This is a test
UPDATED 7/17/21: The follow.it experiment was a bust. Their new-post emails looked spammy and gross. I deleted the account and posted an update here.
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I know, I know, I disappeared again! After dormancy, uh…more dormancy. At least here on the blog, and on social too, for the most part. I spent May and June feverishly busy on other projects, and when I wasn’t working I stayed offline as much as possible. I completely overhauled my studio, deep-cleaned the main floor of the house, reorganized the garage, fiddled with a picture-book manuscript, studied all ten Brave Writer Dart books for the upcoming academic year (I’m writing the whole batch of Darts), survived the heat dome, and read or reread all the novels of Emily St. John Mandel. That’s right: my pandemic lockdown began and ended* with Station Eleven.
*Oregon lifted all COVID-19 restrictions last week, but our home life hasn’t changed much yet. The spiking numbers of the Delta variant have me feeling cautious still, so I won’t be ditching my mask quite yet, not in indoor public spaces. I did get to spend a delicious evening with a circle of fully vaccinated chorale friends, singing around a firepit, and I’m hoping for an encore soon.
It’s a bit surreal to be all caught up on chores in the real world, and way behind on things in my digital spaces. But the former couldn’t have happened if I’d kept up with the latter. My sidebar booklist is months out of date. My whole site needs a spring cleaning. I didn’t even announce the Nerviest Girl audiobook and paperback launch here! Yikes! That is extremely bad authoring. More on that soon?
One of my looming digital chores was to deal with the demise of Feedburner’s email subscription service. If you’ve been accustomed to receiving an email whenever I publish a new post here, it may look different now. This particular post is meant to test the new delivery vehicle (Follow.it). If you received a notification email, would you mind letting me know in a comment? And if you should have received that email and didn’t (and you happen to drop by and notice this post), please let me know that too. The transfer was supposed to be seamless, but the subscriber number changed, so there was a puckered seam somewhere.
To my vexation, the new service seems to have added little ‘follow’ icons on mobile, hovering over the text in a seriously annoying way. I’ve checked all the settings and I most definitely have NO ICONS selected. Yet there they are on my phone, irritating as mosquitoes! If you’re a mobile reader, I apologize and I hope to disappear the icons very soon.
All right, this post is like a phone call to a friend you haven’t talked to in way too long. Too much to catch up on! I’ll hang up now and hope to chat again in a day or two. I hope you’re well. I’ve missed you!
Rachel Jeffers says:
I received your test email!
On July 5, 2021 at 5:36 am
Penny says:
Passed the test!
Good for you, with all of that. Well done, you!
On July 5, 2021 at 6:03 am
Stephanie says:
Hey Lissa! I got a notification, but it was actually a feedburner email. I’m not seeing another notification.
What is the new service you are using? I’m curious too as I recently redesigned and relaunched my blog and with feedburner going down, I needed to find a new way of handling notifications too. Right now I’ve set up a free substack, but that means having to replicate my blog over there.
On July 5, 2021 at 6:23 am
Teresa Lynn says:
Got it. 🙂
On July 5, 2021 at 7:28 am
Melissa Wiley says:
Thanks for these replies! Alas, I bungled the process, so what you got was the old (Feedburner) version, not the new (Follow.it) version. And…it’s possible you’ll wind up getting both. If so—I’m awfully sorry! I believe I’ve fixed that issue now, so you should only get one email from now on.
Stephanie, so far Follow.it looks like a good substitute. All mistakes so far have been mine alone. 😉 I’ll let you know how the rest of the process goes!
On July 5, 2021 at 8:07 am
Susanne Barrett says:
Yes, I received an email this morning — yay!!
Take care and have fun with all of those Darts!! I wrote a few of the early Arrows but mostly did the Slingshots (love having this one back after a decade-long hiatus!) and the early Boomerangs. I love how these subscriptions have grown SO much over the years!!
I kept thinking of you every time I saw the high temperatures in Portland. We’re still looking to move to Salem or thereabouts. Long story. 😉 If we do move to Oregon, we’ll be arriving in September-ish.
Have a wonderful week!!
Warmly,
Susanne … who very much enjoyed the 4th of July fireworks from my parents’ deck in Pacific Beach where we viewed four different displays!
On July 5, 2021 at 10:31 am