Welcome Mat

My head is in a lot of places just now.

I haven't been working for five weeks, because the restaurant where I was cooking was closed for renovations.  [I'm back at work this Tuesday].  So each day, I wake up, I watch the news, I fix or edit video ... then I spend about four to six hours converting the wiki, taking a few minutes here or there to maintain the online campaign (which is moving slow, but steadily ~ I don't think I'm the only one that's distracted].

In the evening, I spend some time with other people or take a walk; then I work on whatever seems right.  I might do a blog post, like this one.  Or watch something [Black Mirror Season 4!]; but on the whole, almost all my fervor is directed to what problems might come up with editing and such.  I've learned a lot about sound I didn't know in the last two weeks.

Recently, I was pressed by a friend on the subject of a "landing page" ~a home base for my content that wouldn't rely on my main blog, this one.  After all, I'm accumulating a lot of differently located content.  There's this blog, the wiki blog and the master class blog.  And the online campaign.  There's my patreon page ... and on that page are the 38 comics I did last year, which deserves its own home.  There are four books that could also stand a link.  Now I'm adding the Authentic podcast; and there's the old short-lived podcast with my daughter.  There are a few videos connected to my youtube page.  Then there's the stuff everyone has: twitter and facebook; and maybe google+, which I ignore.  I suppose I could add to that stuff that's on my google drive, plus the content that's available for a $10 or $20 donation on Patreon.  That's a lot of links there, scattered through different platforms and easily misplaced or forgotten.  Plus I have more links in mind for things I haven't launched yet.

So a landing page would bring them all together in one place.  As it happens, I possess a website url of my own: http://alexissmolensk.com.  At the moment, it links to my Lulu page, but of course I can change that.  So I'm in a position to create a landing page when I want one.

With the exception that I don't program.  A minor inconvenience.

A landing page needs a layout ... and I really am not interested in something wix is designed to create for me:

But it does put me in mind for something that might be appropriate to D&D.  I like the idea of clicking on icons, like the sidebar of this blog, where a click will take you to my book, How to Run.  Having a frame that surrounds the various links, presented as images, seems like something that would work ... and the most obvious frame that occurs to me would be a dungeon.  Not as cluttered and hokey as this:

... but certainly something that I could draw myself, upon which the links could float, inside rooms connected by hallways and other imagery.  Even better, the actual image could be larger than the canvas of the webscreen, so that as the mouse was panned to the left, right, up and down, following halls, it would lead to additional links, that could be "discovered" ... that notion supported by signs and clues that I could draw in the halls and behind "secret doors."

I don't want to gamification it, but it would be nice to play a little.  A bigger frame, too, could make the overall presentation less cluttered and more interesting.  I've been assured this is "easy."  The way xkcd did it with this comic.  No where near as big as that.

So, just some thoughts for the future.  Making it happen is another thing apart from conjecture, but it is obviously an inevitable stage.