A Fresh New Start

So, my New Years Reso-changes have been implemented.

What has Changed?

The Header

First, I’d like you all to tilt your head upwards. See that artistic wonder, no, not the grapes, above that. Well fine, it took me about twenty minutes in Photoshop to create but it’s much better than the old <h1>Scribbles & Words</h1> that used to occupy the header. This little one to the right is an alternative I also created…but, me not being so efficient, put the colored strokes on the background, which is white, so I couldn’t use it with the grey up above.

Do you like it? What are your first impressions?

The “About” Page - I finally made one!

It took me a while but I managed to pull it off.

I took a bunch of Darren’s advice and added a bit of a twist. Go check it out before you read any further.

What kept me from completing it before was a lack of focus for the blog. That got me wondering whether or not I really wanted to associate my true name and image with it or not. But, now that the focus is sound and the passion is present, and increasing every moment, I have no problem with the whole anonymous thing. Which of course, is the reason for the “intro” you hopefully have already read. Needless to say, it’s fictitious, but, the rest is sound, honest-to-goodness truth.

So did you enjoy it? Did it answer the fundamental questions an “about” page should? Let me know.

New Categories…and many old ones trashed

I have restricted the topics to 12 categories and deleted a bunch of unfocused and off-topic rubbish.

The new categories are:

• Writing Tips
• Freelancing
• Blogging (with a WordPress sub-category)
• SEO
• Making Money
• Internet Marketing
• Productivity
• Copywriting
• General
• Art
• Books
• Vocabulary

Up until now I was blogging about anything and everything I found interesting. I’m kind of a renaissance soul so it was difficult not to. I don’t plan on deleting any past posts, as some of them, like this one, were pretty popular so that would be unwise. I do however pledge to keep my off-topic fascinations to a very bare minimum, and on the occasion I slip, I will try incredibly hard to relate it to one of the topics above.

Book, books and more books

My books page, where you can discover great new books, and read along and chat about it with me if you’d like, has had its intro rewritten and is now fairly current…it’s always being updated.

Let me know if you enjoy it. And I’d love if you left a comment at the bottom of that page with your favorite book recommendation. If you see something you might like to read, do go ahead and use the link to click through to Amazon.com. It helps support the site, and it saves a faerie from loosing its wings.

Vocabulary Words

This is a place for me to get my creative juices flowing as well as learn, and help teach, some great new words.

Give it a look over and please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of the page with some words you’d like to be covered.

ProgressFly - The WordPress works-in-progress plugin

This is just a cool little WordPress plugin I found lurking around the interwebs. I’ll be using it to track my writing projects for now, but it can track a multitude of things. You can read about it over at scribbling damselfly, and download it from the WordPress Plugins repository.

Scribbles & Words Sponsors

I’ve added a few sponsors to the site. We all know it’s how we bloggers achieve a living through this medium. But, I have decided to only add things which I have personally tried, tested, abused, and have found indispensable whether as a product or a service.

And so far that includes the following:

1. Amazon - Books. Need I say more?
2. Adagio Teas - The Best place to get tea. Period. (If I ran a product based business, I would model it after these guys.)
3. Google Ads - Without these blogs would be a smudge on the interweb mainframe.
4. RossetaStone - The best language learning software I’ve found hands down.
5. WidgetBucks - Pay-per-click shopping widgets.

New Subscribe Page

And of course, this wouldn’t be a blog without good ol’ RSS. I have created a page dedicated to supplying you with your subscription of choice.

Subscribe by RSS Feed

Please do subscribe to the blog if you enjoy anything you’ve read so far. There’s plenty more to come. If you’re familiar with RSS and News Aggregators you can do that via the RSS feed.

If you’re not sure what that is you can learn all about it from Darren over at ProBlogger.net.

Subscribe by Email

For those of you that want an alternative to RSS you can subscribe to Scribbles & Words by Email via FeedBurner.

You’re information is private and will NOT be shared.

Thank you all. I hope the new year brings you health, wealth and happiness beyond your wildest dreams!

[Image Credit: pipeapple]