The theme for a story or poem is given by the admin of the site. I have not been with them for long (about a year), but I have written some good stuff with them.

I actually enjoy the site, because the ideas that come out of there are truly original. Usually, three or four ideas come out, and I choose the best one to publish on the site.

There was this one idea I really went to town on. The theme was APPLE. The very first thing that popped into my head was the apple in the garden of Eden. What would happen if the apple was blamed for the fall of mankind instead of Adam and Eve?

Of course, I only had 300 words to get the idea across. Any story would take more than 300 words to explain that point of view. So, i shortened it some. I used a reporter to tell the tale on the news.

Here's the story:

"Good evening, folks, and thank you for joining us for our show All About Eden. Today we saw the conclusion of the Trial of Eve. Accused of causing the fall of mankind, every aspect of the serpent encounter has been examined."

The anchorwoman was a handsome woman, but not what you would call pretty. She was a tall brunette with a stick figure, hardly any curves at all. Her makeup did nothing to enhance her femininity. Today she wore a light grey pantsuit with a huckleberry blouse. She looked efficient.

"Miss Apple took the stand today, and stated the following about her involvement. Quoted: Forbidden knowledge is always most attractive and the vessel for such is usually blamed for any infraction of morality. It was not my place to dissuade the woman from taking The Bite from me, nor to prevent the fall of mankind. God was allowing the woman's faith to be tested, and I wasn't allowed to interfere with her free will choice. The fault lies with the woman, who should have had enough faith in God to resist the serpent and his machinations. I had nothing to do with The Bite, except that it happened in my presence and on my person."

The reporter ruffled some papers, and continued with, "At the end of the day, the jury deliberated for a while and returned with the fall of mankind was totally the fault of the woman. The man was also involved, and his trial will be forthcoming."

The reporter smiled at the camera. "The apple was held blameless of aiding and abetting, or any other heinous crime. Miss Apple stated that apples were beneficial to mankind, and she was glad their reputation was not tarnished."

"That's the news, folks. Goodnight."

On that note - see ya next time!

After spending five days wrestling with Shopify's AI website, I was experiencing the epitomy of frustration.

I have had my share of dealing with ornery websites, and programs that are NOT user friendly, but I tell you here and now that Shopify's website has issues of its own.

My biggest complaint with Shopify is that there are parts of the pages that are global, which means that if you change those components on one page, they change on ALL of them, even on templates, which are supposed to be set in stone once created.

That was the most frustrating part, because it made me look like I didn't know what I am doing.

Of course, the Mockingbird was RIGHT THERE letting me know I had failed again.

The solution? I decided to outsmart Shopify. I switched to an HTML builder, and remade the website using graphics I had made and a few free images from the internet.

The advantage of building your own pages is you have better control of what you are doing, and there is less chance of the program overriding your work.

None of the pages have a global field on them.

I can place graphics where I want, format the fonts the way I want, and easily place an entire graphic on the page as a background. And it doens't change or get overridden.

I could not upload the pages to the Shopify website as they are (even with minor changes) and have a decent website.

I am hosting the website on Neocities. It is still an ecommerce website, and people can purchase my books there, but it's a lot less aggravating than trying to fight eith Shopify for an ordinary page.

Shopify will handle the payments and the downloads. Now that is worth it's weight in gold. More next time.

Mimus polyglotktos