Over the past month, I have been working on upgrading the technical infrastructure that powers my website and several other websites that I manage. While on the surface, this may seem like a distraction from my work on the book, it is an important step toward getting back to my writing.
One aspect of having a website that people often overlook is that it requires ongoing maintenance and attention. Once a website is set up, you can’t simply set it and forget it. Well, you could, but then you run the risk of getting hacked because new software vulnerabilities are always being discovered.
To protect yourself from these exploits, your website needs to be running the most up-to-date software, which requires you to constantly be installing updates. You may be familiar with this process when it comes to your phone or computer.
The biggest difference between your phone and a website is that a website is publicly available and can be accessed by anyone in the world. This makes staying on top of software updates even more crucial. However, installing these updates also comes with its own risk because new software occasionally introduces changes that break your existing setup. When a breaking change happens, it can require significant time and energy to diagnose and fix. That’s exactly the problem I have been dealing with.
About six or seven years ago, I developed a series of scripts that helped me manage the installation and roll-out of software updates. While that system has served me well, it could also be fragile and temperamental. Occasionally, an update to one site would bring down all the sites I manage. Other times, installing an update would require several weeks of work.
Now, of course, one solution to this problem is to pay a company to manage your website for you, and for certain services like email, that is exactly what I do. However, since I run over a dozen websites for my book, my film, and other creative projects, it would be quite expensive to have them all managed by someone else. That is why I “self-host.” It allows me to run multiple websites at a fraction of the cost. However, the trade-off, as I’ve discussed, is that I am responsible for making sure all the software stays up-to-date.
So this summer, I embarked on an eight-week-long project to modernize and improve how I manage my websites. First, I separated each site into its own environment or “container” to ensure that updates or changes to one will not negatively affect the rest. Then I created several automations that will install new software on my behalf.
In the short term, rebuilding my system and migrating all my sites has been a lot of work, but I believe it will ultimately reduce the amount of time I spend managing my websites and allow me to focus more on writing.
Written by a member of the Quechan and Laguna Pueblo tribes, this memoir examines the author’s life growing up on the Fort Yuma Reservation and her evolving relationship with her parents and cultural heritage. This book was recommended to me while attending the Under the Volcano writing retreat, and is a moving combination of family story and native history. There was a lot in this memoir that I connected with and admired. I especially liked her message at the end of the book about the power of writing to connect us to our ancestors. I definitely recommend this to anyone, especially adoptees, who may struggle with connecting back to their heritage.
This short novel, recommended to me by my wife, tells the story of a family split between the U.S. and Colombia. With just a hint of magical realism, this story delves into the challenges of migration, remaining a family across borders, and the difficult choices people face while searching for a better life. It also highlights the complex nature of growing up as a child stuck between cultures. I especially enjoyed how each chapter of the book focuses on a different member of the family and adds a perspective that is unique to their experiences.
Now that the infrastructure that hosts my website has been updated, it’s time to tackle some improvements to my site. That, along with a revamped early reader program, is what I will be working on over the coming month. I’ve also got some work to do for my documentary film as we ramp up to raise finishing funds. I’ll provide more details on both subjects in my next update. Until then, I hope you have a wonderful month.
Sincerely,
Nelson/Roberto
While the spring coaching season is often very busy, I’ve also had some distractions to contend with that have made it harder to write. Since I don’t have a lot of news on the writing front, I thought I’d share some links to some of my work and a video that was sent to me.
Throughout most of January, I participated in the Under the Volcano writing residency in Tepoztlán, Mexico, which was an unforgettable experience that I will reflect on for some time. The remarkable people I met there inspired me to continue developing my craft.
This past month has been a good one. I was able to get some writing done and have finished seven chapters of my magical realism rewrite. I also started working on one of the new historical fiction scenes, and have been preparing for my writer’s retreat in Mexico.
