2021 - 2023
Putting together an entire static website as a self-loathing, much-abused nineteen year old only months shy from passing with flying colours on an NHS autism test was a tall order to say the least. I am of a particular neuroticism, even to this night, that if I don't pick up things as fast as I like, I hate myself until the sun implodes. While the self-esteem's since improved, at the time even looking at the editor was enough to send me into a fit of overstimulated muteness. I was paralysed, too confused to proceed but too embarrassed to drop the idea entirely. So I put down the idea of coding for time being, while a less agitated ex of mine hacked at crude dashed-border boxes and in-line styles like it was 1999. To dampen the shame and get a start somewhere, I turned to Wix.
Wix, for those unfamiliar or wilfully shirking its existence for its mutilation of DeviantART, is a drag-n-drop website generator. Now to attempt some modicum of respect to the megacorporation, this format lends well to prototyping. Dragging things about the page without a single div let me get used to web design, however unskilled it was. My first layout, which unfortunately evaded the crawls of the Wayback Machine, was as stereotypically vampire-themed as one could get.
I'd liken it to a medium-sized scroll-box in the centre of the page, with a sidebar on its left side studded with appropriately gothic blinkies. Two gargoyle gifs bobbed their heads atop the box, flanking its corners. A fun fact as I was writing this section, but I tracked the source of the gif and it points to an e-vendor called GargoyleStatuary.com. He's been going since 1993, since the internet literally got started! The gargoyles I picked are listed on there as the Roaring Sentinel model, nice to have a name after years of wondering. They look straight out of a Castlevania game.
But let's get back to things. It was very much a sort of play, excessive, frivolous and unconcerned with accessibility. It was not a serious project but it was a passionate one. I sincerely wanted to join the others, and felt increasingly insecure as my site grew in size but yet not with code that I made (or stole from someone elses' site as is customary) myself.
It was a pleasant summer, and I'd learned a lot about myself, so I was brimming with ideas. Watching everything happen so instantaneously made me feel productive. I belted out dozens of pages before sagging somewhat at my engine's 100-page limit.
Then with a pile of the things on my lap, I realised I had no idea how to lay them out. Even when I did, it felt woefully unsatisfying. I resorted to quick fixes like adjusting the same navbar a dozen times, or reeling because it had a separate mobile mode and now I had to fix that. This grew so unwieldy that I neglected a page for two years. In general I'd compare this format to a glob of clay: I can bend it any way I see fit, but I am not a sculptor.
I had ideas, but I didn't have a backlog. I had some sense of a self, however scattered, but it was not fully lived in. I did not have what I needed to make this a truly interesting experience. It didn't have any of what you see now, I'd have to make projects. I'd have to learn, and in a way, I'd have to put the site down. I just didn't admit that yet.