BUILDING CASTLES IN THE ETHERNET.

Today at Romancing the Blog, Larissa Ione has an interesting and entertaining post on blogs as one's home. I hadn't really thought about a blog in those particular terms before, and I wondered why, because when I originally set out to design my Web site, that was exactly how I thought about it: as a virtual home---albeit one with a twist, since I could make it anything I wanted. What fun! I immediately chose a castle because I love castles. I've spent countless hours wandering around old castles in the British Isles and enjoyed every minute of it, whether the castles were still homes, like Windsor Castle, or were standing in ruins.

I also adore design and decorating (one of my favorite TV channels is HGTV), and I had a great time going through photos of old castles and other sites, choosing those that would portray the rooms and locations in my virtual home. So maybe the reason I didn't think of my blog as an online "home" is because I already had one of those, and my blog was, to me, simply another room in it.

The other day, I read a post somewhere, in which a reader was complaining about authors not updating their Web sites often enough. Several things struck me about that: (1) I like my castle the way it is. Yes, I periodically "redecorate," changing rooms and sites to make them more attractive and/or to function more smoothly. But basically, I'm pretty happy with what I now have. (2) My castle has, over the years, grown to be quite large. So it would take an awful lot of time (which I don't have) and work to constantly refurbish the entire castle. Certain rooms and locations do get updated much more often than others. But that's because they have content that needs changing on a fairly regular basis. (3) I'm not a prolific author, so I don't have new books coming out every single month---and if I don't have a new book scheduled for release just shortly, there's not a great deal for me to update with.

Three is the reason for two. I don't expect visitors to my castle to be able to see it all in one go---or even two or three (although some do). So in the past, I've tried to keep enough content at my castle that returning visitors could be entertained by rooms and sites they hadn't yet seen.

To some extent, my blog has changed that. Now, readers (and other visitors) can find something new at my castle whenever I've posted to my blog.

Even though my blog employs a stock template, I've customized it so that it fits with the rest of my castle. Other authors, however, have made their own blogs look completely different from their Web sites, so that one is not an extension of the other. It's all a matter of preference---and I like everything at my Web site to coordinate with my castle theme.

Do I really live in a castle? No---and I wouldn't want to, either. Just imagine having to clean all those rooms! *g* But I've had as much fun creating my virtual castle as I've had wandering around all those real castles in the British Isles. I hope you have fun at my castle and reading my blog, too!