{"id":309,"date":"2012-02-11T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-11T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hildred-billings.com\/site\/2012\/02\/11\/ice-breakers-not-just-for-winter-weather\/"},"modified":"2012-02-11T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-11T16:00:00","slug":"ice-breakers-not-just-for-winter-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hildred-billings.com\/site\/2012\/02\/11\/ice-breakers-not-just-for-winter-weather\/","title":{"rendered":"Ice Breakers: Not Just For Winter Weather"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
I seeeee Japaneeeeese~<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

I’m pleased as punch to make two quick announcements before getting into the rest of the meet of this entry:  not only has my blog doubled its readership this week (from 40 to over 80 thus far), but I’ve also broken 50,000 views. Most of those views come from google image searches, but hey, I don’t hold it against myself!<\/p>\n

Just want to thank everyone again for the kind comments left on all my Character Blogfest entries. I am quite proud of my “voice”, so hearing so many compliments on it made my day(s)!<\/p>\n

Now, since I’ve doubled my readership this week, mostly due to the Campaign and the Blogfest, I thought I should do another sort of introduction for those first reading me – and hey, if you’ve been around for a few months or a year now…maybe you’ll still be entertained? Haha.<\/p>\n

Anyway, without further ado, my name is Hildred. I’m currently 24 years old, a Libra (yes, that’s important), and have been writing since I was four years old. I majored in Japanese Studies and minored in Religious Studies in university and currently work as an English teacher in Japan until I move back to the States in April\/May. I consider myself fairly fluent in conversational Japanese, but don’t ask me “what does this kanji mean?” because I will cry.<\/p>\n

I write predominately adult Fantasy with Science Fiction overtures. I have two series I’m working on, although one is on the backburner indefinitely. The one that’s on the backburner is “Nagnomei”, a ten book high fantasy saga that deals with the origins of “humanity” and the lengths deities will go to to keep their people in the dark “for their own good”. The one that’s not and currently being written, edited, promoted, and soon-to-be-published is “CROSS\/\/”, a five book urban fantasy series that’s about reincarnation, selfishness, overpopulation, butterflies, and a romance that has survived thousands of years. Both series also delve into “what happens when we die?” with very different answers, because to me, that’s the biggest mystery of life. I also delve heavily into LGBT themes, particularly the “LG” part. I feel that women and lesbian romances in general (and all the problems that come with being a queer woman in general) are highly underrepresented in fantasy in a realistic light. <\/p>\n

But right. This here blog. I blog about “writing”, including in general and my own. Mostly I rant and whine about whatever ails me writing-wise at the moment, and sometimes I rant about patterns I see in the writing\/publishing world that pisses me off. I also do a lot of self-promotion and sometime post my own writing. So, your standard “author blog” fare.<\/p>\n

I’ve also recently gotten into Hubpages, and you can find my profile and hubs here.<\/a> Feel free to add me and I’ll happily return the favor! Also, I tweet over here<\/a>, and if you leave me your handle in the comments I’ll happily follow you there as well!<\/p>\n

And now, for you!<\/b><\/p>\n

I’m interested in getting to know most of you better as well! Actually, I think most of us from the blog hops and campaigns could use some introductions to each other, yeah? But in case you’ve got writer’s block about what to say in an introduction, try these!
<\/b>
1 – Describe yourself in 50 words.<\/b>
2 – What do you write?<\/b>
3 – What piece of work are you the proudest of?<\/b>
4 – What’s one thing you wish you could do?<\/b>
5 – If you could live anywhere else in the world, where would you live, and why?<\/b><\/p>\n

Feel free to post in the comments or in your blog. I look forward to getting to know of you all better, and thanks for reading!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I seeeee Japaneeeeese~ I’m pleased as punch to make two quick announcements before getting into the rest of the meet of this entry:  not only has my blog doubled its readership this week (from 40 to over 80 thus far), but I’ve also broken 50,000 views. Most of those views come from google image searches,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[96,160,286,181,285,98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements","category-blog-fests","category-campaign","category-goodies-for-you","category-introductions","category-promotion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paRtqI-4Z","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hildred-billings.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hildred-billings.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hildred-billings.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hildred-billings.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hildred-billings.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hildred-billings.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hildred-billings.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hildred-billings.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hildred-billings.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}