Life is like a box of widgets . . .

I attended a website development workshop last Saturday. Turns out it’s a “tad” harder than creating a blog; certainly more technical. But a web site offers greater functionality . . . once you learn your way around that is!

But authors need a presence online. Right? And, once I start selling a gazillion books (subsequent to the publishing thereof), I’ll need a place to talk about them. Right?

   

So there I sat in the back row wondering why I remembered virtually nothing from my career in information technology. In fairness to me though, that was eons ago and I did support global technology and not web design. But still, you think I’d remember something!

It was an interesting class though with some fairly metaphorical conversations going on. Like:

“Oh, no . . . I lost my home! Did I delete it by mistake?”

“No . . . home is still there. You just can’t see it from here.”

I thought it was cute until later in the afternoon when I couldn’t find my home either! And then even later when I couldn’t fix my parent/child relationship!

So I got to thinking how building a website can be a lot like life. There you are, trying to figure it all out, trying to visualize what persona you want to portray. You bumble about, testing out new themes, trying on new appearances. Sort of like a teenager standing in front of the mirror making faces at herself just to see how each will look. Finally, you find an image you want to portray and you start enhancing it. You add one widget after another, discarding those that don’t quite fit. You rename your tags and change your priorities. You drag. And you drop.

Sure you make a few (did I say few?) mistakes along the way. But, of course, you can’t see them. It’s only when you click on a different perspective—one that lets you view things as an outsider. That’s when your missteps glare back at you in full RGB color.

And if you get really, really stuck . . . if you really can’t find your way home, if your parent/child relationship seems hopeless, you can always call in the professionals, those schooled in solving this sort of thing.

   

So it was that I raised my hand in class over and over again, picking up tidbits of wisdom every time I did. And I’ve been trying to hone the site ever since I got home. Even so, I think I’m closer at this point to having a good parent/child relationship with my son than I am at having my web site up. 

Nevertheless, I'm determined to make it happen. So stay tuned! It's gonna be great!