Last year or so, when HB was still limping along, I came across a few friends from the early days and, to a person, they expressed surprise that the site was still going. I think, in an odd way, those comments helped me give myself permission to end it. Not forever, I don’t think, but end what was and perhaps begin something new. I still haven’t found what that something new is yet, though not for lack of trying. Well, I have not tried to think of it lately – in fact, I’ve thought of everything else but, because that seemed the best thing to do at the time.

Lately, though, that’s changing a bit. I am about ready to start focusing outward again, instead of – or, rather, in addition to – focusing inward as I do on this site.  I needed the break, I think, even from navel gazing, to restore some sort of balance and beauty. That has to be an on-going process, though, so it’s back to walking and chewing gum at the same time. Maybe. After all, everything both terrible and beautiful will still be here when I am but a memory, so …

Anyway, I think have arrived at a beginning.

Anyway, I thought I had found it yesterday. A line of a poem by Langston Hughes just sort of leaped out at me and I thought “That’s it!”.  I loved the sound of it, the lyricism – though it was a few words long. Still, it had the feeling I was looking for, and it even incorporated the “sun”, which has been part of our logo since the beginning! How perfect was that?

Except. A couple of hours later I was warmly thinking of our new name, and then… um, what was it again? How did it go, exactly? I looked it up again and, oh yeah! That’s it, beautiful and perfect.

Only, just now I again tried to recall the words, the sequence, the beauty – and I can’t remember a thing about it, except that it has “sun” in it.

Now, this could be a sign that age has gripped my brain and just refused to let go – or, more likely, a good sign that I should keep looking for that perfect name. If even I can’t remember it, how could I expect my readers to?

Sigh.

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, the train station sign for which is posted above, is the name of a town in Wales. It reportedly means "St. Mary’s Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the red cave.", so you can see why they wanted to shorten it a bit…

Even so, I believe I have come to a point where one path calls me above all others (at least at this time) and that is the one I will follow with a spring in my step.

I will think on it more for the next few days, till I can fully communicate – then I think it will be time to move forward and not look back. Much.

It seems – feels – like lots will start happening next week, that there will be an ending to the sense of being in stasis that has been, if not my life (truth, there), then at least my creative persona. Or something like that

In reality not much will be changing, outwardly, at all and nothing that could be pointed to as the reason for this feeling of… maybe renewal. I do begin my real classes tomorrow, but I don’t think that’s it. Financial aid will start coming in sometime next month, but not much (although *any* will be very welcome) but, while that is part of it, surely it can’t be all?

Then again if not all, at least a big part of it. I’ll not have *no* worries, but definitely I’ll have fewer. Maybe the knowledge that help is on the way has freed up a part of my brain that had been previously occupied by worries over how to pay the rent, the electric bill AND feed everyone –and now that I can eliminate at least a couple of these things which had left me feeling so deadened little green shoots of creative life are springing up again.

Probably. Whatever the reason, I welcome it. Just today I’ve written at least notes on two scenes for my book, begun thinking more deeply about how to round out the characters, decided on a January re-opening date for Human Beams and in general just followed along after my brain as it chugged along seeing new possibilities in everything.

Whatever accounts for the sudden return of my inner optimistic, creative self, I’m glad it’s back. I’ve missed it.

little miss fickle

With a little juggling of time and duties, and a bit less sleep, I can do both and be happy doing it. Mind you, hearing from my partner in crime (or at least in websites and organizations) that same night, with plans for moving forward, helped my new decision along. More universe speaking!? The coincidence sure seems sort of universe-y (if I believed in that type of stuff, that is).

In which case *I’m* not the fickle one.

Anyway, I got up this morning at 4:30 AM, charged and ready to go. Did some writing – not enough, I’m not that good at sticking and keeping my butt stuck in the chair yet – and then emails and working on plans and such, so that whatever happens from here on forward today (it’s a bit after 9.15 am here now), at least I will have accomplished some stuff. If I can do this daily – which will mean going to bed earlier, no great loss as I am not very productive in the evenings.

So, here we go.  Again

[Little Miss Fickle graphic from here, it’s a bookcover apparently)

cat's eye nebula

Every spare moment, these days, I seem to have my nose in a book. No hardship, that, I love to read, but these days it too is almost like work.

My itty bitty library across the street is coming in so handy. They have a very limited selection there, but with being able to order in what I need and then just pop over there and pick it up when it comes in makes it convenient. Maybe too convenient – I have to make sure to read and absorb what I have already and not be tempted by each new and interesting thing I find, otherwise I’ll never get started on this book. I’ll just keep researching it for years and not write a word – that would be shameful.

