maybe a new way

New to me, I should say.

New year, time to try something new I guess. I've been online, and making use of the net to present my craft and my work for a long time, it's been good to me, perhaps I've not been as good to it, tried a lot of different things with varied success, latest being the whole forum thing. Took me awhile to realize maybe what I was trying to do related more to the blog format than forum. Turned out to be more work and stress than I bargained for.

I think at the root of my 'net issues is the fact that it sets up a situation where I feel like I'm struggling between two completely different worlds. I'm a blacksmith, a bladesmith, I've made a deep all-encompassing study of the craft of hammer and fire for a long time, and the deeper I go, it seems like the "further back" I travel.
Then, at the same time, I've committed myself to using the internet, and computers, digital cameras, all that stuff, as the medium that I prefer to use to look after the selling side of things.

Man, does it EVER clash sometimes.

The forum was really what brought it all out as a problem. I ended up spending a lot of time as administrator, dealing with the spammers and perverts, problems with the script, emails, emails, emails, server crash, bandwidth, approving accounts, playing moderator, when much of the time it was likely me who should have been moderated.
Basically, playing at computer guy, ( and not very well), and NOT being the craftsman.

I wanted to do a sort-of journal thing for a long time, and did that to some degree on the forum, but it wasn't exactly right. Hard to explain. I think posting thoughts, but then coming back to it to answer questions, or having things go off on a tangent from the original thought, really threw me off more than I expected it would.
And again, drew me away from my little world of fire and hammers and physical effort and more towards the electronic existance, which, as it turns out, I only have a limited amount of spirit for.

I love the internet, and all that it can be, for a craftsman like myself. But it's easy to jump into things that go places you never expected.

Maybe this will be like that too?
I'll try it anyway... what could it hurt...?

( I know I've said THAT before too...)

So I announced today that the forum would be shutting down the end of the month.
I have a lot of mixed feelings right now about that. I know it's right for me at this point, to move on to the next evolution of my trip.
But, wierd thing about this internet deal is that you CAN make a whole lot of friends, and the folks on my forum, often feel like some kind of virtual family.
It's been an awesome group of folks. I wonder if I'm letting them down.
I hope they don't feel that way.

Well, full speed ahead, I'll give this a try and see where it goes.