Tuesday 18 August 2015

CREATING A WEBSITE


CHOOSING A WEBSITE HOST

I have been searching for a year for the ideal website for someone who wants to post complicated text (like poetry). I need a free site. I also need one that is hosted by the web company (to save me having to do security updates, and finding and paying for a host server). I also need a site that is ok for beginners. So, I need one with already written Themes.

I am no web developer.  And I find it difficult to find (internet or magazines or books) good help when I have difficulties in posting multi-voice poetry. So I have went from WordPress (which does not always cope with the html I post) to Blogger. I have had a few difficulties with code in Blogger as well recently. So, I have started a Yola account too. I also have difficulty with Yola with some html posts.  Two html posts went on ok. Then two html posts didn’t. All these are free sites.   I use all these sites.  I write in an old laptop at home then use a memory stick to upload my writings.

Advertising:  Of the sites I have mentioned, only WordPress puts advertising on your site. I fear that, apart from it looking not that great, that there will be ads that I don’t approve of (with me being an animal rights person). I do understand they have to make a profit somehow though (Websites get paid for the advertising that is placed on your site).

I also have a free Tumblr. account.  I use a local Library for internet access but Tumblr. is partially blocked there.  This is an interesting article about using html with Tumblr.: http://buildthemes.tumblr.com/post/41557258904/displaying-html-and-code-in-tumblr-posts

I have just heard that Twitter will in the next few weeks raise its word limit from 140 characters to 10,000 characters but only for direct messages. Public Tweets are still at the 140 character limit.

Yola was recommended on many review sites. So I started a website there.  I have just found out that you can only have three pages. Also, that is does not Blog. At all! You have to Blog on Tumblr, and get posts allowed on Yola using a Tumblr. Blog Widget (it does seem to work and is easy to set up but I don’t know why you cannot do ordinary Blogging on Yola). Again they have a host of help lines and community lines and forums and help emails, but none seem to answer the questions I have. Also, I have not found Yola easy to work with (with regard to editing my website).

So, I have WordPress automatically send my posts to Tumblr. And Tumblr. automatically sends those posts to Yola. They must get tired out.

Partly because no website is perfect for me and partly for me to be able to write about whether they are worth joining, I have started a new free website on Altervista. My other new Website name is: multivoicepoetry.altervista.org They offer three different levels of complexity of theme. I have chosen (yes, you guessed it) beginner level. It seems to be able cope with the html for my poems as long as they are not five or six columns broad and needing a lot of horizontal space.

I cannot try out every website host but I did note that both Wix and Freehostia have some themes which are Free.

 

You will find on touring the internet that huge excellent looking reviews of websites sometimes miss things or get things wrong in their comparisons. Some reviews are not independent and are sponsored.

The only way to really find which site is best is to try a few. Blogger so far has been the best website for multi-voice. WordPress is great for lovely themes and simple prose. But Yola seems very limited.

And I am on Facebook too.

And on You Tube (well, Chromatic Voices 2 are) at:


 


I have a multi-voice website. Web address is:


And at:


And at:

multi-voicepoetry.yolasite.com/

 

Also a human rights poetry website at: https://humanrightspoetryashbymcgowan.wordpress.com/

 

And a short story website at: https://ashbyshortstories.wordpress.com/

 

I also have automatic sendings of my posts on WordPress to these two sites:

 

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ashbymcgowan


 

PROSE.  Many years ago I used to write a lot of factual prose. Twice I had serious complaints against publishers. I was a Member of a professional body and also sought legal help but on both occasions I was unable to do anything. I was so upset over what had happened and the inability to something about it that I gave up writing factual prose. That was fifteen years ago.

PLAYS.  I have never found a New Writing Theatre in Scotland (if such things exist) able to help me develop and put on any of the plays I have written.  None have ever come to any rehearsed readings of my work that they have been invited to. And I have no connections in any Theatres

Poetry.  In poetry, conFAB is worth looking at for possible support.

Speaking for all the creative writing disciplines I have used, I have never (apart from conFAB) had funding from any creative group or writing group. Any Funding I (or Chromatic Voices) has had has come via the poetry group conFAB.
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