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February 10, 2005
Decisions, decisions...
As the subtitle of this blog suggests, Prosemonkey was born so that I could blog my novel for NaNoWriMo. From the start, this place held a special place in my heart. For one thing, it was a gift from Bobo, my favorite (very cute) monkey. He did everything for me, from creating the subdomain to installing Movable Type, a publishing platform that I had never actually taken the plunge into, even though I had wanted to for years.
My first (short lived) blog was a Manila blog, then I tried Blogspot and, once I had my own domain, I decided to stay with Blogger for ease of use. I was there in the old days, the days of the Ev cam and hands on personal service. I have always been fiercely loyal to Blogger because I watched it grow as those guys poured their hearts and their wallets into it for little or no compensation. When they sold (their souls) to Google, I was filled with trepidation ... and with good reason. Can you say 'Google toolbar'? After all, Blogger had always been 'as flaky as pie crust' so how was being owned by Google going to make it any better?
I began entertaining the idea of a switch to Moveable Type but I was too ignorant to know that on my el cheapo host plan, I couldn't support it. It uses a language that I'm not versed in at all and, once I started looking into it, I realized that I was outclassed and out of luck. Then along came Bobo and he caught the blog bug big time. He didn't fiddle around, he went straight to Moveable Type and quickly became versed in all the nuances that I still don't understand.
When I told him about NaNoBlogMo and wanting to enter it, he was more than supportive. I had decided that I shouldn't be posting my novel on my other site, for fear that my writing would get lost in the rest of the site (which is huge) and/or overwhelm my regular posts, so I was going to set up a second blog. Bobo suggested Prosemonkey. All I had to do to set it up was fiddle with the colors a bit and voila, I had a place that looked (to me) sleek, sedate, artsy, modern ... and very different from my other blog. I love this place, the look and feel is just right, yet here it sits, abandoned except for the occasional post to keep something on the front page.
I've decided to use Prosemonkey more from now on. I am hoping that I can post poetry and more of my novel here, as well as various writing and book related posts.
I don't necessarily want to get rid of my other blog yet ... we're talking about more than 4 years of soul-searching and emotional spelunking. I found my voice there, it's awful hard to leave that behind. When I started it, though, my main purpose was to find my voice and offend people, if I could. I wanted to cause a stir, make some waves, and several times I did, being picked up by Burningbird and Fishrush, as well as Golby, Gary and Rageboy, not to mention a few arguments with Winer and the infamous Gaspar incident *waves en Italiano*. I'm still on several Blogrolls, even though I've become more of an island since I went back to school and work. There is just not enough time in the day for me to dedicate to networking and meme chasing.
More decisions to come, I just need time to think things though. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled here for ... well ... something.
