I’m a nerd.  This should not come as any surprise (it’s in the damn sub-title of my blog), so when I profess my love of comic books no one will be wonder where that declaration came from.  I’ve loved comics for as long as I’ve been able to read.  Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image, you name it and I’ve tried to get my hands on it.  The artwork and stories made a seductive mix which I was irresistibly drawn to.

I still vividly remember the first graphic novel I was given (or had even read) as a birthday present.  I can tell you what it felt like to stumble across a hardcover edition of Maus on the shelves of my elementary school library in Costa Rica.  Reading the 50th issue of Sandman "Ramadan" gave me the burning desire to one day write something half as good as that amazing tale.

As a writer you always aim to create tangible images with your words.  In comics you get the ability to combine those words with colorful imagery making a much stronger impression than with art or letters alone.  Crafting Comics is my attempt to bring that love of illustrated narrative to the Internet.  A place where other comic book creators, experienced or starting out, can gather to share their love and swap knowledge. 

Swing by and see what we have to offer or if you would like to contribute as well.  You can also follow Crafting Comics on Twitter and join our Fan Page on Facebook.

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Cuban Nomad went completely offline for several days this week.  I was caught with my pants down on this outage and didn’t have anything to let people know what was going on. 

Lessons learned from this one: I should never touch MySQL without a trained professional nearby and contingency plans need to be formulated before things goes south. The upside to all this trouble is that we’re on much better hardware and in a brand new datacenter, so these hiccups shouldn’t happen again. 

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One year ago I started shooting my thoughts out onto the Internet.  I had been doing so for many years beforehand, but this marked the day I no longer hid behind a pseudonym.  My goals weren’t very clear at the time—they still aren’t—so I armed myself with the desire to build this slice of the web into a place I could be proud of and I’ve been churning out posts ever since.

Some were articles, others confessions, the occasional personal dilemma was laid bare and I even had a picture or two.  It’s been good and hard times with this blog.  I’ve met pretty cool people through it and shared some special moments yet I sometimes struggled with keeping it going or figuring out what to say.

I can honestly say it is completely and utterly me, in all its flaws, achievements and nuances.  Here are some bits from the past year which have stood out.

Most Viewed Post

“Why vampire boyfriends and not vampire girlfriends?” is my top post.  It was the first article to jump out into the wild, appearing in links on blogs I had never heard of.  I’m not quite sure what skyrocketed it, perhaps vampires as a topic or the horror crowd at a writer’s forum I frequented.  Even though it was written at in the middle of 2009, it still gets hits every month.

The only thing to have come close to those page views was my post about “The Bisexuality of Torchwood”.  It also got a farther reach than expected, getting picked up by some Doctor Who fans.  It goes to show that vampires or sex will always be crowd pleasers.  Now I’ll just have to combine the two for a runaway success… oh wait, that’s True Blood… damn.

Most Misunderstood Post

“The Company We Keep” was about my struggles to find kindred souls in the creative field.  I used billiards as a metaphor since (for me) when you play against more skilled opponents they bring your game up, but when you play with those lesser skilled they bring your game down.  A couple of people I know took this post as a personal attack, thinking they were being singled out for one reason or another.

Misunderstandings happen, in text the tone can be interpreted in various ways.  These matters can usually be cleared up with a phone call.  What killed me was I didn’t find out about the perceived slight until months later, well after the damage was done and the time for healing had passed.  I was surprised and saddened that I lost friendships because of it.  I learned the hard way that you can’t control what people bring to your writing and sometimes things will get twisted in ways you could never dream of.

Learned The Most

I had the music bug for a bit and knocked out a couple of posts about it; “Music Unobscured” & “Songs That Strike A Chord”.  The former was about my issues with modern music techniques while the latter was about songs that resonated with me personally.

Those posts brought me a wickedly smart commenter named “kitty”.  She shared with me some serious knowledge about opera, providing not only great info, but a multitude of links to performances.  This was the first time I had my horizons broadened by a person who stumbled across my blog.

Those kind of connections are the fantastic serendipities that make blogging so satisfying.

