Venting

Well, I'll probably eventually get caught for this and it's possible I'll hurt someone's feelings, but I just have to vent some frustrations in my day.

A Little Background Information
I've been designing webpages for independent artists.  Trying a little to make a business of it, but I realize it's slow going for multiple reasons.  I charge very little both because I realize some of the best indie artists have no money and because I am driven by passion for independence more than money.  I have a huge place in my heart for independent artists (visual, musical, writers, etc)...

But They Can Be Difficult To Work With
Despite the fact that I currently consider myself an independent artist, I sometimes cross paths with one that has me banging my head against the desk daily.

I used to spend hours upon hours writing code from scratch, then using CSS templates, but still spending hours to tweak the code until the the columns, boxes, padding, font size, and backgrounds were more to my liking.

I feel that because I don't charge very much, I'm completely justified in copping out to Wordpress these days.  (Besides, I am still a writer and taking time out of my own writing to work on these web pages and I'm not really getting paid enough to quit my day job so to speak.)  Wordpress, of course, limits one on exact design layout and a few other niggly little things I used to stick in my web pages (iFrames, for starters).  There is good reason for those changes, but it limits my creativity nonetheless.

I like doing web pages because I feel creative.  I think I do a decent job writing the blurbs and the sales pitches (90% of those writing moments are left to me).  I enjoy visual art, but I'm not a painter or sculptor so I enjoy working with colors, layouts, images, and other physical attributes.

Sometimes, the artist I'm working with wants to have a say in all of those things as well...

I'm Hitting my 'Patience' Wall
A couple of years ago, I worked with this lovely lady who is crusading to help bipolar and depressed women.  At least, that was her platform. Then it was bullying, it appears, and now it's every level of depression and suicide.

Well, because they (her and her speaking partner) are picking up steam with their speaking engagements, have made come international contacts, and feel they would like a new direction, I've been asked to revamp the webpage from top to bottom.

So I'm completely rebuilding the page for this client because we are moving hosting companies and of course there is the transfer from CSS to Wordpress. At our first meeting, she handed me a screen cap of her old web page with scratches made through most of it, circling a page here and there, and adding her own text in between.

Problem one, she wants me to keep this and add that, but now we have a wordy, convoluted mess.  I work it, edit, reword, move around, and choose careful wording to remain concise, but she comes back and says she wants this word and that word added back into it.  My words cover what she's saying, but she needs those words in it.  So now we have run on sentences listing synonyms as though each word is a new idea.

Then she talks to other people, none of them professionals (neither am I, of course, but I've built well over a dozen pages from scratch back in the old days of HTML, each time using a new technique to create something interesting and giving each page its own personality).  The feedback she's getting is from the guy who writes children's books and the other guy who built a writing club web page which is dry, unfocused, and generally boring using Word Press and no other web pages to my knowledge.

After those consultations, she'll throw more emails at me.  D said this.  M said that.  Well, their information contradicts so what do you want?  Or sometimes it doesn't contradict, it's just more information.  I'm glad you took a seminar about how to use Google Stats and meta tags.  I feel like adding more and more and more and more is just creating a mess!  I can't worry about stats until we have a solid webpage built that isn't going to change every time someone comes back to find information they noticed last time they were there!

 She also goes around online and when she sees something she likes, she sends it; sometimes forgetting to mention what she likes about it, but more often than not, showing me something like 10 different ways she wants her menu.  Seriously?  Pick ONE.  Or two and I'll give you a couple options so you can pick one.  Because frankly you can only have one menu.

I had a design I thought was perfect.  On the landing page, you have a short menu at the side, an image up front, and a brief statement that says "If you're here because you're depressed, we can help" (only it says it way better).

D says they don't want anyone to have to scroll to find the initial information so I should have a top bar menu.  Okay.  You didn't have to scroll, but you want a top bar menu?  Fine.  I make a top bar menu.  Now she has used Word to create a document saying she wants the page to look like this (more or less):  Top inch, web page name.  Below that, their 3 inch logo.  Under that, a their tagline.  Beneath that, the menu bar, then below that, a video to introduce themselves and then, finally, the statement saying why they're here.

So now the menu is about halfway down the page on my large monitor and the video of them is cut off so you have to scroll down to see it.

Meanwhile with first menu I did, the side menu was high enough that it ended before halfway down the page, then you hover and it drops down a the sub menu and sub sub menus.  Now the drop downs will cover the video.  No harm done, I suppose, but on a smaller screen you are going to be scrolling down.

So what the hell was so wrong with the first one I did??

Last week she called on the phone.  We played a little phone tag because I was pretty busy that day, but when we talked, she said she wanted to change up the menus a bit.  I grumbled internally, but saw that a little rearranging of the dozen pages I already created would do the trick.

Then over the weekend, she sends the file with the suggested page layout (which I don't like, btw, but it's not about me) and below that, 3 pages of suggested menu items.

It means totally deleting about 8 pages I already researched and created.

It also means creating about 8 new pages of information which she described only as "include reviews, cost and email request" or "Step 1. I want to Recover", "3 stages of recovery" and things like that.  I told her she needed to research that information herself, but again with the... Seriously?  You're the "expert" on the subject, but you are just giving me page names and expecting me to create content?  Research for you?

And then I think what happens when I create those 8 pages and then someone else says she should do it differently?  She'll drop 5 pages and ask for 5 new ones, I suppose.

I keep telling her she needs to focus and solidify her decisions.  She thinks she has, but then is easily swayed by someone else's thoughts.  So I think we've got direction, then the rug is pulled out and I have to crochet a new one.

Grrr

All whilst trying to prep 3 novels in hopes I can grapple myself an agent or publisher, editing a 4th so I feel ready to pitch it, and I don't remember the last time I got to write anything new on that 5th novel which I have completely outlined.  Since writing the new stuff is what makes a writer feel alive, it's rather disheartening every time my work is discounted and I'm asked to create all new work.