Another milestone: my first new article here... Klamathon and Iron Gate Dam

I'm excited to say that I've done my first new article for the reimagined Journey! California site. It is on Klamathon, Iron Gate Dam, and the Fish Hook Restaurant - 2010.

We were there only a few days ago and took lots of photographs. Writing the first draft of the article was the easiest part. I did that on my Alphasmart Neo while at the laundromat day before yesterday.

Yesterday I sat down to the computer at about 10am and started adding the article and all the photos to the Journey! California site. It took most of the day! It was the first time I'd used this site software to add so many photographs, and I had to write all the code, and check things dozens of time to make it work. I had to figure out how to make the embedded Google maps work too. It was all rather complex, and I wasn't finished editing and adjusting until late in the day, after 5pm! I then needed to take a long walk all the way across town to the post office to blow off steam! For me, exercise is an essential part of writing.

I'm still not done as I need to add advertising to the page. I'm taking a clue from all the work I did on Squidoo.Com, and am adding advertising so I can make this site pay off. Every travel writer needs a business modality that will produce cash, whether it is to write a book and sell that, or sell advertising, or get payments for articles from travel magazines. Writing, editing and photo manipulation are painstaking and tedious work, no matter what anyone says or thinks. I'm hoping that advertising on this site will reimburse me for my expenses and time, and ... then if I can make a little money off the project, that would be pure gravy!

I'm also considering the needs of other writers that may choose to participate in this site. I want everyone to make money... and these days, travel is expensive. You have to love it! I can't reimburse expenses for writers, but I can provide this venue, this site, so they can make some money (hopefully) from the advertising, and thereby reimburse themselves for their travel expenses. Plus... have lots of fun along the way.

I can already see the site isn't user-friendly for people who don't know HTML. I will have to edit and help a lot along the way. No problem there... I expect that it will be a lot of fun and profitable for everyone involved.