Erin, how about: Erin [last name] Wordsmith.

Cash, that's some mighty ass you're banging around that track. You need to work on your War Face. I want you to practice your grimace in the mirror before the next bout.

Rainy day in SF. Back from taking Emmett to school and have to move the car ahead of the street sweeper. Matilda's out of school as it's on a furlough day.

Erin, I like Hec's suggestion of Wordsmith. Perhaps with some kind of tag about forging, and or a logo with blacksmith tools?

Way to go, Cash's ass!!

Way to go away, Kathy's ass!!

I've thought about Wordsmith, and I like it; my only concern is that there are a lot of wordsmith websites out there.

Would something like Erin ------: Wordsmith be professional and distinctive enough? I don't want to be too complex, twee or esoteric (I told Barb if I had my druthers, I'd be Erin ------, Writing Consigliere, but that's TOO esoteric, but I like it -- literally, a mercenary "lance" for writing. Hee.)

Would a domain name like erin-------wordsmith.org turn you off as a potential client? An email addy like erin-------@erin-------wordsmith.org?

I'm worried "wordsmith" has been used a lot by similar professionals. Maybe try riffing off "editorial" or "pen" instead, or use something like:

Erin Lastname, The Last Word ...
...in writing, editing, and research.

I just heard a doctorally prepared professor say to my boss (and my boss agreed with her) that this country is willing to be accepting of all sorts of diversity of belief except Christian, and that they seriously need to consider what this means (is it the work of the devil).

It means the devil wrote the bill of rights.

Hee, x-post with Amy!

My friend who ran her own graphic design business is doing all my stylistic design for website, business cards, stationary, invoices and flyers for free, and my husband is an artist -- with the Wordslinger, I was riffing off gunslinger, with a silhouette of a bespectacled redhead blowing smoke off a pen. Too twee?

I kinda like The Last Word idea, too, though...

You know, I would love to have people who think that do an experiment: swap out their public devotional symbols and practices for those of another faith for a week and see if they still think the same thing at the end of the week.

I can breathe! Well, I'm still coughing, but I no longer feel like I have an anvil on my chest. Unfortunately CJ seems to have caught it and is still asleep.

I like Erin, Workslinger.

sara - my thoughts are with you and MK.

I, too, love wordsmith, but wordwrangler leads me to a place of total full-on cowgirl awesomeness. With lassos and shit. If you're willing to commit to it, get wranglin'

Which actually gets me to my more serious point -- erinlastname.com as your domain name, erin@erinlastname.com as your email address, and keep them forever. Even if you end up with an editorial sweatshop and employees and the whole nine later on, you will STILL be getting actual relevant emails to the first address you used, so you won't want to let that domain drop.

If it's your actual name, you can always repurpose the domain into a personal site two iterations down the road. If it's something that was fun but now makes you cringe... yeah. If you turn your adventures into a fabulous best-selling whosamawhatsis, people will look for your actual name site to fangirl you, and you don't want to pay someone *else* good money for your own damn name later on.

It's your name. Just do it.

Point the second, keep your domain short and memorable. You will meet people and talk them up and give them a business card and they will SOMEHOW FORGET ALL THE INFO even while actually looking at the actual business card right in front of them. It's amazing. It will be much easier for them to hunt you down as erinlastname than as erintheamazingredheadedgrammardomfromkc. Your goal is to have the domain fit on your business card in big logo-ish type, not just in the teeny-tiny contact details print.

So, another vote for your name as the actual domain.

After that, blacksmith and/or cowgirl it up! Work the whole theme thing shamelessly! Promote your bad self! But you can do all that with unified logo, design, print materials, copywriting, and all the rest.