No, that’s not a steam engine in the background, that’s me wheezing while I recover from the panic attack fueled by pressing “live” on my new website and transferring my domain and webhosting service.
Can you hear the constant chatter running through my mind? I think the refrain runs along the lines of: Did I do this right? Did I do that right? Will they delete this email? Does that look good? Urgh, that sucks. What was I thinking? Wait, did I take care of that thingamajobby before I removed the doowhicky? New software? Do I have time to learn how to do that? I really want one of those cool things. Oh crap, I need to work on that story revision, too!
Anxiety and exhaustion inducing stuff. I’m an author and a kitty mommy – not any kind of a tech gal, and damn it all, change is hard. So what gives? After 8 blissful, ignorant years with my current domain and webhosting service I received notification that they were splitting up into different companies and rather than all my eggs in one tidy little basket – I was looking at multiple bills and companies and what I perceived to be a huge pain in my rear. Oh, and by the way? This will all take effect October 1st.
*cue me passing out* and then deciding that if change was coming it was going to be my choice where I changed to.
Would going with the flow have been as big a pain as rebuilding everything from scratch? (because, of course, the old structure/templates were proprietary and couldn’t be transferred) I’ll answer that question at the end of the month when transfers are complete and the old service is cancelled.
right now it’s a quick and dirty mirror of my old site. I’m sure I’ll be futzing and fixing and changing my mind another seventeen times on the look of the new site. Case in point? I imported my old blog and then realized that I wanted to start fresh with categories and tags going forward. Which means I get to delete a lot of what was imported. Go me!
Hopefully the change will result in a clearer, more responsive website for new visitors and old fans alike. Until then, bear with me and wish me luck!