Monday, June 03, 2013

The Site Has Moved

From now on, everything is here.

Moving Day

So, we’ve now come to the point where I’m finally doing something I should have done years ago: I’m moving this blog to a new website with a dedicated domain name and a WordPress blog platform.

The template you see on this site is the first one I ever used, from the first night I started doing this nearly ten years ago. I went on Blogger, chose a basic setup, dicked around with the HTML, and started writing. I eventually figured out how to create a background, so I chose a JPEG of a hardwood floor that I found on Google images, and left the entire thing alone for nearly a decade. That flooring background’s been gone for a while, right? I don’t know what happened to it. I think I thought it looked like the dance floor at a club.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about getting out and doing some stuff that’s not related to what I do for work, meaning I want to get back into “writing for pleasure”—although, since I’ve done it before, this probably means something more along the lines of “writing to get attention and make money.” That would be cool, and I think I have a lot of that in me—and I’ve always believed I could do this on more than just the cheesy 2006 “job blogger” level.

Sure, if I could have, I would’ve done it by now, but there’s more to it than that. Life’s just been fucking weird over the past several years, and my career branched off in a direction I didn’t think it would, away from the kind of work I really want to be doing. You’ll get no complaints from me, but the direction I’ve gone isn’t exactly what I envisioned when I first went out to lunch with a big time literary agent who told me I had a “great writing career” ahead of me.

I didn’t put in the work I needed to do to get that. I’m aware of that. Things are far from over, however.  

I owe this blog a lot. Believe me when I tell you that it’s responsible for creating an entirely new life for me. The opportunities it’s created have made me a decent amount of money, I’ve met people I never otherwise would have met, and it’s given me a whole new career doing something I never thought would be possible: using my brain to make a living instead of my back.

In focusing solely on my job for the past four or five years, however, I’ve veered away from this part of my life. I’ve been trying to get back into it lately, though, and I’ve started enjoying it again. With that said, if I’m going to get things moving again, I’m also thinking it’s time to upgrade the facilities, too.

To do that, I called my friend Josh (he’s Canadian, so if the new site sucks, he’s used to being blamed for shit) and asked him to create a very basic website for me, using WordPress as the blogging platform. Blogger’s been awesome to me, but I prefer WordPress because there’s more I can do with it. I didn’t want anything crazy in terms of site design—just a really bare-bones black-and-white template that features whatever text I’m putting up that day. It’s pretty empty right now, but the sides—and everything else—will fill in if and when shit starts happening again.

Will anyone care? Who knows? As always, I’m doing this for myself, so even if everyone completely drops off and I’m the only one reading, I’ll still just keep going, because I like doing it.

The new site address is Standingonthebox.com.

I’m moving away from the whole “Clublife” deal because it’s probably been about five years since I’ve even set foot in a nightclub—much less bounced at one. Metaphorically, however—and yeah, I know this might be stupid, but fuck it—I’ve never really moved “off the box,” either in my head or in life. I’m still watching, waiting for trouble.


So, from now on, everything’s switching over there. We’ll see how this goes.