Tag Archives: announcement

New Projects and Horizons

It’s the first Sunday of 2015–no better time to announce my news for this blog!

New Project

I have been working on a novel for the last five years, and I have less than 25% of the plot left to write. Thus, I want it to be ideally finished, edited, and published by the end of 2015. But in order to focus on my novel, I need to limit how many writing-related tasks I have otherwise.

Currently, Crooked Glasses has over 1,000 posts, so I’m comfortable in saying that it has enough content for now. I may putter around and fix up a few articles here and there as I have time, but there won’t be daily updates for a while.

HOWEVER…

New Horizons

Crooked Glasses WILL be receiving a much-needed visual facelift in the coming year, since I have finally learned Bootstrap and can make this site much more mobile- and search-friendly. I’ll also adjust some WordPress settings, add a page for all my article series (because there are quite a few!), and research ways to make my general archives MUCH easier to search. (HALLELUJAH, right??? LOL!)

Will I Ever Come Back to Daily Blogging?

Though I am not writing any more blog content for now, I hope to come back to this someday, either to simply revise and tidy up, or to add all-new content. For now, though, I’m focusing my efforts on my creative writing and my webdesign/web development, so that I can continue to improve in those areas.

Check Back for the New Site Look!

I’m excited about the new site look and setup, and I hope it will showcase my written works much better. Keep an eye on this space and see what I come up with next!

Focusing on Redo Posts for Now

For the next little while, I’ll be focusing primarily on redoing older posts instead of trying to come up with completely new content for Crooked Glasses.

Mainly, I want to bring all my posts up to par with my current writing/formatting style, but I also want to have more time to focus on my novel, which is about 70% complete and needs some TLC. I’m hoping that not having to generate completely new blog content every two weeks will give me the time I desperately need.

For now, redone posts will be featured every day as has been usual (1 per day except Sundays), but I might do a double-Redo week if I have enough brain energy. There are a LOT of “hidden gem” articles here at Crooked Glasses, and I’m doing my best to polish ’em up! 🙂

Announcement: New Posts Will Appear After March 16th

For the next couple of weeks (until at least the week of March 15th is completed), I will not be posting any new articles besides my weekly Friday around the Web posts, which have been done well in advance. Reason: I am currently involved in an awesome musical theater project which requires lots of practice time and rehearsals, so I want to do my best by it.

I’ve been saying for months that I was ready for a new creative challenge, and this project certainly is! It’s using my musical talents in ways I never expected. Yet it still pains me to have to pause activity here for even a short while, because I’ve kept this blog up and running consistently for the last three years, never missing a day. My OCD/perfectionist bug is going batty over this, but I know y’all will appreciate seeing quality articles rather than half-thought-out adrenaline-rushed posts spewed haphazardly all over this blog. 😛 And the amazing people I’m working with will appreciate my complete focus on the music!

Crooked Glasses will begin updating with all-new posts again soon! Till then, browse through my archive of posts for new-old favorite posts, and follow my Twitter, @cg_blog, for auto-tweeted older posts. (Have I ever said how much I love auto-tweet plugins? Because I really do. Especially when they work properly. :D) Bonus: when I return, I’ll have enough new experiences to fuel a whole slew of Saturday with the Spark posts! YAY!

CG Turns 3! Upcoming: 1st Redo Week!

Happy Birthday to Crooked Glasses, first of all! Back on Jan. 26th, 2011, I began posting here…can you believe it’s been 3 years already? Wow!

And you’re probably wondering what I mean by “Redo Week,” right? Well, going along with yesterday’s post about revising and revamping, I’m going to take on a new project here at Crooked Glasses: redoing some older posts!

The main reason I’m doing this is because I want all my content to be of equal quality, and some of my older posts are a little rawer and less polished than I like. Thus, I’ll be combing back through older articles, tightening up the writing, adding images, all sorts of things.

However, “Redo Week” will not be a one-time occurrence; for the foreseeable future, I’ll be doing one week of new posts and one week of redone posts. This will hopefully help reduce some of my anxiety about constantly crafting new content, while also doing much-needed improvements on already-published articles.

