This week marks the one-year anniversary of Words of the West. The decision to launch this website was both the realization of a dream and a call for responsibility, and it was a decision I sat on for months until I felt the time was right.
It’s been liberating to share my stories, my reflections and my perspective with the world at large. And the significant task of adding fresh pieces of wisdom every week has kept me both sharp and grounded. But these sensations are just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve learned so much through this experience, in so many unexpected places. And as Words of the West is all about sharing wisdom, I felt compelled to share what I’ve learned so far here.
- Time Is The Boss: I’m not going to lie — sticking to a weekly schedule is tough. Writing inspiration doesn’t come with a clock; on some weeks, conjuring up fresh ideas was a challenge. While I’m fortunate to have a robust swipe file of ideas, there were definitely some moments where I felt as if I was going through the motions. But I knew that Words of the West deserved my best every week, and that challenge helped keep my writing to a high standard, even on days where natural inspiration was lacking.
- Consistency Breeds Quality: Looking at some early Words of the West articles and some recent ones, I noticed one major difference — length. The early articles were significantly shorter than recent ones. (In fact, if this was an early Words of the West article, it’d be about over by now. Additionally, many those early articles more poetic in nature — the words had a nice rhythm, but readers had to connect the dots. Over time, the articles became both clearer and more comprehensive.
- Emotion Is Real: I’ve been writing for most of my life, in one format or another. But I’d never before experienced anything quite like what I felt when I posted Darkness in the Light. As I prepared to publish the article — a firsthand account of the events of September 11th, 2001 — my hands were shaking and my heart was racing. Yes, the process of putting words onto the Internet can be a deeply emotional experience.
- Think On Your Toes: On a hot summer night, I spent hours writing an article extolling the virtues of Dallas — prose meant to quash the national perception of Big D as a “City of Hate.” But as I was putting pen to paper, 20 miles away, a sniper was taking aim at Dallas Police officers patrolling a Black Lives Matter protest. By the time the sun came up the next morning, five of those officers were no longer with us. Not surprisingly, the article I’d drafted up never saw the light of day — replaced instead with a personal reflection of the event that shook our region to its core. Everything doesn’t always go to plan; it’s important to be prepared for anything — even something terrible.
- It’s About You: The stories, thoughts and reflections shared on Words of the West have originated from my memories and perspectives. But the process of putting them on this website has changed their purpose; the goal has become to share, not to tell. I realized this early on, and I’ve tried to ensure all articles have a valid takeaway for you, the reader. This has made the writing process a bit more complex, but I do hope it’s been worthwhile for y’all.
- Tech Is Tough: Writing weekly articles for a website is one thing. Maintaining the site is quite another. Over the course of the year, I’ve made some technical changes, tweaked the website theme, switched to self-hosting and worked around several issues with broken code. While I’m an Internet marketer by trade, rolling up my sleeves and dealing with these technical issues wasn’t easy, and sometimes took several hours at a time. However, these trips down the rabbit hole have been useful; I now understand how to navigate some deeply technical and syntactic components of websites — a skill that will prove useful in the long run.
Looking forward, I’m excited to tackle some new challenges I aim to improve at distributing Words of the West, so that more readers have access to the wisdom contained in these articles. I hope to further customize the website design and get rid of the little quirks that keep me up at night. And, of course, I’m ready to tackle the ongoing challenge of adding high quality writing for y’all to read, week in and week out.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned. The best is yet to come!