28th April ’25…..
Some weeks ago, it slowly began to dawn on me that I was going to need a platform from which to promote my work, an author’s website by any other name.
In truth, I was somewhat daunted, having, as I saw it, never had any reason to possess my own personal website previously and being from the generation that time forgot, before the dawn of the internet, before social media and long before AI.
Not only that, but I’m the kind of guy who never fits in with the cool crowd, as they hunker down in their trendy café bars plotting their new world order.
I’m the other guy.
I often think that I’m probably known internationally as the technophobe’s technophobe.
My infamy being of biblical proportions. I am a dying breed, a dinosaur.
Those reading this, the happy few that may have worked with me over the years, in some office-based, Monday to Friday scenario will no doubt snigger in acknowledgement at their own personal memories of my lack of PC prowess.
Though I embrace it as my useless USP, my calling card.
So, imagine then, my horror at the idea of not only having one, but of creating one, bespoke, entirely from scratch.
There are also some key criteria that would have to be achieved, fundamental goals to be attained. They are:
My ‘How to Design a website from Scratch for Dummies’ compendium was nowhere to be found and so I decided to ask around.
Not in a weird way, I didn’t just stumble around barefoot, foaming at the mouth, bothering strangers in the street.
It turns out that my lovely step-son, knows a guy who knows a guy, who has his own website design business.
Serendipity, kind of.
Today, we’ve been emailing and now have a 1st call to discuss the build, timelines and likely costs, scheduled in for next week.
More than a little out of my comfort zone, yes, but grudgingly, I do have to admit that I’m starting to experience stirrings of an emotion I think I vaguely remember from the dim and distant past.
Excitement.
18th July, 2025…….
An Update:
With a big thumbs up to Oli and Adam, the extremely patient guys that I’ve been working with at the Website Space, my website finally went live (at least unofficially so) earlier this week and (drumroll, please), I will be officially launching it to an unsuspecting world next week.
Possibly Tuesday, if the world doesn’t end first.
Overall, with one reservation, I’m pretty pleased with it and on balance, I think that it achieves most of the things we set out for it to do.
I can’t help wishing that the powers that be, sitting cross-legged on the clouds up there, had deigned to make me just a tad more photogenic, for occasions such as this, but I guess that’s the price I and my fragile ego must pay for deciding to populate multiple pages of the site, with my ugly mug.
I always suspected that I was a narcissistic fool, but still, hopefully, it won’t put off the visiting horde(s) too much.
The really strange thing though, is that somehow, I feel a bit different now, as though the experience has changed me, shaped me more as a man of the modern world.
Who knows, at this rate, I might even end up writing a blog page one day….
