Every fiction writer needs a web presence. That’s a rule now. I don’t know who makes the rules, but whoever they are, they made this one. Just go ask anybody who knows the rules for fiction writers; they’ll tell you about this rule, just like they told me.

I’m still not sure if it’s a law or just a rule, but I’m a good boy, so rules are enough for me.

My previous web presence left much to be desired. It was a static web page that I’d built myself. It was the only web page I’ve ever built, and it looked like it.

As a DIY project, it had its charms, and if it were a rec room in my basement, I might have been satisfied with it. But it was something that needed to be impressive to more than just my kids. It had to compete with a world filled with pretty sites, loaded with bells and whistles. It didn’t compete very well.

I’d taught myself enough Dreamweaver and HTML to put words and images on the screen and edit them to make things look reasonably uniform, but it was not anything you would call fancy, or interactive. The free hit counter I downloaded stopped working one day, and I never could find the time or know-how to get it fixed.

It was built from the same template that I’m sure 10 million other amateur web designers used to hobble together their soap-box-derby sites.

But it had a nice blue background color. So there’s that.

Meanwhile, I began a parenting/humor blog on WordPress for fun and to document the childhoods of my boys. With so much less effort, I created a web presence that was so much more attractive than my writing site. My for-fun project was a neat, well-apportioned home, while my “professional” web presence was a shack. I could tell how many people visited my parenting blog, and they could even leave notes for me if they desired. At my writing shack, visitors could not interact with me at all. They were probably too busy brushing cob webs out of their hair anyway.

I rolled along in this situation for an alarmingly long time; inertia is such a comfy ride sometimes.

But enough is enough. Hence, this blog.

I’m getting ready to publish my first book since I created my web “empire” and other than the fact that getting ready to publish a book is intensely time-consuming, that makes this the perfect time to upgrade my web presence into something that could be useful.

So here it is: my second WordPress blog. It’s a little daunting right now, and it’s a work in progress, but so is everything I touch.

I hope you find it somewhat inviting. Feel free to leave a comment. You can do that now.