Handling the “keyword” field in Ecto

I’m contemplating a switch from Movable Type. Now, I actually used the “keywords” field in MT for tagging purposes, and would like to continue that practice with WP. I know there are a few ways of approaching this in WP; for the sake of argument, let’s say I’m agnostic about what’s best.

What I am not agnostic about is my preference to do my editing in Ecto. It has a nice “keywords” field sitting right there, and I’d like to be able to use it. I’m guessing some kind of xmlrpc hack would make this possible, but I admit I’m a little out of my depth on that. Any ideas? Any solutions out there that I’ve overlooked?

thanks in advance.