Jeffrey Kishner

Web Publisher, Ecstatic Dancer

Is Web Publishing an Art?

Yesterday I watched an inspiring TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. In essence, she was talking about the need for artists to conceive of their creative genius as coming from outside themselves, as their daimon (Greek) or genius (Roman). Our inspiration comes from the gods, not from our small selves. When we succeed in creating a powerful work of art, it is because we were a receptive channel for its expression, not that we ourselves are geniuses. As Gilbert puts it, it is not the case that you are a genius, it is that you have a genius.

Recently, I’ve been lamenting the fact that I’m not being especially creative other than when I’m dancing (and trust me, my dance is no performance.) I spend most of my time editing and polishing others’ blog posts for publication, as well as working on business development and social media marketing. I write exceptionally little for the blog, except when I have something to announce or when I respond to a reader’s comment or bug report.

I used to be more more artistic in the traditional sense. In my teens and early twenties, I drew and composed. I wrote a lot in my thirties (Sasstrology is my third astrology blog, and I haven’t only blogged about astrology). And now in my fortieth year, I seem to be more concerned about making a living. Or rather, trying to blend art and commerce, to earn money doing what I feel is my calling (i.e., publishing).

I guess I’m struggling with the concept of publishing as an art. Certainly, I feel I have a vision, an aesthetic, that permeates Sasstrology. I highly value quality writing, accessible astrology, community-building. But is having an “a ha” moment about how to better sell an ebook a creative act? My sleepless nights are more about business ideas, not about how I’m going to poetically describe the tension between Jupiter and Saturn.

Maybe it comes down to passion. If my muse is communicating to me about growing the blog’s traffic or building content partnerships, that’s still the muse talking to me. It’s more about process than content, right?

Too Much All at Once: The Excitement and Stress of Growing a Blog

jugglingAstrology works in funny ways. All of my big plans for Sasstrology are happening at once. I’m not sure if it’s the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction (which isn’t aspecting any of my planets but is sextiling my MC at 29 Taurus, if a separating aspect counts) or the ingress of transiting Mars into my first house.

Here’s a list of what I’ve been doing:

  1. I integrated daily love horoscopes into the blog. I paid a contractor in Pakistan to create a PHP tool to make it easy for me to import them into WordPress and eliminate the need to spend time in the WordPress dashboard clicking on checkboxes and pulling down menus.
  2. I’m doing the finishing touches on a major upgrade to the blog that will include an updated blog architecture and a forum, so that I can leave Ning. I am learning quite a lot about “hooks” in Genesis as well as the importance of testing the compatibility of themes and plugins in a development environment, as I don’t want to “break” my blog.
  3. I am working with a partner to automate the processing of astrology reports so that I don’t have to manually churn out all the requests for free and paid reports using my Mac software.

I am excited because, with these changes, traffic could conceivably increase by 50%. Yet because everything is happening at once, I am feeling overwhelmed. I am trying to pace myself. Certain tasks have to be done by a specific day no matter what, while others can happen when I have free time and feel inspired. However, when I am in the midst of a technical problem, I do feel obsessive about it, and I would rather solve it now than put it on the backburner. Fortunately, the folks at various WordPress and BuddyPress forums have been especially helpful, as I have no training in web development.