Brian and I spent today overhauling this website, which has gone long neglected ever since I got so sick of looking at it that it became hard to write. This happened sometime back in March. Then our lives went down the Crazy Hill Of Crap that has been mid-2010, and I just lived with it.

The other day I mocked up a new site in Photoshop. It was so devastatingly simple that I thought today might be a good day to tackle it. And here we are, ten and a half hours later – brand new site! What’d you do today?

I have more to say about what inspired this site’s look and where we’re going moving forward. Also, I’ve got some new stuff coming out for This Land, and a new Gazette gig, and a bunch of cool writery stuff happening that I’m eager to tell the four of you about. But I have some hungry friends who want to grab some late-night Big Truck Tacos, and frankly I can’t think of anything that sounds nicer at this moment. So in the meantime, this:

I chose Open Salon, mostly because I love Salon.com and pay them $45 a year to keep them in their elitist arugula and expresso coffees or whatever the hippies drink out in Sin Francisco. All I know is that I love Joan Walsh, and Garrison Keillor, and Anne Lamott, and Alex Koppleman, though I’m still not over my Election Fatigue from 2008 and have stopped reading their War Room altogether. At least until a year from now, when it’s time for the 2012 election to start up.

Also, I love Open Salon’s community nature. And if we’re being totally honest, I love that several people have scored book deals writing for them. Are any of our motives ever completely pure? Come on – let’s cut the crap.

But the main reason is that I loved writing these kinds of pieces for GCN, and I want to continue writing for them. But there’s no reason why these can’t be in two places at once; AMIRITE?

Also (and I have yet to e-mail them about this, so we’ll see how it’s going to go over), I really want to start a blog over at Voices of Oklahoma, because I think they’re one of the coolest Okie internet outlets going right now.

And – JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT THE SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION WAS OVER – if you have a blog and live in Oklahoma, you can totally vote for me in the Okie Blogger Awards! I’m gunning for Best Kept Secret and Best Writing, though as of December 24 I totally qualify for Best Veteran Blogger! And if you’re looking for recommendations for other blogs to nominate, can I recommend the Mixtape Jones Report (Best Culture Blog), K.C. Clifford (Best New Blog), Rocks in My Dryer (Best Humorous Blog) and Angela and Luke (Best Inspirational Blog), just to name a few?

In the meantime, I’d love it if you’d head over to Open Salon to read and comment on my new stuff; here’s a taste to whet your appetite.

As a young man my faith was marked by deep impatience. Every prayer session was marked by a sense that any moment God would – or should – reach down and make me Victorious over all that vexed me. I figured I’d struggle with this or that sin or challenge for awhile, then I’d experience a miracle healing, and my life would finally begin. Of course, this never happened and at some point I realized that my desire for miracle healing was less about faith than it was about no longer wanting to be dependent. I wanted God to come down and fix me so that I didn’t have to feel broken anymore, so that I didn’t have to be constantly reminded of my need for Him.

All that is to say, I’m editing a novel right now, and it’s really hard because I don’t get to be free anymore. I don’t get to plow blissfully forward, getting my work done each day and keeping the monster of perfectionism at bay. I have to critically evaluate my own stuff, patch plot holes and seek out my worst writerly and grammatical mistakes. It feels less like being an artist and more like being an engineer.

Also, I’m working on new stuff for this website, specifically an entry – or, more likely, a series of entries – about some of my religious and political beliefs. I’m certain these entries will in no way offend anyone at all and that my comments will be filled with glowing praise. I’m also sure the yet-to-be-announced Apple Tablet will be able to make me coffee and will wake me each morning by gently massaging my naughty bits.

FInally, I’m considering starting another blog, on OpenSalon. I have a bunch of pieces that are, frankly, too good to put on this website but have been more or less pocket vetoed by other places I write for on occasion. I don’t want to start another website with its own domain name, mostly because OpenSalon blogs seem to more or less promote themselves, or at least, to make themselves a little easier to promote. I haven’t forgotten you dozen or so awesome souls who read this site. But I did promise myself that 2010 was going to be the year I wrote more, and lo and behold if that resolution hasn’t come back to bite me in the ass a little bit.

I started this blog five years ago, just as I was getting ready to start a graduate program in professional writing. It’s expanded to cover more topics than I ever intended or expected, and while I’ve been happy with it on the whole, I’ve never felt wholly satisfied with what’s been going on here. Which is okay, too; the only mission statement I’ve ever had for this website was that it was sort of a living electronic piece of paper on which I was free to do what I wanted and to share with you.

As much as I don’t believe that having a blog automatically makes one a writer, any more than Guitar Hero makes one a musician, the fact is that I am a writer, and though I don’t expect Okay City to net me a book deal anytime soon, I want to get back to the reason I set up my own website in December of 2004 – to write. There will still be pictures, and tasteless jokes, and the occasional political aside sure to net me in lots of "trouble," but the simple fact is that though I never want this website to become my number one creative project, I could be giving it more than I am, and that’s what I intend to do. So, thank you all for reading this, the maybe nine or ten of you who do. You really have no idea how much I appreciate you. (HINT: It’s a lot).

ALL THAT IS TO SAY.

I’ll be back as soon as I get to feeling better.

Still trying to figure out why I have a blog; don’t worry, I’m not deleting it or giving up or anything, just trying to figure out where it fits into the rest of my writing life. I’m writing new GCN columns and it’s some of the most challenging, rewarding and best writing of my life. In general I’m inspired lately; trying to make sure the blog gets its appropriate share of that without taking over.

And given that I’ve received no fewer than half a dozen requests to talk about the whole Miss California-Perez Hilton thing, I may have a go at it, though I have to say, I don’t have much nice to say about either Perez Hilton OR Miss California, so.

In the meantime, comedian Paul Scheer (you may know him as Donny the Head Page from 30 Rock) visited the Michael Jackson Auction and came back with photos that might make it hard for you to sleep for the next week or so. Click the photo for more because OH MY GOD.

I’ve been reading a lot lately. Ever since the summer started I’ve been devouring books almost faster than is possible to track, and in the midst of that I’ve found myself completely bereft of any desire to write the long-ish posts about each individual book I read. Instead, I’ve taken to penning a quick paragraph on the 2008 Books page along with the links to each book’s page on Amazon. In addition I try to keep my eyes forward, so to speak, as to the next few books I’m planning to read, and so if you see anything there that you’d like to read along with me, just let me know. The list may vary a bit as we go forward, especially as I’ve been reading a lot of graphic novels lately, mostly from the Joss Whedon oeuvre, and so if you have any recommendations I’d love to hear them. I usually read them in about an hour or two, but they’ve all been wondrously compelling – if rather easily digestible – stories. My next entry, though it’s not on the list, will be Joss’ comic-book sequel to Serenity.

In other blog notes, I must apologize for having gone so many weeks without any news or photos of Sam. It’s not that I’ve had a lack of news – if anything, the opposite is true and the dog’s been so blog-worth lately I’ve had trouble choosing what to write about. Problem is that the last few Fridays have been so jam-packed with activity, what with the beginning of a new school year, my ten-year reunion, and trying to squeeze in a decent night’s sleep where I can. I promise Sam will be back in force this Friday and through the fall; like election coverage, you cannot escape.