Help Me Figure Out My Next Website

It’s been awhile since I've written anything of significance, so go easy on me

I'm a writer that doesn't have writer’s block per se, but I can't seem to get past the initial stages of what topic I want to cover in my next website. Once I figure that out, the actual writing part should come to me fairly easy.

I'm not talking about the technical part either, that’s also nearly-automatic at this point in my life…except when it comes to the theme (note: I'm not a designer/coder/programmer, although I have a working knowledge of HTML/CSS). I could spend hours trying to find just the right theme for the site. I know, I'm probably spending too much time on something that isn't really that important in the grand scheme of things, but to me, it has to feel right every time I look at it.

I've created, consulted, and written for numerous sites (mostly automotive), but the one that changed my life (and career) forever was intended to be a fun side project while I was working on my main sites. It is known today as “TDWU”, but it initially sprang into life as“Toyota Deathwatch Updates”, a site dedicated to covering Toyota recalls, investigations, and other news.

Whenever TDWU was still in the infant stage, my main focus was running a tiny little site that focused on Apple/Mac tech news, which coincided with my day job with this company. My role was “Client Happiness”, cribbed straight out of the playbook of Zappo’s.

Incidentally, I love shoes. At the peak, my collection was around 110…now down to a more manageable 50. I’ve given away and/or sold most of them.

Anyways, so I was working hard on this tech site, furiously churning out articles, which became an exercise in futility. I decided to leave covering the tech news to the big dogs (TechCrunch, Mac Life, Mashable, etc). After ultimately scrapping that and a health and fitness site (the last thing the internet needs is another one of those), I was gearing up to work on a new set of sites. Looking back now, I can’t even recall (pun intended) what they were.

So, at this point, you’re probably asking yourself…why do a site based on Toyota recalls?

Well, it all started about four years ago. Being an automotive enthusiast and industry veteran, I still kept tabs on the industry on a daily basis. One story that I kept reading about ultimately became the infamous Toyota sudden acceleration saga, which quickly became a huge mess for the beleaguered Japanese automaker. Every time I would read about a new story or recall, usually on Autoblog, I would share it on Facebook with the title “Toyota Deathwatch Updates:”, followed by my opinion on the whole matter.

As it turns out, things really got interesting whenever a former employee admitted that Toyota had sent internals emails out, trying to cover up the whole scandal. To make a long story short, despite bringing in NASA to investigate the matter, the results were inconclusive. There is a senator from Iowa that wants to launch another investigation, but it hasn’t gone anywhere thus far.

What really took me by surprise is the reaction from me sharing these articles, and it quickly took on a life of its own. What helped matters was that this also coincided with Facebook really taking off with the non-college crowd, and those that were still holding out that Myspace would improve…but were finally starting to see the writing on the wall and joined in with the rest of us.

Based on the reaction and the interactions that I had with other people, I decided to make TDWU into a full-fledged site. At first, I wanted to use tumblr, because it is an easy CMS to use. Plus it has a built-in community, so generating traffic was one less thing that I had to worry about.

Apparently, tumblr didn’t agree with the content and/or name of my site, and proceeded to suspend my account three times. After the third time, I said “forget it”, and went about setting it up on WordPress.

At first I was writing news articles about what was going on, but over time, I wanted to expand into really educating my readers. After some extensive research, I decided to provide a 10 year history (2002 — 2011) of recalls for nearly every vehicle that Toyota makes.

What started as a tongue-in-cheek site, grew into a formidable source for news and information. Along the way, I learned a lot about the automaker, from its humble beginnings as a sewing machine company, to winning over the hearts and minds of the Baby Boomer generation, thus turning it into the juggernaut that it is today.

Did I mention that I even spent a summer working at a Toyota dealership? It was good times indeed.

Once the recall scandals were wrapping up, and Toyota was in the process of getting slapped with record fines, I knew that it was time to step away from managing the site and evolve it into something more. Today, TDWU lives on as a Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Subaru enthusiast site, mostly covering older vehicles from their respective heydays. It’s pretty much hands-off for me, although I still check the analytics from time to time.

I owe a lot to that plucky little site, which has opened the proverbial door in the way of granting me scores of freelance writing gigs, new opportunities to work on sites with other people, and ultimately steady jobs in the online…er, rather, the “digital” marketing industry. While I immensely enjoy my current dream gig as a Web Content Manager, the freelancer inside of me yearns to start up another site to entertain and inform the World Wide Web.

Only problem is that I can’t think of what I want to do.

Now, don’t cry for me Argentina, I still have a few ideas kicking around in my head:

• Create a blog, focused on tips, tricks, rants and raves concerning the online racing game Real Racing 3. It is what currently consumes most of my breaks from looking at a computer screen, and the frontrunner for my next project.
• Feeling inspired by my fellow colleague/dating writer Zack Oates, I’ve contemplated dusting off my archived dating and relationship articles, sprucing them up a bit, and releasing them back into the world. Whenever I first starting writing online, I occasionally wrote about this crazy little thing called love. I ultimately decided to walk away from it because 1) I was semi-retired and wanted to do as little as possible, and 2) I wasn’t exactly practicing what I was preaching. That could be considered good or bad, depending on how you look at it, but to me…I had a lot of fun.
• I’m still in the early stages of completely re-doing this site for a museum dedicated to exhibiting the history of information technology. I feel like it’s my small role in giving back to the community that has been so good to me.

That’s all that I have for now…besides cars and getting people together, I also enjoy sports, cycling, working out, the Great Outdoors, food (if you follow me on Instagram, you’ll see some good stuff), and things of that nature.

Any comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.