The unbearable difficulty of web design

I know my blog post is slightly overdue, but I’ve been too busy redesigning my web pages to write. Well, I could easily have taken a break from coding to write something, but I tend to get immersed into it and only notice time when my stomach growls. When the day ends, my husband has to force me away from the computer. There’s something addictive about coding. I don’t at all wonder the stereotypical image of overweighed coders; you eat where you sit so that you don’t have to abandon your task. There’s always something to tweak, something to improve or mistakes to correct you cannot find no matter how hard you stare at the code.

While web pages are an important marketing tool for any writer, web designing is one of those tasks that I really wouldn’t have to do myself. There are plenty of free templates available for everyone to find the one they like, and plenty of professional designers for those to hire who want something special. But I like to do it myself. HTML coding is a skill I learned ages ago, but I’ve never had a chance to use it in any professional capacity. Now I have a good reason to. I get the pages I like and I don’t have to pay anyone for them.

Ok, maybe not exactly the kind of pages I would like. You see, it really was a long time ago that I learned to code. And like with all technology, coding has changed over the years and my skills have grown old-fashioned. For example, I've learned to position different elements with tables, which I hear is no longer done. I should use style sheets. Well, I tried to learn basic CSS, but I wasn’t very successful. So I gave up and made my pages using tables after all. They work, so I decided not to care about ‘new-fangled’ things. I think my pages are coming out just fine. There were a couple of technical things I would have liked to try out too, but I couldn’t make the code work no matter how hard I tried, so I gave up on those as well. I’m choosing to think that my pages are more dignified without them.

It isn't blood, sweat and tears that have gone into my project; more likely booze, profanities and persistence. But in the end, all the elements have come together and I think I have very nice new pages.

Now, you would think that a blog post about web design would have a grand unveiling of said new pages. Not so. I’m not quite done with the tweaking yet. But it’ll happen any day now. Check back here or follow me on twitter; I'll announce it there. Another unveiling that will happen soon is the cover of my next book, ‘Which way to love?’ The manuscript is with the editor, but once I get it back, I’ll post the cover here.

Since there aren’t my fine new pages to show you, let me end with a wintry picture. Winter has arrived here with plenty of snow and biting cold. I hope it’ll last at least until Christmas.