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The State of the Masq: June 2nd, 2012
Jun. 2nd, 2012 06:16 amFirst off: I can't believe it's been a year since my fabulous south-of-the-border vacation. Next year, I have a trip planned to the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland. Geez, I still land-trip like I'm on a friggin' cruise.
But 2012 is 2012 and a totally different ball game, kiddies. This is the year I kick my first-born out of the house Once and For All. Which is why I've been so scarce on the intertubes lately.
Okay, confession time: I broke down and hired a professional website designer. I was just ready to pop a blood vessel trying to do it myself. The technical aspects I'm good with: programming, getting widgets to work. Just give me the manual and I go. The content, I can pull together with a little sweat equity. But the graphic design I suck at. SUCK AT. And those do-it-yourself website design platforms do require some design savvy, no matter what they say. Unless you're prepared to live with one of their templates exactly as is.
But see, here's the thing: the technical aspects and content are interdependent with the design. You have to know what you're doing with all three, or none of them proceed very quickly.
April was mostly spent getting my print book cover finished. I doubt I'll sell many of those, they're too pricey. So May was spent getting the eBook together, and now my head is swimming with mobi's and ePub's and toc.ncx.
Don't ask, it's a Writer-slash-computer-geek Thing.
How do other people do it?
Oh, right, they're not as big of control freaks as me.
Another thing I tackled in May was moving all the writing and philosophy of pop literature entries from this LJ/DW over to WordPress to set up a "professional" blog. The design of it sucks right now, it will be better when the website designer integrates it into the main site. But if you're remotely curious, the URL (for the moment) is InfiniteDoorways.com. And it doesn't mean I'm leaving LJ/DW. I need somewhere to bitca and moan off the record.
Also, somewhere in all of this, I'm banging out the first draft of my new story. Just got done chapter 17 of 22. Go me.
And somewhere else, else, in all of this, I still have a full-time job.
And somewhere else, else, else, I still have a GF and my family and a house I'm trying to spiff up in jerky jumps and halts.
And somewhere else, else, else, else there's me and the Sleep Thing that plagues me every spring. That has its bad days. Is it June yet? Oh, it is.
But 2012 is 2012 and a totally different ball game, kiddies. This is the year I kick my first-born out of the house Once and For All. Which is why I've been so scarce on the intertubes lately.
Okay, confession time: I broke down and hired a professional website designer. I was just ready to pop a blood vessel trying to do it myself. The technical aspects I'm good with: programming, getting widgets to work. Just give me the manual and I go. The content, I can pull together with a little sweat equity. But the graphic design I suck at. SUCK AT. And those do-it-yourself website design platforms do require some design savvy, no matter what they say. Unless you're prepared to live with one of their templates exactly as is.
But see, here's the thing: the technical aspects and content are interdependent with the design. You have to know what you're doing with all three, or none of them proceed very quickly.
April was mostly spent getting my print book cover finished. I doubt I'll sell many of those, they're too pricey. So May was spent getting the eBook together, and now my head is swimming with mobi's and ePub's and toc.ncx.
Don't ask, it's a Writer-slash-computer-geek Thing.
How do other people do it?
Oh, right, they're not as big of control freaks as me.
Another thing I tackled in May was moving all the writing and philosophy of pop literature entries from this LJ/DW over to WordPress to set up a "professional" blog. The design of it sucks right now, it will be better when the website designer integrates it into the main site. But if you're remotely curious, the URL (for the moment) is InfiniteDoorways.com. And it doesn't mean I'm leaving LJ/DW. I need somewhere to bitca and moan off the record.
Also, somewhere in all of this, I'm banging out the first draft of my new story. Just got done chapter 17 of 22. Go me.
And somewhere else, else, in all of this, I still have a full-time job.
And somewhere else, else, else, I still have a GF and my family and a house I'm trying to spiff up in jerky jumps and halts.
And somewhere else, else, else, else there's me and the Sleep Thing that plagues me every spring. That has its bad days. Is it June yet? Oh, it is.
