Happy New Year, friends. 

Going to make this brief. This the new website embracing a new persona. I'm still working on it so don't trip over any power cords and please wear your safety helmets at all times. Pardon the dust and din. Creating a new persona is messy and loud. But I feel at this point, it's time to make a little noise. 

I don't have a whole lot of goals for this year. But the ones I do have embrace the changes I've ended this past year on. Nothing less than a complete remake of self, starting with a semi-psuedonym. I was going to go all out and call myself something completely different. I have in the past. I have a secret male pseudonym who is responsible for all of my darkest stuff. Not secret anymore. Coming out of that pseudonym closet and going to embrace another, less private one. Sort of. Same first initial and same last name. Only change it to the middle initial. A is not a cool initial. M.A. Kelly is not a cool pen name. X is cool. X marks the spot where the hidden treasure is buried. X is radical and visionary. X stands for Brand New Me. 

That's that for the name enhancement. 

Now for these 2015 goal thingys. The list is short and sweet. 

In 2015, I will endeavor to:

1. Keep breathing and living. Important when you start getting up there in years. I need to get healthier. Will make changes toward this goal, no matter how painful and uncomfortable. 
2. Write, write, write. Need to get more writing in (other than academic writing) for the year. 
3. FINISH the stories I started late in 2014. They came from excellent ideas and have the potential to be some of the best stuff I've ever written, but I need to get on with them and bring them CLOSURE! That means writing "END" after the last word drops. Capped and centered. Ready to edit and send flying into slush piles all over the World Wide Webby.
4. Find a way to make more money. 2014 is the most unprosperous year I've had in awhile. Don't want a sequel of that. 
5. Find a way to make it up to all those friends who helped me get through the shitstorm that was 2014. 

And that's it really. 

I hope all of your dreams and aspirations come true in 2015, and I hope you hold strong and stay committed to your own resolutions. 

Change is a good thing. 

I want to thank each each and every one of my friends who volunteered advice and provided information on how to get this site up and running with everything I wanted on it. Kudos to the following lovely people, who gave so generously of their time to look at the site and test buttons and the RSS subscription form: 

• Chuck Allen, who provided valuable information and suggestions on using Mailchimp, the email client for subscriptions to the Blog and Reader pages of the site. 
  
• Cindy Scheurr, who tested the RSS subscription function and became the first person to subscribe to the site. YAY Cindy! 
  
• Tim Van Sant, who has been ultra helpful with everything lately, from beta reading/editing a story to giving sage advice on the creation of this website. 
  
• Raydeen Graffam, who told me the truth, even though it hurt, about a slow-loading image effect I liked on the Home page. Would rather have a fast load than a cool effect, really. 
  
• Anne Younger, the same as Raydeen, let me know the double-neg effect on the Home page image took a long time to load for her. 
  
• Maria Thurber, my former classmate, PTK teammate, and frankly she's a genius. And I'm not just saying that because she told me my new author name was cool and "reads like an author's name." Love ya, girl!
• Wes Camron, Tam Huynh, Helen Howell, Ziana de Bethune for your eyeballs, looking it over and commenting on it. 

I hope I didn't leave anyone out. 

Thank you all for your help with this. It'll be ready to roll out soon!


~MX