Hello and welcome
Hello, and welcome to my new blog! If you haven’t read my About page yet, you’ll find it in the menu. This is my new corner of the internet, and I’m so glad you’re here.
You may have spotted the name. The Liola Diaries is a gentle nod to my love of The Vampire Diaries and, of course, The Originals. Yes, I’m a fan, and if you are too, you’ll understand. (I nearly said “diehard” fan but I’m not sure I like the connotation!)
Why I’m here
A few weeks ago I left my last remaining social networking platform, Instagram. Facebook went a while back, along with TikTok and any others still hovering in the background. It wasn’t the first time. For the last few years it’s been a bit of a tennis match, back and forth, unsure whether I was doing the right thing. FOMO, the fear of missing out, kept pulling me back, but each time I returned it just didn’t do it for me anymore. It felt like another chore, something I had to do, though of course I didn’t have to do any such thing. Hey ho.
The real reason is the algorithm. I was fed up with feeling controlled over how my content was shown to the world, or not shown, as the case may be. You may or may not agree, and that’s fine. For me, it was time to part ways. I’ve deleted the lot (I think, I hope!). I’m not checking, as logging in would start the whole deletion process again. It’s designed that way. It’s a rather clever way of hooking you back in.
I used to have a website too, but I deleted that as I never felt I had enough control. Then I came across a 20-minute documentary called Code for the People. It was enlightening, at least for me, and I highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it. After a fair bit of research, I signed up with WordPress.org (open source) and decided to start over.
No algorithm, just little old me.
Where things are
So far I’ve created a landing page that presents my books, with links to Amazon where you can find out more, and a short About page, which I’ll no doubt tweak from time to time. And of course this new blog. I didn’t wait for them to be perfect. In fact, I’m not chasing perfectionism anymore. I’m doing my best and making small improvements as I go. The site is in its baby stage just now, and I’m having some creative fun with it, “fun” being the operative word.
What’s next
What else? As my dear late beautiful mum would have said. Well, I hope to post here monthly for now, so watch this space. I’ll build the site bit by bit, with no pressure. Why do that to myself! There will be more here soon.
If you’ve got this far, thank you for reading. I truly appreciate your time as I know it’s precious. I hope you’ll visit again and see how I’m getting on. And if you’d like to know more about my books, you’ll find them on the homepage.
Until next time,
Blessed be,
Liola
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