Gosh! The other thing I did, in this fit of online efficiency, was tick the box to "upgrade to Weebly Pro", which means that when I find out how to do them, I'll be able to do lots of things that I don't know how to do yet. So to speak. Not expensive. I mention it because I now get to see a page listing who reads what. Not many people, and yes, you're right, this is (still?) a relatively private space, in that it's not going all-out to attract readers. But in thirty-ish years in the writing-to-be-read business, the last decade in the company of the internet, the last maybe five years with at least some online exposure, this is the first time I've looked at the technology/functionality square-on and seriously thought about it.
Not that there are any revelations waiting for me in the stats page (yet?), but if it's my turn to reinvent the online wheel, I think I'm going to start with the inversion of private and public. Once upon a time, many years ago, I faked an entry in one of those small-scale (offline) business directories that used to appear every now and then. I took a pic of myself wearing different glasses and a beard, invented a name, faked a biography and sent it off. Then embellished my own entry and sent that off too. Still got the book somewhere. [I must Google my alter-ego; I wonder if he developed a life of his own.]
Among the added extras in my own entry was a hobby: making model boats out of matchsticks. That isn't a hobby of mine. Came into my mind and I just put it in. Hey, I was younger then. Anyway, time passed. The day arrived when I was invited to lunch by a PR outfit, to meet their client. They briefed the client about me, using that book. And I remember so clearly the moment when I realised that he was working the conversation round to matchsticks, model boats, making ...
Just that odd sense of a barrier evaporating. A tiny little private joke committed in the privacy of my office - I must have laughed - that was actually visible round that lunch table. Private into public.
And now the internet, technology, smartphones, the whole primitive thing (primitive: it's evolving so fast). It's that scri-fi - I meant sci-fi, but I like scri-fi - thing that imagining something is the way to bring it into being. Imaginary people went to the moon before real people did; there's a lot we can do now that the characters on Star Trek did first, et cetera. Imagination plus unintended consequences; the internet as a proxy for telepathy - and the sharing that would bring. The internet is the "I am a camera" of private space.
Bright sunshine after rain in the night. A Bank Holiday Monday.
Not that there are any revelations waiting for me in the stats page (yet?), but if it's my turn to reinvent the online wheel, I think I'm going to start with the inversion of private and public. Once upon a time, many years ago, I faked an entry in one of those small-scale (offline) business directories that used to appear every now and then. I took a pic of myself wearing different glasses and a beard, invented a name, faked a biography and sent it off. Then embellished my own entry and sent that off too. Still got the book somewhere. [I must Google my alter-ego; I wonder if he developed a life of his own.]
Among the added extras in my own entry was a hobby: making model boats out of matchsticks. That isn't a hobby of mine. Came into my mind and I just put it in. Hey, I was younger then. Anyway, time passed. The day arrived when I was invited to lunch by a PR outfit, to meet their client. They briefed the client about me, using that book. And I remember so clearly the moment when I realised that he was working the conversation round to matchsticks, model boats, making ...
Just that odd sense of a barrier evaporating. A tiny little private joke committed in the privacy of my office - I must have laughed - that was actually visible round that lunch table. Private into public.
And now the internet, technology, smartphones, the whole primitive thing (primitive: it's evolving so fast). It's that scri-fi - I meant sci-fi, but I like scri-fi - thing that imagining something is the way to bring it into being. Imaginary people went to the moon before real people did; there's a lot we can do now that the characters on Star Trek did first, et cetera. Imagination plus unintended consequences; the internet as a proxy for telepathy - and the sharing that would bring. The internet is the "I am a camera" of private space.
Bright sunshine after rain in the night. A Bank Holiday Monday.
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