#Amwriting: Changes are coming! by Johanna Harness

The #amwriting site will be taken apart and rebuilt during September.

We've grown quickly in the last sixteen months of blogging and our traffic is incredible.  Yay!   On a practical level, however, things are not quite as rosy.  Costs are up.  Maintenance is taking for too much time.  The site sometimes runs so slowly I fear it's about to break. We were kicked out by one host for sucking up too many resources.  We switched hosts, but it's still a struggle. Our downtime increases.

All this means I need to take some time to make changes toward a more stable community platform.  With this in mind, the #amwriting site will be taking a blogging break in September.

Some considerations:

• A few people are already scheduled for posts in September.  I'll keep you updated and you'll have first dibbs on October posts.


• If you're one of our beloved bloggers, rest assured I will make every effort to keep your articles available on the site.  All the same?  Sometimes we run into problems when we restructure in a major way.  I will be backing up the site multiple times over, but it's probably still in your best interest to back up your own posts.  To do this, go to the dashboard, select "tools" then  "export."  Click the "posts" button and you will be given the option for downloading work from a specific author.  Choose your own name.  Download the file.


• I will try to keep an archive of #amwriting material available during the transition, but the one constant I've found with site development is that stuff happens---stuff I'd never in a million years expect.  If you're going to need access to any of your material in September, back it up.  (The files can be imported into an existing blog or you can make a new blog on a site like wordpress.com and import it there.  Don't want to maintain a blog?  Mark it private and access will be yours alone.)

We can make the site better than it was before.  Better.  Stronger.  Faster.