Starting a new writing site... why Perspectives on Writing makes sense to me

Am I crazy to start a new writing site? There are already so many! But no, I think this one is unique, and offers a benefit to writers that other sites don't. Not that they are not good; no, each is unique, and most are very helpful. I plan to feature articles about great writing sites as the days go by.

One thing at a time, that's all I can do. I'd love to build up a large collection of writing articles, but this will happen only one piece at a time, like building up a huge castle one block of stone at a time. All this reminds me of Anne Lamott's much-loved book, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, so-named because her brother had to write a long essay on birds, and did it one bird at a time. This is how writing works. With novels, it is one scene at a time.

A few days ago I installed the content management system (CMS) on my domain name - http://www.perspectivesonwriting.com - which I've had for a while. I bought it on October 5, 2007, because at the time I called my writing blog "Perspectives on Writing" and didn't want anyone else to take the domain. I've decided to change all that, turn my writing site into something else (more on that later, as it happens,) and develop a real website using this domain.

I didn't design this theme; it is one I found on the net... and it isn't unique to this site. I may change it later but for now, I'm liking it a lot! I installed that after installing the CMS, which is Drupal, by the way. Drupal is the same CMS the NaNoWriMo site uses. I'm finding it to be a refreshing change from my usual fare of WordPress blogs.

This past week I started putting articles on this site. I'll be pulling articles out of my blog and writing site, placing them here, then deleting them there so they show on the web only in one place. I'm using a 301 redirect to tell search engines where I moved the articles to. It will be a long process. I've managed to build up a nice collection of articles over the last few years.

So, that's where the site is, to date. Yesterday I created a Squidoo lens about this project: For Writers: Perspectives on Writing... With a Contest! I'm hoping that Squidoo lensmasters will find some benefit on writing a few articles for this site as well. I've been writing for Squidoo for several years, and make good royalties and residual income there. I feel the work I do on my own sites will complement the content writing work I'm doing there.