Welcome to the Melody Watson About Page!

Hi there! Welcome to melodywatson dot com. In spite of the fact that I use it for business purposes, this is also a personal website. A separate site - and a redesign of this one - is in the works. But for now, it's all here this one site.

This page is 3-4 times longer than it should be. "Do as I say, not as I do," anyone? No worries; I'll shorten it one day. For now, read on if you're in a reading kind of mood...

A Bit About My Work

Let's talk about Squarespace for a second, shall we? Squarespace is the platform I use for hosting this site, and I also use it in the projects on which I collaborate with other people. Because when I discovered this particular content management system, the clouds parted, the angels sang, and I walked around for a while a little bit convinced that I had, in fact, won the lottery.

Squarespace keeps the do-it-yourself crowd front-and-center. Which is why it was quite by accident that I discovered the numbers of people who nonetheless need or want help when they elect to go this route. Convenient, no? So these people I mentioned... who are they? In spite of the fact that my clients come from everywhere and need sites for all manner of reasons, most of them also have something in common. They generally prefer to collaborate in a fairly organic, creative manner. I tell my clients that I think of it as my job to pull the site they want out of them, whether they even know what that might look like, yet, or not. Life is a tapestry of stories, and I help my clients tell their stories. Whether the story of their paintings, the trip they're planning, why they're passionate about fitness, or decorating, or photography, or quilting, or cyber security - it doesn't matter, really. We'll still be working together to tell the story of what they do and why it matters so much to them. This leads to satisfied customers and readers for them!

Did I mention I love my work? I am, in fact, completely fired up about what I do, and the people I get to do it with. For those interested in learning more, I have quite a lot to say about the process and about Squarespace specifically, over here. You can see sample designs in my portfolio.

Now we're going to talk about some other things.

Passion. Enthusiasm. Laughter. Creativity. Quality relationships. Stories. Gratitude. Music...  These are among the most important elements of my life, and these are the things about which I often write in my blog. (I also write about my nephew sometimes, because... well, if you had my nephew, you'd write about him, too. Yes. He's that awesome. You're just gonna' have to trust me on that one.) Life is a gift and I despise even the hint that there would be such a thing as boredom. Seriously? With all there is to explore, learn, taste, see, do, discuss... where could any single human being come up with the time to be bored?

Having this portable career is really handy since I'm a bit of a quasi-nomad. For a while now I've lived a fairly untraditional existence. It's recently occurred to me that it might be time to change that. The jury's still out. I've blogged about it on occasion, so if you're new here, and curious, you can read My Dad Doesn't Know Where I Live, which probably explains my current way of living as well as anything else I've attempted to articulate.

There are other repeat themes that appear in my blog, too. Sharing a few of them might give you a bit more insight into my world and what this site is all about. "The stories of me," you might say. Or you could just jump in and start with the most recent post. That'd be fine, too.

In no particular order, here are some things I've written, that relate to some of my interests:

• Did you start your novel yet? I finally did, and was more than 30,000 words into writing it when I realized I had to put it on hold for a while. Don't get all stressed out. I love the story. I love the process of writing the story. I just needed to focus on some other things for a while. Still, you can read about what it's like to finally begin writing a novel here. And some related posts follow, over here.
• If I hadn't gotten all excited about designing websites through Squarespace, I would have likely gone back to school to study photography. That was the plan for a while. In the end, I didn't, but the love for looking at the world through a camera never disappeared. Here's a post about a fun shot from a while back. And here's a bit about that asinine challenge I came up with, to shoot 10,000 photos on a 6 week trip. 
• Travel hasn't been nearly as big a part of my life as it needs to be. But that will change one day. For now, you can peruse the random pieces I've written about one of my loves, over here.
• Sometimes I write about my quirky family, and they're still speaking to me. Here's a fun one about a particularly kooky, memorable Christmas.
• I took a break from writing about ADD for a long time, since it was suggested that doing so might hurt my business. Turns out you'd probably want to know before hiring me, since really we're just looking for a good match. You're going to find out anyway, and turns out it's a pretty common label for web-types, anyway. Here's one of many posts devoted to the topic.
• Creativity is kind of like oxygen. So I'd be hard pressed to choose a definitive post. Still, as with travel, you're welcome to take a peek at the Creativity category and see if anything grabs you.

Then there are the ones Google loves:

I think of it as a formula: host your sites on Squarespace and write your face off (for a long stretch of time, anyway,) and Google will fall in love with you. That's my delusion about how my organic traffic has been generated, anyway. Aside from the keyword searches that end up helping me pay my bills, (ie: the ones that include the word "Squarespace") I'm always amused by the other stuff people are looking for that brings them to my site. Entertain yourself with me, on the seeming randomness that is the world wide web?

• The common search is for "turning 39" and here's what those visitors find: Is there a support group for turning 39? (Apparently there is, and I started it. Who knew?!)
• It's been 3 and a half years since I ate that horrendous "insanity wing" but people still consistently search this phrase and wind up at Start with a waiver, end with your photo on the wall...
• Here's another biggie. People routinely search "please keep this in confidence" and show up at my personal spin on this delicate subject. What's really confidential anyway?
• There are actually two posts on the final topic: the original one, followed by the derivative one, written after discovering all those people coming to my site after Googling "writing with a southern accent." After all these years, the traffic inexplicably continues to trickle in, week after week. (For the record? I have no idea how to write with a southern accent. In spite of having been born and reared in the south.) Also? I had way more fun writing the original post, even, than its follow-up...

And that's probably more than you ever wanted to know. Thanks for stopping by! If you read something in my blog and enjoy it, please feel free to leave a comment. (I've learned that most of my readers won't, in fact, comment. However, they're always coming up to me at parties and such, saying, "that thing you wrote about [fill in the blank] was so funny!" And I'm all, "Um. I Did Not Know you even knew I had a blog!" So while I'd be sincerely pleased to hear your response the next time we end up at the same social function, it would not hurt my feelings one bit if you also left a little note in the blog! Thank you commenters in advance!

For the three of you who still want more:

Before I updated this page, there was this one. Its predecessor was over here. Way, way before that, there was Melody 101... a list of one hundred and one things about me. Some of which are still true.