years, I took art classes in high school where my art teacher praised the snippets of poetry that often accompanied my tests – I managed to squeak by in the class with a B, I think because she acknowledged that I had an arty soul despite my lack of drawing, painting or sculpting talent. I also wrote two novellas that my classmates passed around the school, edited for grammar mistakes, and treated me as though they believed that surely I was going to be a famous author someday.

I went to college to get an employable degree in Communication Arts – Public Relations, my Dad vetoed my English degree plan since I did not want to teach. During the course of getting my degree I took Newspaper Reporting and an assortment of advertising type classes, my Newspaper Reporting professor loved to read and encourage my short story writing (though I ended up with a C in the class because while I can write, I apparently can’t report) and in advertising class I learned that I was too wordy to really be a very effective “advertising man.” My speech teacher took me under his wing and became my mentor. He believed I was destined for a great literary career and right up until the day he decided to let me in on the secret that aliens were controlling the evolution of the human race and he had a compound in Tennessee that a few students would be invited to live on, I was thrilled to have him in my corner.

My love of writing got tabled for a while, I still scribbled odd bits here and there, but my confidence was shaken and the fears that my one great love, writing, was something I would never be able to make a living doing took over. I focused on school and trying to find a job to pay the bills. I had some impressive and illustrious jobs – Information Systems Director for one company, Project Manager for another, and some a little less so, such as Bartender. (My Mom still calls my stint at the bar “that job” for fear admitting I was a bartender might send me back to it.) Now I have a state job, where I have a ridiculous job title and all day I do things that do not relate to my education, what I love to do, or even my job title. Still in my spare time, the writing carries on.

So that’s how I got here – when I am not working or writing, I am also a photography buff. Though I am having a hard time dealing with the loss of film – I have a 30 year old Pentax ME Super with an assortment of amazing lenses, filters, etc. that I haven’t even tried to replace yet as I transition to digital. I love to cook and have embarked on many adventures and experiments in the kitchen, I am fortunate to have had more success than failure. I devour books, as a writer there is nothing I like more than someone who has mastered the craft and can hold my attention and my imagination. I am also a video game player and a movie buff. Some people would say I am a geek – I prefer to think I am Geektastic!

Aside from being a writer and being Geektastic, I’m from the South. My parents raised me in New Orleans and since heading off for college I’ve lived in a few other spots along the Gulf Coast before making my Mobile, Alabma my home. I can honestly say that I have friends who are genteel Southern Belles, I’m afraid I am not. I also have friends who are rednecks, I’m not one of those either. I was raised somewhere between the two polar opposites, I love to cook, entertain, and celebrate but I’ve been known to do it barefoot and serve on paper plates.

*whew* I think I covered everything, thanks for sticking with me to the end – I hope you enjoy the ride!