Welcome
Welcome to my new website! I’m Jenetta and I’m about to tell you the story of why I moved from Wordpress to Squarespace before giving you a tour of the new site. This will not be a fluff piece because it was an epic battle with indecisiveness that felt like climbing a mountain. Or what I imagine climbing a mountain would feel like, cause I’ve never done it and have no desire to do so.
Before we get into things, let me first introduce myself. I am an author who writes contemporary fiction and thrillers. I’m also an artist who likes to draw digitally, though I have ventured in several other mediums as an artist: polymer clay, acrylic paint, and charcoal. While I am an author and artist, I am not an illusionist so I’m going to be transparent and say I do not make enough off either to live or give the kind of lifestyle I desire for me and my family. For that I work in Corporate America doing process and compliance work which I enjoy. As someone who believes in God and Jesus I recognize that I’m blessed to work in multiple areas that I enjoy.
Now that you know a little about me, let me tell you why I’ve moved from Wordpress to Squarespace. I have had a Wordpress blog since I began many years ago posting my short stories, and blogging about this and that. I loved the fact that anything that I wanted to get it to do I could add a plugin to get that feature or functionality. What I didn’t love was the time it took me to research what I needed and the administration tasks. Twice I had a malicious attack and had to go in and clean up directories. I would go in to create a post and would find a notice of the latest upgrade that I needed to install or plugins that I needed to upgrade. Those things needed to be kept up to date for security purposes so I would redirect my attention.
Last year I started having loading issues where my site would take a long time (15 secs or more) to load. I don’t think it was Wordpress’ fault I believe the issue was with my host. However, the issue got me to thinking, maybe it’s time to move my site to a different platform. It would be nice to not have to do so many of the site admin work and maintenance.
With that thought in mind I started searching YouTube and the internet looking for information on which platforms were the best. Finally I narrowed my choices down to Wordpress and Squarespace. My indecision on whether I should move kicked in because Wordpress usually came out on top on any article, blog or video comparing the two. I wavered back and forth to the point I was getting tired of my inability to decide. I tried calling my site host several times and working with them to up the speed of my site, but each effort they made only resulted in temporal results. It was frustrating.
Finally, I put on my process analyst hat and asked myself how do you want this to work? Do you want to keep doing the site upgrades and additional admin work or do you want to streamline and focus more on art and writing? The truth of the matter was that I knew what I wanted, but I was scared to leap to something new. I knew Wordpress and the headaches that came with it. Squarespace was not something I knew and it could end up being more trouble than the switch was worth. That was fear operating and once I recognized it I decided it was time to take the leap to get to what I wanted. The beauty of taking a leap is, rarely is anything permanent. If I moved and decided this wasn’t the best action then I could always move again.
That is what I’ve done and so far I’m glad I did. I’ve been working on my new site for over a month and not once after I logged in did I have to upgrade the site or any plugins. I went in and took care of exactly what I intended to with no detours getting in my way. Is it possible that I’ll change my mind down the line? Absolutely, but now that I’ve gone through this I know I can make another leap if necessary. Is there anything in your life that you have been indecisive about? I challenge you to be honest with yourself and what you want and if it’s best to make a change, make it.
Now that you know how we got here, let me show you around the place. At the top of the website is a navigation menu with the following links:
Home - Main page of the site that includes a snippet from each section
Short Stories - If you love or like to read, this link will take you to all the short stories I’ve posted. It includes a novella broken into weeks for your reading pleasure as well. (I plan to post a new story once a month)
Books - Click this link and be personally escorted to Amazon and a list of all the books I’ve published.
Art Shop - Looking for wall art for your home decor, or gifts for family/friends, click this link to visit my Etsy shop where I sell printable art and art prints.
Blog - We have come full circle and this is where you’ll find my weekly blog post like this one (my plan is to post every Sunday). What will I blog about, story, art and lifestyle.
Before you go, comment below on what you do to get over being indecisive?
Note - Purchases of my books and art help support this website.