We’ve all heard about how mechanics take care of their own cars. As in, often, they don’t. They tell everyone else to get the regular, scheduled maintenance as listed in the Owner’s Manual, but for their own cars… well, these usually get put off. And put off. An oil change might get done weeks or months after it’s should have been, or it might not. Until something goes wrong.

Such is the life of a web designer. When I first set up this site, I didn’t have any books published. I didn’t blog. I just set the site up because we’re all told we’re supposed to, in case an agent or editor we’ve sent a submission in to decides to look us up. My site had a basic page about my books, a bio, and a contact page, but that’s it. Mainly, I wanted to keep my domain name, because I secured it way back in 2000, and it’s a nice, short, easy to spell one that would get snapped up in microseconds if I let it expire.

Then I read Kristen Lamb‘s We Are Not Alone, in which she convinced me of the benefits of blogging. (Like being able to talk about my dogs and post cute puppy videos. :D) So I dutifully put up a blog, and made my recent posts my home page. I published two books. It was all good.

But something wasn’t right. I had a blog, with the appropriate pages for an author website, but no real home page. That’s been over a year now.

I got new author photos, shot by the wonderfully-talented Pat Strang of 513Photography. It was time I stopped being a web designer who took care of her own website like a busy mechanic takes care of her own car. So please, take a look at my new home page, and let me know what you think!

I still have work to do. I want to add an archive list to my blog pages, now that I have enough material to make it worthwhile. I probably should add a Search function. I’m going to streamline the sidebar with my book info that shows up on every page besides home. But this is a good start.

I’d love to hear from you! Does my home page include the information you’d want, as a reader who wants to know about an author? If you were to stumble across it via links, does it tell you what I, and my writing, is all about? Is there anything you’d suggest I’d add to my home page?