An Explanation of things: Welcome to 2020

As you may have noticed, I nuked my site. I mean, I cleared the area of debris first, exporting all posts, pages, comments and commentaries to my computer before I hit CTRL+A, DEL.

This was not a sudden thing. I mean, it happened fast, because it’s scary how easy it is for things to vanish in this digital age. But I’ve been unhappy with a lot of things about my site for months if not longer. I made a post on My Patreon about my thoughts and intentions yesterday, but now that I am here, let me talk about the future and not the past. This change comes in four parts

Part the First: A site worth sharing

I’ve been a bit ashamed of my site for the last year or so. I tried to split off my D&D stuff, but that didn’t function quite like I wanted, then the main page borked when I updated WP, then the themes without thinking about the Webcomics plugins that I use. Which are apparently super finicky. With a fresh start, I can learn from those mistakes, stay away from editing the PHP files of live themes, and ideally, keep the site as a thing I can feel proud to be on a business card.

Part the Second: Comics done my way

I’m not done with making comics. But I’ve not uploaded for a while due to my site freaking me out when I think about it. So, comics are off the site for a little bit. This space will be exuberant when they return, trust me. And when they do, as much as ComicEasel has done an amazing service for comics, I think I might build the core of the comic browsing system myself. Not 100% on that, but I want to. This is a compromise, as I’m letting WP do what they do best (bloggy stuff) and I’ll get what I want: a comic browsing code snip that marches perfectly to my melody, and does precisely what I think I need it to. Having a universal, customizable system is great, but it’s not what I need. On the even better side, if I do the comic browser right, it should be able to allow for sequential prose as well. I find reading an ongoing story to be tough on a blog where the focus is “what is the most recent post” and not “What is the next link in the chain?”

Part the Third: Going legit

2020 is going to be one of those years where my life is in flux. Interestingly, that means it should be good for my content creation, although I suspect doing my taxes next year will be an interesting endeavor. So, if I can get content flowing properly, let’s see what I can do to make this legitimate. So expect plenty of links to my Patreon, where you can drop a buck in my hat every month and get updates delivered to your email, instead of having to check this site like it was 2003 or something. Anyway, if I have confidence behind the things I do, I’ll be more willing to shill the site, and content will mean people will come, and I perform best when I have an audience. It’s a spiral, see, but this one goes UP!

Part the Fourth: Looking to Collaborate

Also, having a more legit site will open me up to potential collaborations. I think the world needs a site about D&D that has daily updates, with good solid content. Clarification: I am not crazy enough to try to do that. Not until I can do it full time, that is, and even then, I have doubts. But I’d love to be part of a team that arranges for daily content. To be part of such a team, I need to 1. Let people know about the idea, 2. make contacts in the industry, and 3., I need to be a person they would want to include. There may be more bullet points in this concept, but I think the best way to start with such a project would be to become a person who can write a stupid large article on various D&D concepts on a weekly basis. This would would be Content. And, this is a shout out to Past-Matt, who’s sins were downloaded before the nuking, GAME REPORTS ARE NOT CONTENT!! I mean, not straight. If I turn a session into a module, then swell. But Back, ugh, at the start of Chaotica maybe? I was trying to write about games from 2 or 3 sessions back, and kept falling further behind. That’s not what this is. Oh, right, the heading. Uh, if you would like to collaborate, either with articles, modules, comics, whatever, let me know. We’ll talk.

Skraz

I feel better about a lot of things, now that all this is done. I’m looking forward to 2020. I think it’s going to be a blast Cheers!