Fresh & Juicy
Mmm mmm juicy …
Errant Ruminant just got a makeover: a fresh design, juicy functionality, and a refined focus.
TL;DR: Errant Ruminant is now a Todd-the-writer-focused website, recently updated with improved newsletter tech and enabled commenting of posts, membership, tipping, resources for writers, and more!
As my subscribers already know (I accidentally spammed them last week, after all), Errant Ruminant just got a refresh. A new theme (this time, one that is maintained by the creators) that enabled an updated website platform, and with it, all new (mostly new) styling.
It had been YEARS since I updated this website to a new codebase (embarrassing for a tech-guy). Ghost, the platform that runs this site, got stuck at an ancient version because the theme I used was no longer being maintained by the company that created it. There could be many reasons for why they dropped it, but they did.
And so, it’s long been on my to-do list to tackle the migration and upgrade of my website, but I knew it would be a painful and time-consuming exercise . I was right. It was both. Though it wasn’t nearly as painful, it certainly ate up a bunch of my time. It’s like moving from one house to the next. You don’t want to do that very often.
Let me just give you some highlights of what has been improved:
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Errant Ruminant is now Todd-the-writer focused. As I drift further away from the tech world (I left corporate America in 2017! Nine years ago!) Fewer and fewer of my ruminations are about techy stuff. In fact, I have taken down some old and crusty posts that are now woefully out of date. I’m still active in the tech community, but less engrossed. Writing is my primary focus now and within the last year or two, I have moved from dabbling at it to something more serious. And with that, Errant Ruminant is now more focused on Todd the Writer. Writing is my future.
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You can now comment on posts!!! Very cool. (Please be kind.) You have to Subscribe and Sign In at the top to do so, but, yay! Finally, you can comment on a post if you like. Hopefully, I can keep the spam at bay. We’ll see. If you have received an email with a link to this post, you have already subscribed. Speaking of which … -
Improved newsletter. The email you receive, if you have already subscribed, should be more … better? We’ll have to see. I have not tested it extensively yet.
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A cleaner design. One great thing is that the format of a page or post, if you were to print it, is FAR better than what I could manage with the old website. In fact, this problem was the primary driver for me to update my website. I agreed to teach a small class on “Manuscript Formatting,” and the page I crafted looked like utter crap when exported to PDF or printed out. Not acceptable!
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Now enabled: sponsorship via membership tiers! The subscription process lets you pick from a couple membership tiers if you are inclined to toss a few dollars my way: errantruminant.com/blog/#/portal. And for those who help support this website and my writing, I will share behind-the-scenes stuff, as well as some pre-release stories and things.
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A tip jar. A fan once asked me how they could send me a tip. At that time, I had no clean way to do so. Now you can at Ko-Fi.
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A shop. I set up a preliminary shop and hiring page at Ko-Fi. I have worked as a freelance editor in the past. Today, I’ve reopened that service in a limited capacity. Also, as I publish things, I’ll have those available for purchase.
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There are now better ways to contact me. Now, you can simply reply to a post that lands in your inbox, or you can go to errantruminant.com/contact/ and click the “Message me” button.
With my renewed focus on writing, I have restructured the top menu a bit. I have added …
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My Contact page is also my press kit page.
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A Resources for Writers page has been added. Over time, I intend to build up a collection of helpful content for other writers. Already posted is an article and included resources on a topic near-and-dear to my heart: industry standard manuscript format. Shunn.net/format represents the standard in the industry. But while his website is outstanding, it can also be a tad confusing. His guidance also includes some outdated information intermingled with more modern standards. Also, his templates are simply not very good. My goal was to streamline the description and to offer updated templates for people to use. I think I have succeeded. Maybe. Check it out here, errantruminant.com/mformat/.
And so there you have it. Let me know what you think. Cheers. -t
