I mentioned yesterday in passing a workshop I attended a week ago, Anthem Salgado’s The Art of the Hustle. Today I invite you to read my writeup of the experience, over at the Philippine American Writers and Artists blog. In the post, I describe how I went into Anthem’s workshop not really knowing what I hoped to get out of it, but left it with genuine artistic goals and plans… the biggest of which is a total revamp for this blog!
from icanhascheezburger.com
As I explain in the PAWA post, I didn’t realize until near the end of the workshop that my scattershot web presence really bothers me. I have so many sites: satsumabug.com, the shop, Facebook, this blog, my personal blog, and flickr for photos (not to mention LinkedIn and Goodreads and all these other communities of which I’m a member). I have some regular followers on every site, but they seem to be pretty discrete (for instance, very few of my newsletter readers also read this blog). The main site, satsumabug.com, was intended to be a central hub, but instead it has only added to the commotion. Not only does the almost total non-overlap between sites make them feel disconnected, but it keeps me in constant catch-up mode trying to update everything separately. I want a coherent, cohesive community I can reach out to with my work: I’d like to have a single strong hub site like Mo does over at themousemarket.com, instead of just these dozens of different sites that barely speak to each other.
So how am I going to bring everything together? I’m a writer, perhaps above all else; for me, the key is this blog. When I began this blog it was actually private, just a space for me to jot down my doings every day to keep myself on task. Over time, it’s outgrown this role, but I haven’t stopped thinking of it the same way. The time has come to use it differently.
Here’s what’s going to change around here, effective Monday afternoon or evening:
- The blog will look different. I’ve enjoyed this three-column “newspaper” theme, but I know it confuses some readers, and it won’t serve my new concept. So, come Monday, the blog will transform visually/navigationally.
- Each day will have a different topic:
- Monday will be art day. I’ll share a drawing or painting, and the process of creating it.
- On Tuesday, I’ll describe the previous week’s artist date or some other creative outing (like Anthem’s workshop).
- Wednesday will be devoted to crafting projects, or shop news. It’ll be a photo-heavy post for humpday!
- Thursday will focus on writing, particularly process: challenges, discoveries.
- Friday will be “open mic” day, where I’ll share my own writing, invite fellow writers to share their work, and feature guest writers from time to time.
- I may write posts in advance; in fact, I suspect I will have to, since some of these will take a bit of planning.
- This will be my main blog; I don’t want readers to have to jump back and forth between this one and my personal blog! I will continue to write long, intimate entries there, but will link those in separate summary posts on this blog, so following this blog alone will get you all the posts on both.
Whew! Got all that?
I’m super excited about the changes. If I do this right, my new blogging style will help me prioritize, because it will ensure that I devote big chunks of time each week to each of my major pursuits (otherwise I’ll have nothing to write about!). These themed posts will also give me deadlines to work toward: new writing by Friday, serious drawing to start the week, a little crafting, and regular artist dates. Could everything be coming together perfectly? I sure hope so! Stay tuned, and come back on Monday afternoon or evening to witness the new blog in all its glory!
Are you excited too? Does this sound like a good thing for the Satsumabug Art Blog?
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 
i am all for consolidating web presences! i like it when stores/brands/etc have a central hub. i get particularly anxious over how scattered i feel on the internet sometimes. so it fits with my ideal browsing experience 🙂
(of course we think alike so me affirming your plan doesn’t mean much 😛 )
We may think alike, but I appreciate it all the same. 😀
Wow, so many great ideas!! I’m so excited to see how everything unfolds, and yes, I give a big “yay” vote for consolidating everything in one spot. (Thanks for the website shout out, by the way!) I love your theme ideas for different days of the week, too. What a cool way to introduce a little structure and keep things feeling fresh. Woo hoo! 😀
Thank you!! I’m SO unbelievably excited about this new format, I just went into WordPress and began drafting the entire week’s entries (no, I didn’t write them all, I just started them!). I can’t wait for tomorrow!! 😀
Wow, you’re definitely getting a good head start on everything! You actually inspired me to finally cross something off of my to-do list tonight: the Nutmegs’ page. 😀
Eeeeee!!!!!!!!! SO cute. 🙂 Erik is also reading the page and squee-ing (well, he’s a guy, so it’s considerably quieter, but I can tell he thinks it’s cute too ;b ) about it. 🙂
Hahahaha! I love the thought of “considerably quieter” squee-ing! So wonderfully silly. 😀
🙂 Just changed the appearance of the blog… I was all excited to use a WordPress theme called Bueno (I had tested it out and everything), and then I realized it’s basically the same thing as the one you have on your site! No wonder I liked it so much! So I switched to this one instead. ;b
Aw, I totally would not mind if we use the same theme. If you decide to change back to Bueno, that’s…well, all bueno with me. 😉 I can’t wait to read your first “new” post!
Aww, thank you. 🙂 Well, if I ever get around to actually setting up the WordPress.org stuff to work at satsumabug.com, I’ll use the Bueno theme then. 🙂 It seems much more customizable that way!
[…] I think many of us could afford to be asking ourselves. I am glad to read her blog post on her Satsuma Art blog, outlining what she will be doing next. I am especially glad to see her open the forum to include […]
Hi Lisa, very good stuff here. Thank you again for your PAWA blog post. I’ve just written my own response as well on my website/blog. I think your outline here is really good, really focused, so it’s good to read as I struggle to remain e-focused as well.
I also very much appreciate your including an “open mic” day. I think that’s very generous, to give others the space to speak.
Thanks again!
Thank you, Barbara! I love your post and I’m really gratified I got someone else thinking as well. I’m looking forward to the first open mic this Friday — hope to see you there. 🙂
I’ve been pretty happy with the theme so far, and I love that there’s any easy-to-use feature that allows you to copy and paste portions of the stylesheet into a special box where you can make changes to the look of the site without permanently altering the theme’s stylesheet. Essentially, the “special box” overrides the main stylesheet, but if you hate the changes, you can just delete them without worrying about messing up anything crucial. 😉
Yes! I’m hoping to take advantage of that if/when I get this set up to work with satsumabug.com. WordPress.com lets us preview CSS changes but we can’t actually implement them unless we pay extra, and certain things require HTML changes instead of CSS and we can’t do those at all through wordpress.com (only the .org version). It’s a pain in the butt having opinions sometimes. ;b Seems like WordPress is like so much else in life: you can change everything from scratch, or you can take what you’re given, but if you want to tweak something here and there it’s just impossible! Meh!
Awesome, I’m excited to see how the consolidation works out and evolves!
Thank you! 🙂 Me too!
Hi Lisa, thanks for your posts about organizing your online presence. I look forward to seeing how things evolve!
Thank you, Kenji! Hope to see you at the Open Mic on Friday. 🙂
[…] but any kind of writing would do. Fine — I accomplished that, by regular morning pages and revising this blog. This is not insignificant, and I was feeling very proud of myself for doing […]