In truth, I am a very infrequent blogger, to my detriment. I would like to change this. I know that if I wrote more, and particularly wrote more about what I know, which would help the people who are (or whom I would like to be) my clients, this would be a good thing. But I simply am not in the habit. I want to say, it’s not in my nature to be consistent about something like writing. But I still, at the advanced age of almost-40, would like to think I could change that. If you can’t change, you might as well be dead, right?
At any rate, this version of the site has been taking forever to come to fruition. Since it was taking a while, I thought it might be good to start writing articles when I can, such that when the new site goes live, it seems—ta-da!—as if I am, instead, a consistent blogger, or at least someone who has more to say than just, “look at all my work!”. (But while you’re at it, look at all my work!)
In essence, I wanted to give my site a little back story.
Like this?
A Little Back Story
I am out of shape. I sit at the computer too much, and I don’t exercise like I used to. One weekend in March 2006, I decided to build a rock wall in our garden. I lifted about a ton of rock over the course of two days, and then went back to work in the garoffice on Monday. All week, I worked long hours, ignoring warning signs that I had overstrained my back until Friday, when Erika asked me to bring some warm water to the front, where Anna and Iddi were splashing in a kiddie pool. I walked out with perhaps 3 1/2 gallons of water in a bucket, and could not make it all the way before having horrible pain which forced me to immediately set the bucket down, lie down on the ground, and cry out in agony. And thus began some serious back trouble.
Foolish, foolish Jeremy. Don’t do this.
No, not that kind of back story. Just a sense that I have something to say, and have HAD something to say, all along.
But it won’t take long to figure out that I’ve written a lot less along the way than I could have.
Part of my problem is that I get distracted easily when I’m writing. To be an effective designer—hell, to be an effective anything—you need laser focus. Right?
But: I dashed off the first part of this message last week in Mail while my browser was reloading. It got buried as a draft. I got it into WordPress this morning, and since then, I have:
- marveled at the exquisite sparkling column of air over the new snow in the low morning sun,
- pondered whether anyone else had worked on an idea I had last night for a project to create something like text-wrapping form select elements,
- found an interesting article on customizing form select elements which wasn’t quite what I was thinking of (hey, maybe my idea will be new! perhaps useless, but new at least…),
- followed a link on that blog to a brilliantly written essay exhorting me to respect my client’s brands by not “tramp-stamping”—and now I think I won’t—this perspective makes me realize why I should not do that,
- followed another link from the same blog entitled You totally missed the mark: the first 6 months of freelancing, also interesting,
- noticed that the air now has less sparkles, and that I should stop my Thursday morning writing and get to work,
… and still not much of a back story!
So, maybe you’ll get back story on this site, or maybe not.
But pretty damn soon, I have to get this thing live.
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