Nevertheless, she persisted

I had to be practically dragged into the era of computers. Back in 1986, I was perfectly content with my 3-line-memory-erase electric typewriter; it was the bee’s knees, as far as I was concerned. Of course, once I got my fingers on an actual computer keyboard, there was no turning back. I was amazed at how fast I could type on that thing, and how easy it was to rewrite my words to improve them. I was a convert once I got my first taste.

Not so, however, with my first website.

It was a wiki — an online site created and managed collaboratively by a group or community. Setting it up was an assignment during the first term of my master’s program (2004) and it ended in tears: mine. I just could not figure out the programming or the structure, and I hated the professor for putting me through such techno hell. I felt incompetent and inadequate, but, thanks to a couple of classmates, I survived the ordeal.

While I wouldn’t say that that experience put me off technology, it surely did not enamour me of it. I was, after all, the same person who had, back in about 1990, reformatted the hard drive on my work PC. I knew just enough about DOS codes to be very dangerous when I tried to do something on my own; fortunately, the IT person was very kind and fixed my mistake.

Sheesh, technology: It’s amazing and wonderful, except when it’s not working or I mess it up or I can’t figure it out on my own. But, over the years, I have persisted and become both more interested in, and capable of, trouble shooting and trying this and that and, eventually, getting what I (more or less) need from the system or platform or program.

Today, a 5-year-old can probably build a wiki before breakfast and launch a website by lunch time. But me? It takes me a while longer and I’ve littered the internet with failed attempts along the way, but I have finally created a website that’s ready for viewing. No coding required, just a template to populate with content — not exactly easy peasy, but almost...and no tears shed! It’s for the Writing as Tool for Transformation courses I co-facilitate with Deborah Schnitzer; check it out here. [Note: the mobile site is not as pretty as the desktop version, but it should be functional.]

In other important personal-achievement news, this week (on Wednesday, April 20) I have a guest post on Jungle Red Writers, an American crime fiction authors blog I follow. I hope you’ll check that out, too.

———
Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo by Jan Canty on Unsplash