Favorite Picture

This is from my very first post which was sparked by a workshop I attended by Clive Barker.  Being able to chat with an incredible talent like Barker motivated me to take my first steps.  This picture was a moment of pure joy.

What Next?

I still don’t have a clear direction for this blog, but that’s fine by me.  In the end I just want to be able to share my thoughts and start conversations with kindred spirits.  I’ve kept it going for a year solid and can easily see another year in its future.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.  It’s been fun, it’s been bumpy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Starting December 1st, 2009 the FTC has mandated that bloggers are to follow the same disclosure rules as most traditional media (newspapers, radio, etc).  In a nutshell, if you make money from a link, received compensation (free stuff or cash) for a review/testimonial/etc or are connected to the product/service you’re endorsing then you need to reveal that info.

The blogosphere (I feel weird saying that) has voiced many opinions regarding this change.  Personally, I could give a crap about the FTC, but their $11,000 dollar fines have my attention.  What I love is how this change is helping feed the misconception that people are making TONS of money through their blogs.  I haven’t made a red cent and I’ll venture to guess its the same for 98% of the blogs out there.  That’s not for lack of trying, but unless you’re really good at hawking your wares or have a big enough readership, the ROI will be meager at best.

Having said that, I too am joining in on the futility.  It’s minor in scope and none of the Adwords crap. Here’s what I got so far.

• Amazon links – Having been on the Internet as long as I have, my standard assumption is that ANY link to Amazon is an affiliate link.  Why would it be otherwise?  So just to be clear every single one of my links to Amazon are affiliate links.
• Thesis – WordPress is the super awesome platform I run my blog on and Thesis is the ninja-like theme I use.  I liked it so much I signed up for their program, so if you see a graphic or a link that points to Thesis *wink, wink, nudge, nudge* it’ll be an affiliate link.
• Lateral Action – This is one of my favorite sites and from time to time they offer great online courses.  When I write about these courses I always mention that the links are affiliate at the end of my post.  Not all Lateral Action links are affiliate, but the ones that are have clear labels.
• Blog Post Engineering – Following in the trend of only recommending what I myself use, Website in a Weekend’s fantastic e-book “Blog Post Engineering” has helped me craft better posts while showing me how to leverage the powerful internal workings of WordPress.  Even the minor changes I’ve made to my posting process have shown great results.

If I decide to sign up for anything else, this post will be updated to reflect that (there’s a direct link to it in my footer).  Also, if I put any reviews on my site that stemmed from free goods, I’ll make those association clear.  I think that covers all the bases.  If I missed anything, feel free to call me on it and I’ll square things away ASAP.

This post was inspired by Kelly Diels of Cleavage

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In the middle of the night, when everything was silent, I set upon my dark deeds…. muahahahaha!

Actually, all I did was move my web hosting around.  Everything seems to have come up roses, but if you see any issues please hit me up on the contact form so I can iron them out.

Now back to the LABORATORY!!! *crack of thunder*

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With a belly full of Christmas cheer (aka refreshing adult beverages), I decided to spring some site changes a little early.  My amazing and incredibly talented friend Lady Otaku designed this AWESOME header art for Cuban Nomad and honestly, I couldn’t wait to put it up.  The rest of the tweaks are all part of making my slice of the digital frontier a bit nicer.

Starting Jan 1st, 2010 I’ll be posting every Tuesday and Friday.  See you then =)

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What’s been going on during my blogging hiatus has been a lot of knowledge gathering, some ‘under the hood’ WordPress tweaking and a renewed determination to hit the ground running in the new year.  Having been away for so long, I realized I really love working on this blog.  I’ve seen slivers of its potential appear during my time writing Cuban Nomad: connections have been made into an industry I love, but never had any access to; my knowledge of communications and human interaction has increased, opening me up to new directions; and I’ve been able to help others tap into their own creativity and start them down the same path I’m on.

This is my house on the world wide web, not a shanty on someone else’s territory, but my own piece of land on the digital frontier.  I plan to make this the best that I can, leveraging the skills I have now and gaining more to keep the site moving forward.  This has already opened tiny windows of opportunity for me and I hope that the more I pour into it, the bigger those windows become.

Keep your eyes peeled in January because I’m getting ready to rock and roll.

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