Moving the Mountain

I've been talking about site revamps for well over a year now.  I've poked at books.  I've picked at websites.  I hemmed and hawed and fretted and paced, but I kept not doing anything.  Every time I sat down to make a decision, the whole weight of the site transfer came down on my shoulders.  It was like trying to move a mountain with a teaspoon... and I couldn't decide which teaspoon to use.

Last week, I finally had had enough of myself.

"Self," I said,"you're an indecisive, lazy idiot who needs to just sit down and get this thing started."

Well, I can't talk to myself like that without getting a reaction.  So I wandered off and grabbed a cup of cocoa, then played a video game.

"Self," I said again,"knock it off."

I rearranged some books and hung a picture.

"Self," I sighed,"just sit down, shut up, and do it."

I figured I was pretty serious by this point, and I didn't want to lose my cocoa privileges.  So, one fine Wednesday afternoon, I sat down.  I booted up HTML-Kit, the free site editor I'd scrounged online.  And so began the Great Site Transfer of 2009.  I figured I'd start with Brightdreamer Books, because I wanted new graphics before I redid Skyhaven.  Besides, the book reviews were relatively straightforward, and transferring them from FrontPage to the new program would be good practice.

How far am I?

So far, I've transferred 295 reviews (A - E and S - Z; I find attacking the alphabet from either end helps it seem less monotonous.) If it sounds impressive, remember: I've been at it for seven days.  And I have 629 reviews in total to transfer before I can officially update.

I was right.  I am a lazy idiot...

Of course, it's not so simple as swapping pages.  FrontPage generated a lot more junk code than I'd anticipated, so I'm having to selectively cut and paste each entry.  I've also found several minor errors I needed to fix; grammar, spelling and the like.  Compounding this is the fact that I'm changing the layout of reviews significantly, making it easier to update in the future but a pain in the rear to set up initially.  So it's gonna be a few weeks before the finished product's online for the whole world to ignore.

In the meantime, those who are so inclined can see any new reviews I come up with posted at my second blog, Brightdreamer's Book Reviews.  This will act as the "New Reviews" section for future site updates, with reviews eventually being archived on the site proper.  And, yes, I have a new review there right now.

Guess I'd best get back at it.  The mountain ain't gonna move itself...