When I scan a links list I'm more likely to click on titles than names unless a name is intriguing.

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how do you want people to know you?

Well, if/when I sell a book I'm planning to publish under my own name, unless my publisher says, "But, Susan, you've written an adventure story with a pair of male leads. Men will love this, but men only read books by other men, so you need a male pen name." In which case I will get one, but go out of the way to make my real identity an open secret and go to panels at cons and such wearing tight, cleavage-y shirts and open all my keynote speeches with, "Bet you never guessed Pen Name had such a nice rack." Because if I'm ever a really-truly author I don't want to hide my light, nor my breasts, under a bushel.

Or something like that.

Anyway, in the long run I want people to know me by my name.

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I would use the name you post under. People who like your posts will visit your blog. Later they will rec you to others and then everyone will say, "Susan over at CWDP says..."

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we have to do a Power Point presentation (he said "on anything" ...)

xkcd

See also: Today's goats

Fay's shirt is Too Cool.

Susan, is there a way you can link your name and the blog title some how? A .sig or something, so people will know that Susan in the comments is the blogger behind Conversations?

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But I'm conflicted because my tourist dollars would go to a country that condones child prostitution.

....er, no. Where did you get this idea? Unless by 'condones child prostitution' you mean 'has child prostitution (in no small part due to Westerners'. Which is also true of the US and the UK.

Attitudes to sexuality and promiscuity are complicated here - on the one hand Thais tend not to strip down to bathing suits on the beach, but are more likely to stick to T shirt and shorts while swimming. And Thais consider modest clothing generally more appropriate in public.

Prostitution is not, in fact, legal. For adults or children. Which isn't to say that there isn't a thriving sex trade, or that there isn't a very real problem with the sexual exploitation of impoverished women and children - but, you know, that is also the case in my country and yours. Here it's more visible, and white men are flying in from abroad specifically to take advantage of the fact that there are lots of hot girls who would rather earn (comparatively) good money in the sex trade (and hope to snag a wealthy foreign husband) than do back-breaking manual labour for a pittance.

But your hypothetical tourist dollars would certainly not be supporting child prostitution - or at least, no more than my tourist pounds would be supporting it in the States. And by coming here as a normal tourist, putting money into the normal economy, you would be helping to counterbalance the influx of money from sex tourists.

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Hey, Susan, have you heard of Red Room? I saw an article about it in the paper the other day. It looks intriguing. It's supposed to be a social networking site for writers.

And, wow, the founder/CEO wrote Huntress: Year One. Neat!

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Unless by 'condones child prostitution' you mean 'has child prostitution (in no small part due to Westerners'. Which is also true of the US and the UK.

I was about to post exactly this since many of the prostitutes (child and otherwise) in Thailand end up patronized by Western tourists or even smuggled to the US.

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I hadn't heard of it, P-C, but I'll check it out when I get some time. Thanks!

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Where did you get this idea?

Why, from the internet of course. It's my source for all half-baked, un-thoroughly-researched ideas.

Now I bet they're not exploiting elephants over there either.

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Change Thai to US and you get five times as many hits off that search.

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