I used to belong to writing groups on LJ but they've died. I also was not good at making friends until like 2011 but it was too late to become friends with most of the self publishing authors I admired. They all started shutting down their LJ blogs around that time. I was a terrible lurker who never really participated much. I was one of those readers who would read everything but you'd have no idea I was there. Now I try to leave comments on what I read, especially if I enjoy it.

I'm waiting to get back into AO3. They say I'll get an invite tomorrow. I left a while back during a three year dry spell with writing where I wasn't writing much of anything. I hadn't published anything in a year and I decided I was done with fanfic. Now I'm ready to back and have ideas. Plus the things that were preventing me from writing were gone.

I had a dA account for years, but haven't logged in in a long time. I'd have to look up my password.

I will check out your group and join because that sounds like something I'm interested in.