Edit on 06/17/16: Less than 24 hours after I wrote this post various news outlets disclosed that Disney employees reported problems to management regarding guests feeding gators – for 14 months. I have to rescind my below comment on it “probably not” being Disney’s fault. If they were made aware of the issue and did nothing, clearly they are at fault.
I’ve been semi-obsessed with gators for a few years now and consider myself fairly educated on the reptiles.
As an enthusiast but admittedly non-expert, I’d like to share my opinion on the recent gator-related tragedy in Orlando.
Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, and random days in October when you’re just so thrilled the weather is still warm – it’s time for backyard cookouts.
As close as it gets to a backyard cookout at my place. (We can’t have a grill.)
A little catch up before we begin for regular readers…if you’re just here for the writing exercise, go ahead and jump to that.
I’m back from a month-long hiatus from the blog, in lieu of some Big Life Changes going on. You’ll probably notice some changes with the blog as well.
I’ve already announced a break from my most popular category I wrote about the most, the Difference Betweens.
You might have also noticed a few categories that didn’t really take off – Tara’s Tutorials With Baking, which was great in theory but time consuming and now I’m going to be moving, and won’t be just down the street from my baking expert sister-in-law.
Then there was Operation Declutter, which is actually still an ongoing process in real life, as it has died on the blog. As I got into it, I realized there were uh, things I was getting rid of that I didn’t really want to broadcast on the internet. I still very, very much believe in decluttering and having less Stuff around, but this has turned into more of a private process.
As I’ve started a new, full time writing job, I’ve stopped my main freelancing gigs, so I’m not writing as much at home anymore. Although I took a break from ErinNudi.com as I got settled into my new, awesome job, oddly enough, I’m actually going to have more time to blog than I did before.
And the whole not freelancing thing also leaves room for another passion of mine: fiction writing.
I wrote a novel a couple years ago, Sober in Connecticut. The whole thing. About 96,000 words. I put it out there to publishers and didn’t get a bite. That will probably be revisited at some point.
Over the course of several months, several months ago, I wrote roughly half of the most difficult short story I’ve ever worked on – about 10,000 words – and had to stop. I hope to revisit this one as well. We’ll call it “The Animal Story” (a working/terrible title).
As I jump back into fiction, I wanted to start fresh with a new story.
I know, I know. It’s classic to start stories and not finish them, and I swear I don’t normally do that and “The Animal Story” is a fluke.
But a story idea just came along recently, like they often do, and I’ve been plotting it out and doing some character development before I dive in…
