I’ve been splitting my personality for a couple of years. It started when I needed a site to run billing for clients, and I decided to create a nice looking URI and spin off a “business” site.
In my perpetual search for a handbook to life I’ve come across two patterns: the first is that I basically have to brute force my way through and write it myself, after the fact. The second pattern is that what I think I ought to do doesn’t actually pan out or make sense, as I learned by having a “business” site. Aside: my ability to write email well, and link to sites I’ve built, have always worked; maintaining a whole site for that purpose, not so much.
The next site I spun off was a “personal” site, which was basically a copy of this one, but established as the space where I would continue my journaling-type writing. Then I had two more sites planned, one for geeky, pop culture blogging, and then a technical journal, like so many software engineers have online.
But some stuff happened. As my friend Lisa says, I got a “jay o bee”, which certainly kept me busy since late 2014. That slowed my sharding, but just the two sites I got up were too much for me. First of all, my invoicing system was unreliable, and made me resent that site to the point where I subconsciously avoided it. And because a large part of my writing is about contemporary experiences and technology, I didn’t have anywhere to write. My head has been hurting for over 8 months!
I talked to over with Susan, and based on eir advice I relaunched this one site, with plans to focus on one site and grow out as needed (or I had the energy for). But then everyone that contacted me in comments or other channels about the relaunch were the technical, software-y slice of my tribe. That bugs me so much!
The reason is that I am painfully aware of blog practices and SEO gamification, and I can trace a substantial portion of my audience, and I don’t want to be a technical journal and I am afraid that if I expressed more of myself in one place I would lose what little audience I have! Ha! That feels pretty good, both recognizing that and sharing it.
This was all simmering when I came across a post about the W3C working to standardize webmentions, and all the pieces in my head fell together. Here are some concepts I am working with:
- I am not a one-dimensional or hyper-specialized entity; I am complex and multi-faceted, and all of me contributes to everything I do
- I prefer an open web over a corporate gamified platform, and the indieweb is making tools right now that help me embrace this
- I will discuss my fears rather than cower in inaction, and will become a better communicator and maker for it
- I will defer to slow rather than fast, and seek to enhance the human experience instead of distracting the human brain
- I appreciate knowledge more as legacy than as currency, and will build systems that align with that sentiment
This site will change by moving the blog off the front page, which will become a landing page and index that explains who I am, what I am about, and help folks find the knowledge I am laying out. It will include content that I hope will assist folks in hiring me to build things for them, but I have to do that in a way that feels like I am talking to them without agenda, rather than how I’ve learned to talk to web crawlers.
The other big change will be my blog, which is gonna blow up. I’ve got a lot to say about a lot of things. I want to talk about webcraft and WordPress, video games and role-playing, politics and parenting, gender, polyamory and PTSD, and also about nothing at all. Because I don’t shard well, but I do adjust well.
So the deal with the folks that are currently subscribed to this site in various ways, I am not about to brain vomit into your feeds and inboxes. Instead I am going to do some information architecture and use the CMS that runs my site to, uh, ya know, manage my content. Categories to build sections and segments, with clear directions on how to pick the portions of me you want blasted at ya. And then I am going to actively not care! Because at the end of the day releasing the humors from my head are more important than whatever you think of me. 