I’ve been pretty busy this month re-doing my own site at http://www.emilyakin.com/ and the site for Kentucky Christian Writers Conference. I’m using Front Page 2000, and I’ve forced myself to learn more about it as I’ve re-designed my site with essentially the same structure. I managed to find a nice image to use along with my new portrait. Since I don’t use nail polish, I didn’t want the fingers on the keyboard to be “painted.” I had a hard time finding a keyboard with typing fingers that were, shall we say, gender neutral. You may have noticed that I used the same image in the header for this blog that I used on my Web site.

I started from scratch with the Ky Christian Writers site. The theme for the writers conference is “Publish His glorious deeds among the nations” Psalm 96:3 (NLT). The print logo used by the group has a globe and a book with the Bible verse superimposed. I wanted to keep the concept but have more color and depth for the Web site design. I searched for a free graphic on the Web and found one that’s just right. I set up the banner in Publisher 2000, copied and pasted into Ulead photo software and converted it to a jpg. Once I had the banner, it was just a matter of plugging it in and setting up the rest of the page. I’ll admit, I did have to get professional help at one point.

I used the same banner on http://www.kychristianwriters.blogspot.com/ to provide continuity between the two sites. If you’re at all interested in writers conferences, please subscribe to the KCWC blog, and maybe we’ll see you at the conference next year.

I’m doing OK with Front Page, but I would not have gone out and bought it to do these sites. I want to do more research on the WordPress version that you download onto your computer. This version requires a hosting account, and therefore is not free. Supposedly, though, you get a lot more functions with that version.

News flash: I just found a great article on Web sites for writers on the Writer’s Digest site. Be sure to check it out, especially if you don’t already have a site or if you’re thinking of changing your current arrangement.