Everyone has told me that I need an author website—a static place to keep my stuff for the entire world to view at their leisure and pleasure, as opposed to a blog where I have to constantly provide contact and actually interact with with commenters. Or as opposed to Twitter or Facebook where on Twitter I yammer pretty much about whatever I feel like, a pouring out of my constant unedited thoughts really, and only when I remember to do so. At least with Facebook, I try to keep a theme going. Literature, small-town America, and blather. A website, on the other hand, just sits there. It’s like one of those highway billboards. If you see it, you might get off the exit and check out whatever tourist trap the sign is advertising. The difference, of course, is that nobody sees my billboard. I have to get a billboard to sell my billboard.
I’m not complaining. I don’t have much to sell, one book. Hopefully two by the end of February. Then three by this time next year? I don’t know. So I wanted something simple and easy to maintain, and everything that I had designed before was overly complicated. There is something to be said for a minimalist design.
So my site is kind of a throwback to the early days of the web. Not much art. Nothing fancy. I have an email form, which is about as scripty as the site gets, and hopefully I’ve designed well enough that the site can grow with my own growing needs without changing the overall design. It’s basic because my ultimate goal is to communicate, and sometimes—but more often than not, all the time—two cent words are better than five dollar words. That, by the way, is awesome-sauce advice for web design, writing, life. And I can’t help wondering if my own personal day to day life needs a redesign—a minimalist flare. I’m tired of rushing. I must remember to breathe and rest. To be in that moment fully on the floor with my still-kindergarten aged son building stuff from Lego blocks and not at the same time reading a book over my shoulder, or working on the redesign of a web page, or thinking more about my upcoming thesis defense than whether I need a red Lego block or a blue Lego block. That when I’m doing dishes with my 13-year-old daughter, I’m not rushing through the suds to get to the next thing on my to-do list, but instead I am making certain each crumb of food has been disposed of while I dance to her music even though I know I’d prefer way over dubbstep Blues or Jazz or 80s Heavy Metal Hair bands. That I should take a moment to thank my wife for nothing else than sitting across from me at the supper table.
This will probably not be the last time I redesign my web page.
