Moving my website, just a little too late

Illustration by Ayhan Yildiz • sxc.hu

I’ve never been one for new year's resolutions. If a change is going to be made, one might as well make it now as wait for some arbitrary date on the calendar. But it just happens that a change I’ve been planning for a while coincides with the turning of that page from December to January.

My website has needed an overhaul for ages, and I have heard from Author Media and tons of other sources that WordPress is the way to go. Since I’m already familiar with WordPress because it’s what New Authors’Fellowship is built on, it seemed like a great idea.

I’ve also been wanting to shift to a different website host, because having my site hosted by AT&T has not been a good experience. For example, I sent the help desk an e-mail asking how to set up WordPress on my site. I was told I couldn’t do that under my current hosting plan. This was not a surprise, because I was on the lowest-cost plan available. But the help desk did not say, as a helpful person would do, “We’ll need to upgrade your plan, which will cost an additional so many dollars per month. Shall I go ahead and do that for you today?” The answer to this question, had it been asked, would have been, “Yes, thank you.”

But in one of many Great Fails, The helpless desk said, “Your plan doesn’t support WordPress. You’ll have to contact the sales department for an upgrade.” So I e-mailed the sales department and asked how much an upgrade would cost.

Three weeks later, I got an e-mail back that said, “Did you ever get that upgrade you were asking about?”

No, because I was never told how much it would cost. At this point my answer was “never mind,” because I’d already decided to switch to a new host.

By the way, when I asked my new host, HostGator, how to set up my account for WordPress, I was given detailed instructions. I got off to an OK start, but when I ran into a snag and e-mailed the help desk again, I was sent another set of directions followed by "or, if you prefer, I can do it for you." To which the answer was, "Yes, thank you," and the job was done quickly.

Unfortunately, I then got hung up on the design.

Coming from a print page design background, I knew what I wanted my website to look like, but not how to make it happen. While with AT&T, I tried several different web-building apps, but none of them were ever as intuitive to use as they claimed, and none were as flexible as InDesign. I mean, using InDesign, I could place a graphic exactly where I want it, and overlay or run around text, and … well, anyway, every other page layout program pales by comparison, and web design apps are just not in the same league.

While I fiddled about on the design end of WordPress, AT&T “upgraded” my website and e-mail services. This “upgrade” produced two e-mail outages within three weeks. If only I had switched to my new host in October, instead of waiting. Oh, well. That’s what I get for being fussy about appearances.

I finally gave myself a deadline and picked up a copy of Launch a WordPress.com Blog In A Day For Dummies, though I've spent more than a day on it. I'm taking advantage of the end-of-year slowdown to migrate my site. I hope to have the shift completed by January 2. After that, articles related to writing, editing, and publishing will appear at kristenstieffel.com. Some of my articles about the writing journey, faith, and publishing will be at New Authors’ Fellowship. I’m going to try increasing the frequency with which I blog about business topics at Central Florida Christian Chamber of Commerce. Anything left over will go here.

I pray your new year will get off to a great start, and that if you have any changes to make, you will make them now, and not delay while waiting for another page to turn.

Behold the power of the outline

At a chamber fellowship meeting, I was asked to share my top editing tip. Didn't have to think long about it: outline.

I resisted outlining for many years, because it reeked of term papers and therefore seemed uncreative. Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Pro software convinced me otherwise.

Once I realized the power of outlining to organize my novels, it became obvious that the same power could be harnessed for any writing task. And should be. I have seen repeatedly in journalism, in fiction, and in non-fiction that omitting an outline results in disorganized work.

Even if your outline is just five items on a Post-It note, or two items in your head, have one. The longer and more complex your work (hello, novelists), the more you need an outline.

Many fiction writers resist outlining. Ingermanson discussed with Larry Brooks how even writers who prefer to work by the seat of their pants can be helped by judicious use of structure.

An outline is not a constraint. It is a guideline and a set of goals. As for creativity? Goal-setting practically requires it.

Inspirational anecdotes don't need to be faked

Motivational speakers often use true-life anecdotes to illustrate a topic, and this is a great tool. But of course it’s better if the true-life anecdotes really are true. Too often, speakers (and, dare I say it, writers) don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.

One plum people pull out to show you shouldn’t be discouraged by failure is the one about how the inventors of the Post-it Note were supposedly trying to make a super-strong glue but failed—the glue turned out weak. They then converted their biggest failure into their biggest success.

Silver and Fry are featured on the Post-it anniversary page

A good story, but not true. The truth is less dramatic, but no less inspirational: Spencer Silver, a chemist at 3M, discovered a low-tack glue in 1968, but because he and his colleagues couldn’t come up with any marketable applications, it was shelved. A few years later, one of those colleagues—Art Fry—realized Silver’s temporary adhesive would hold bookmarks in place. After some brainstorming, the company came up with Post-it notes and other products using the glue.

Silver’s original project was only a “failure” in that initially they couldn’t think of a market for it. Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras include the story in Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. They emphasize that Silver wasn’t looking for anything in particular. He was “following the principle of ‘experimental doodling,’” something 3M encourages. He was playing around to see what he could find.

The Post-it story is a good one. But, as Collins and Porras make clear, what it illustrates is the need for companies to foster creativity and allow risk-taking.

The “super-strong glue” story isn’t the only falsehood I’ve heard propagated by people seeking to inspire. In the future, I’ll tackle some of the others, and any more you care to bring to my attention. Because I believe if you're going to use a true-life anecdote to make your point, it really should be true.