MY LIFE - JUNE

Wednesday, June 13, 2002 (continued)

In mid-February, 1998, I began writing daily entries in a familiar little section called My Life. This is the one area in my site that has not undergone five different name changes, but this area has seen it's share of change.

Those who've read the earliest entries already know how it's evolved. It's basically gone from being a one-paragraph entry that said basically nothing about what I was feeling to being long entries on my thoughts and what's gone on in my life.

The early entries certainly were lacking in substance though. I often only wrote one paragraph that pretty much summed up my day, pretty much the same way each day that I wrote. It pretty much went like this:

School was okay today, work was okay today, some shit happened that really wasn't cool, and I hate people.

Okay, so while there was usually more to it than that, the entries left a lot to be desired. There are several entries where I don't know what I'm talking about and I wrote the damn things.

Eventually, I moved on into making the entries more than just a paragraph. Some entries reached three or four paragraphs at points, but it was still the same garbage. I really didn't expand on what I was talking about and very rarely gave any clue as to what I was thinking.

By the end of March, I was writing entries in their own page and began developing my system of organzing the entries the way it is today, although it was a bit unrefined and a bit sloppy at times. The entries became a bit more revealing because I stopped writing editorials at one point and focused more on the entries because I just was trying to write about too much.

Eventually, the MST3K pages began receiving less and less treatment and it wasn't too long before I stopped writing those and any other entertainment-type pages. I just really wasn't into it anymore and I felt that it took away from the personal aspect of the page.

But back to my point. This site is 5 years old in 10 days, something I never thought would happen. I never imagined keeping this up for a year, much less 5. I've developed a pretty small, but devoted following of people who've read this site on a regular basis. Some people use this site to see what's going on with me when we don't talk on a regular basis, others are just curious.

I'm pretty proud of what I've done with this site. Yeah, I'm not exactly a whiz when it comes to the technical side of things; I don't exactly go for flash and glitz with this site, choosing to go instead with my writing ability instead.

Sure, I could learn about how to make flash movies for this site and use java, but my strength is in my words and how I convey those words to you. I've never been a graphics whiz and art is certainly not a strong point of mine (stick figures look like shit for crying out loud), so if I tried to sit there and make graphics and fancy images, I would probably be asking too much of myself and end up pushing away the people that I have coming to this site.

In the end, my basic goal is just to entertain and inform those who choose to come to this site with my daily happenings. Whether it's funny, sad, interesting, or boring, if you're coming back the next day, then I've succeeded as a writer. If not, then all I can do is improve upon my writing and hope that you feel that it's worth your time.

I've had over 3,000 total visitors come to my sites in various forms. Now, for a five year period, that's not that great, but it's better than a lot of sites out there, some of which have barely hit 100 in months and years of existence.

Let's face it: I've never been the type to draw the masses to whatever it is I'm doing, but I have been pretty happy with the traffic I've gotten. Most people at least have let me know what they thought of the site (only a couple bad reviews out of about 20) and many come back from time to time.

The site's been through a lot of transition over the years though. At several points I've shut it down and reopened it with a different look and approach. The last one has lasted about two years now, the longest out of any of the looks that I've had with this site. This is about where I want my site to be. I don't intend on making any new pages until I begin publishing my stories online and I don't intend on changing or dropping anything either.

I have had periods where I didn't write anything. I regret those periods because the periods when I didn't write offered the most amount of material to work with. I could've wrote about the relationship I was in, the interactions with my ex's family, the things we did together (with some obvious exceptions), and a whole lot of different things that range from us moving out on our own to the growing stress that I was feeling.

I hope that I never stop writing for any reason because not only do I feel that it entertains some people, but it also informs people of who I am and gives me a stress-release that I so often need. This site also allows gives me something to reflect on down the road. I can look back and see what I was going through and what I was feeling in the days, months, and years past. I can see how I've changed as a person and see how I continue to change with each passing day.

I also have a lot of fun writing the things that I write, whether they be entries, columns, or reviews. Knowing that people enjoy this makes it even that much more fun for me as well.

My site has evolved in so many ways over the last five years. It will only continue to evolve and change as time goes on. In ten days, this site will turn 5. Here's to another 5 years and more for this site.

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