I hope you’ll stay with me and keep reading! This isn’t just retread content…this is me making my blog better and better. 🙂

Sticking with Posting at Noon for Now

I haven’t seen much change in how many people have been counted as “viewing” my posts since I made the change from 9AM to 12PM EST, but I will say the 12PM time slot is easier for me to manage. I didn’t stay up way late or get up way early to stress over finishing a post this last week, which was AWESOME! Thus, I’ll stick with noon posts till I hear different from y’all readers.

*crickets chirping* 😛

Experiment: Posts Will Appear at Noon This Week!

Through the magic of Facebook and website statistics, I’ve noticed that not too many people are seeing my posts when they appear at 9:00 AM EST. So I’m going to try an experiment: my posts for the upcoming week will appear at noon EST instead!

I hope that by posting at a later time in the day, more people will be free to read the posts immediately. But, as with all experiments, I’ll never know till I try! I only want to make it easier for folks to see my posts.

If you have an opinion about this temporary change, feel free to share it (nicely)! You can comment on this blog post, post on Crooked Glasses’ Facebook page, or Tweet to me via the Twitter page.

Taking the Crooked Glasses Off for 2 Weeks

I will not be posting full-length articles for the next two weeks, partly due to the hugely busy Christmas performance season I’m heading into, and partly because my brain seriously needs a vacation (LOL). I have been blogging 6 days a week nonstop since late January 2011, and so I need a couple of weeks to recharge my blogging batteries and come back stronger (and more rested) than ever.

However, there will still be short posts appearing throughout this break; I’ll basically be doing link posts, like I do on Fridays, for each day until the two-week break is finished. This way, it’s not just blank space for 12 days, but actual useful posts.

Other things I hope to accomplish over this blog-post break:

  • Finally finishing and uploading Crooked Glasses’ new, mobile-friendly theme
  • Reviewing and revising older articles
  • Improving the Archive page so that it’s easier to browse through

Make sure you keep up with Crooked Glasses via its Facebook page and its Twitter account. Both will be updated with revised older posts and other site announcements!

Upcoming: Picture Week!

To shake things up a little bit around here, I’m going to do a weeklong series of posts with just a few pictures, instead of my usual verbosity. Each day will showcase an image or series of images pertaining to that day’s topic (Monday’s picture will cover webdesign, Wednesday’s picture will reference Biblical/Christian imagery, etc.).

I’m looking forward to this unusual, Tumblr-ish take on blogging. This might be a bit difficult for me, since I love to write (and love to talk), but I’m willing to try it, to stretch my blogging wings a little!

Crooked Glasses Turns 1 This Week!

On January 26th, 2012, it will have officially been one year since I began this blog.

Boy, CG, you’ve expanded and grown, gotten prettier and better-organized, and to date I haven’t missed a week of posts yet, despite all the random illnesses, occasional doctor visits, and wisdom teeth surgery.

I’m really proud of these accomplishments, possibly more than I should be. This is just the first time that I’ve actually stuck to consistently writing a blog for longer than a week, and it’s the first time I’ve been able to use and design around blogging software. xD

Why Did Crooked Glasses Succeed For So Long?

I think not writing about my life helps–my life isn’t that different from day to day, so just having a random blog/life category (Sunday in the Wild) helps me to post a couple big events from my life without me having to keep an online diary-style journal. I never could keep diaries offline unless they were about something specific, like love life or something, so I guess I was always meant to write a topic blog like this.

Also, scheduling posts, as I’ve mentioned before, is one of the reasons I love WordPress, even if designing around it has been a particular challenge for me. Now I can finally do a week of posts ahead of time, and at least appear to be an on-the-ball blogger. (Well, unless I have a random life-splitting headache like I did yesterday…urrrgh.) 😛

Where to Go from Here?

In the next year of Crooked Glasses’ life, I’d like to make it easier to browse by making category archives by title and/or tags only, as well as make the sidebar more about networking and the top navigation more about…well, navigating the blog. LOL!

I also plan to get a Twitter for this (yikes, what am I saying?!), mainly just to help others know when I’ve posted something new. (And if this Twitter goes well, I may instate one for my personal use, buuuuuut that’s a definite maybe. If there is such a thing. LOL)

And if I’m feeling REALLY productive, I may even make a fan page on Facebook. Yay, give me something else to do with my dialup access and forgetful self. xD