This will never be any sort of high powered, heavily trafficked site, this I know. I don’t write the right kind of stuff, at the right pace, and I don’t do promotions (yet.) But that is no reason not to get things together and in place for what the site could be. So…

When I was considering what I wanted from this space, what I wanted it to help me do, the answer that came was “to take myself seriously.”

Well. And what does that mean, you may ask? I know that was the question uppermost in my mind. I think–and I have to do more thinking on this as well–that it pretty much means what it says. I’ve never really taken myself seriously, especially as a writer/thinker. It’s always been “I’m not this, or as good as that, so I can’t be or do whatever it is that I have this burning to do.” Or something like that. I think I’ve mentioned before that I am probably the best at discouraging myself.

I’m not going to do that this time, though. I just have to figure out what taking myself seriously means, which actually will fit in with what I have planned, because one of those plans includes a book series. Not the fiction book (though I am writing that, too) but more of a recreating your life series of ebooks. My intention is to write it mostly on here, and then gather parts together, add extras and pop it up on one of the ebook sites. Or, maybe shop it around to agents or at least to readers and see what they think.

Then, of course, I will be blathering on about writing fiction, things I am learning as I go along, pointers and links to books and authors and other related items. I want to do this not only so other people can benefit, but as an aid to keeping myself on track. That may be a bit counter-intuitive, keeping myself on my book writing track by writing other things, but I think it may work out for me. If I write about doing character interviews, or writing the book of myths and so on in one month–I won’t want the next month or two to go by without actually doing what I’ve said I was doing. So, progress reports to myself and the public will keep me from getting stuck in the weeds of preparation, I think.

Anyway, on the site itself I need to reorganize the categories and pare them down to, at the most, six. Or maybe eight. Just a few, anyway.

First things first, and all that.

I’ve not been writing here over the past few days anyway, though of course I intend to start again. My life is a bit more in flux than usual at the moment, however, and that crimps my writing sometimes. Not that I can’t write when things are iffy, it’s just that I tend to want to howl and whine and sigh about things and that’s pretty boring. Even more boring than my normal scribbles!

The scribbling is good, though, I think. And far more productive, idea wise anyway, done here than on a separate site. Sometimes I stop myself from just keeping going and writing whatever comes to mind, not only to spare anyone reading but also to sort of conserve the ideas that pop up. After this weekend I’ll either be settled or, well, not and I can concentrate on more formal or professional type stuff. And the book, of course.

Anyway–Monday, Monday.

via

Only, the book is so boring that I am not certain I’ll make it past the first chapter. Perhaps I should treat it as a cautionary tale, if nothing else.

The first thing I tackled today is the decision on which sites to keep, and which to consolidate. I use WordPress multisite so consolidation started to make a lot more sense to me, rather than having a bunch of different domain names for different things. This way, all (or almost all) my stuff is under one domain, but with multisite they can each be individual sites on their subdomains.

I’ve gotten rid of, or at least will have once the domain name expires, thebookoflouis.com, and have put that at blackhistory.nanettekelley.com. Once I get settled in again I will start doing the history thing and researching of Black history to add to the site.

Humanbeams.com I will keep, and will likely always keep regardless of if I ever work on it again or not. It has lots of archives and they still get visited, so will just leave it there. I have to let it go for now, though–at least somewhat. It’s always a worry in the back of my mind, what I am going to do there… for now, though, I am not going to worry about it. I will just say that it’s there for people to enjoy the archives and that’s that.

Also, I have decided what the focus of each site is. I have more than just the two, but I am consolidating there as well. This site I think I have figured out. As well as the book of louis. I have to do a little more thinking on them, but will start only on this site so that I don’t get distracted, and build out from there. Or, organize out from there, I guess.

I have to do a few things that others may benefit from knowing how to do so I will document it in posts as I go along. Successes and flubs alike, sigh.

I have, also, a blank page. Or two. Or a hundred.

It doesn’t really matter how many I have, because the pages insist that their pristine condition not be disturbed.