I don’t really fear that happening, though – the stories are just bubbling away in my head and I sometimes write out scenes or just thought fragments, just to get them down so I won’t forget them and to keep the book fresh in my mind. That’ll have to do, for now, because I just have too much to learn about my subject in order to actually start writing.

My time is limited, though, as is my ability to focus my mind on different things – maybe it’s age or something, but I don’t think so. I’ve been pretty much the same for ages – get excited about one thing and laser in on that to the exclusion of most all else, until it gets old hat and I become bored and go on to the next thing. I have so many plans for Human Beams and remaking that, which I was really excited about, but now it seems as if they’ve scuttled off and planted themselves on a shelf somewhere because they knew they were going to be ignored. For now.

I *think* I’ll get to a point where I can concentrate on both – but each will take a huge time commitment and dedication in order to do it right, and for now I think I need to put off one to do the other. This – researching the book, concentrating on writing in order to become more comfortable with it and to improve my skills, moving in new directions – all of that,  just feels right, right now. So, I’ll go with it.

I feel better, now that I’ve decided that.

After all, who am I to argue with the universe (cough)?

[photo via NASA.gov]

Felix and his magic bag

The ones named CSS and PHP, that is. Oh, we’ll toss in HTML and DHTML as well, but even now I’ll have nothing to do with MySQL. (Let us just hope my database is not struck dead out of pique.)

I have a lot of plans for Human Beams but I’ve realized that one holdup has always been that there are many necessary things that I just don’t know how to do, particularly when it comes to the guts of the site, Expression Engine, and how things work. And I should, even if someone else comes along to do them. Thankfully, arin (of arinsattic.com – friend, Expression Engine CMS expert and web designer extraordinaire – you need a site designed, redesigned, or a simple or elaborate CMS set up, go to her, she’ll take care of you) set things up for me here in a way that allows me to change things whenever I want to with a minimum of fuss or knowledge but I still sometimes hit roadblocks. When it comes to changing the CSS I mostly just poke and prod blindly, figuring eventually I’ll hit the right combination to make it do what I want. And I usually do, eventually. What’s really fun is figuring out how to fix all the things I messed up in the process.

Also, because of the way I work (very scattershot – new ideas every other day, plans, plans and more plans) I need to know what I am doing and even more, what I am asking others to do, what all it entails. So, to that end this summer I am going to reach out, to the best of my ability, to the alphabet gods and study them, learn them and become, if not expert, at least proficient.

And I’m going to do it all right here, in public, flub ups and all.

It might be boring to some (including me!) but I figure there are probably others out there who either know nothing at all, or just enough to be dangerous and would maybe like to follow along – plus, I am more likely to not only keep going but attempt to do well if I am putting all my work on public display. I would love to promise that all this will occur in an orderly and sensible fashion, step 1 to step 2 and so on but, well… I need to change things up from time to time so it’ll more likely be just whatever captures my interest for the day.

Anyway, since we use Expression Engine (EE), most of the actual structure stuff will relate to that, including the PHP language (I am not sure how interchangeable that is with other software). There is a free Core version available, should you want to try it out. Even though I do know bits and pieces of how to do things, I’m going to start with the basics, the nuts and bolts and go from there.

There are, for some reason, not all that many EE tutorials but one free one I have found which will suit my needs perfectly is at Train-ee – Building a Small Business Site. He also has other free and fee tutorials there, but I’m not going to look at them yet – don’t want to get distracted so soon .

For the CSS I am going to default to my old friend the Web Developers Virtual Library (WDVL), which is where – many, many moons ago – I first learned HTML and other web development stuff. I never learned it as well as I should have, because I discovered WYSIWYG, but that’s not their fault and they have just a huge selection of tutorials and such there, to start with and also move on with, including links to other tutorials.  I am going to go through their CSS section and see which would be best to start with.

So, anyway, this is my summer (if all goes as planned). Part of it, anyway. I am also going to use this time to build up contacts and partners for future Human Beams plans, to have everything in place and ready to go by mid September, explaining what I am doing as it goes along. One reason for that is so that people who are attracted to the vision of what we are doing and going to be doing will consider donating time and/or money to support it.

More on all of this later – our first lesson is soon!

(this mostly applies to my professional site, Human Beams International, as I use wordpress on this one, but I will crosspost the series anyway, just for general knowledge.)