Beginnings
'Postings From An Edge' began with a first post back in May 2006, making it now on the verge of its third birthday. Were I able to put more of my focus into it, I'd probably mark that particular anniversary (perhaps with a masthead or something). As it is, energies are still largely directed elsewhere so it'll probably pass quietly and make far less noise about the fact than the average three year old. However, this post is not about how irregularly I update this particular blog.
Six months after I began it, I started a second blog as a place to collect all my publishable writings together. I began it on Blogger, using the same service as this one uses, and started sifting through my archives of published and unpublished works for pieces that were up to a decent enough standard to push in front of an audience. Of course, as it was on the internet anyway, it's been effectively live and linked to for some time and has even had a little action around it (always good to get relevant comments).
The intention was to fiddle around with the HTML and figure out how to make it more easy to order and navigate once all the content was uploaded. Given that it was being done at a pace considerably slower than that at which the internet tends to operate, by the time it was almost ready I'd discovered that it would actually be much better to use Wordpress and build it up in there rather than hacking around with code.
With all posts up, I imported the whole thing into Wordpress and then had to go through more cosmetic doctoring to clear up the import. Most posts look as originally intended, but there was a weird function of the import where many of the inverted commas ended up the wrong way round. For now, that's how I'll leave it. The original Blogger site will remain online but will not be updated with any new content.
Dom Pates: Collected Writings
After all this time and with plenty of tweaking over the years, the site is now fully up and running and ready to meet its audience. Dom Pates: Collected Writings is an archive of written works that includes magazine articles, interviews, reviews, travel pieces, short stories, song lyrics and more. The earliest pieces date from 1991, when I served as Music Editor on a Cardiff college magazine that I helped found along with fellow students. The most recent material comes from 2007, and covers lyrics for the Shelf Life album 'Best Before End', plus various pieces I wrote for publications in Tokyo.
Hopefully, it should be easy enough to find your way around the site. Pages are ordered by Features, Fiction and Lyrics with a drop-down menu on the right side to go to a particular category. There are also a number of other features, allowing you to share any content you like, subscribe to the RSS feed to stay up to date with new activity on the site, or to find me elsewhere on the web.
For any readers new to the service, each post can be voted on using Digg.com. You'll probably need to register an account with Digg, but once you have, you can click on the yellow button on the top right of the post to add your vote and help get the content a little more noticed. If you like (or loathe) what you read, do please leave a comment on the post itself - the more comments from readers, the more I'll be encouraged to write!
Future content
The amount I write does tend to depend on where I'm at, both creatively and personally. As I produce more material in the future (eg columns or magazine pieces, more short stories or lyrics for a second Shelf Life album), it'll find its way onto the site.
In the meantime, dip in, take a look around, give it some feedback and please help spread the word. If you'd like to exchange links for a similar or relevant site, there's a Contact page too for getting in touch.
Thanks.
'Postings From An Edge' began with a first post back in May 2006, making it now on the verge of its third birthday. Were I able to put more of my focus into it, I'd probably mark that particular anniversary (perhaps with a masthead or something). As it is, energies are still largely directed elsewhere so it'll probably pass quietly and make far less noise about the fact than the average three year old. However, this post is not about how irregularly I update this particular blog.
Six months after I began it, I started a second blog as a place to collect all my publishable writings together. I began it on Blogger, using the same service as this one uses, and started sifting through my archives of published and unpublished works for pieces that were up to a decent enough standard to push in front of an audience. Of course, as it was on the internet anyway, it's been effectively live and linked to for some time and has even had a little action around it (always good to get relevant comments).
The intention was to fiddle around with the HTML and figure out how to make it more easy to order and navigate once all the content was uploaded. Given that it was being done at a pace considerably slower than that at which the internet tends to operate, by the time it was almost ready I'd discovered that it would actually be much better to use Wordpress and build it up in there rather than hacking around with code.
With all posts up, I imported the whole thing into Wordpress and then had to go through more cosmetic doctoring to clear up the import. Most posts look as originally intended, but there was a weird function of the import where many of the inverted commas ended up the wrong way round. For now, that's how I'll leave it. The original Blogger site will remain online but will not be updated with any new content.
Dom Pates: Collected Writings
After all this time and with plenty of tweaking over the years, the site is now fully up and running and ready to meet its audience. Dom Pates: Collected Writings is an archive of written works that includes magazine articles, interviews, reviews, travel pieces, short stories, song lyrics and more. The earliest pieces date from 1991, when I served as Music Editor on a Cardiff college magazine that I helped found along with fellow students. The most recent material comes from 2007, and covers lyrics for the Shelf Life album 'Best Before End', plus various pieces I wrote for publications in Tokyo.
Hopefully, it should be easy enough to find your way around the site. Pages are ordered by Features, Fiction and Lyrics with a drop-down menu on the right side to go to a particular category. There are also a number of other features, allowing you to share any content you like, subscribe to the RSS feed to stay up to date with new activity on the site, or to find me elsewhere on the web.
For any readers new to the service, each post can be voted on using Digg.com. You'll probably need to register an account with Digg, but once you have, you can click on the yellow button on the top right of the post to add your vote and help get the content a little more noticed. If you like (or loathe) what you read, do please leave a comment on the post itself - the more comments from readers, the more I'll be encouraged to write!
Future content
The amount I write does tend to depend on where I'm at, both creatively and personally. As I produce more material in the future (eg columns or magazine pieces, more short stories or lyrics for a second Shelf Life album), it'll find its way onto the site.
In the meantime, dip in, take a look around, give it some feedback and please help spread the word. If you'd like to exchange links for a similar or relevant site, there's a Contact page too for getting in touch.
Thanks.
