March 2023
My writing on True Life has continued on and off since 1998, for 25 years now! For the past few years, I’ve written and edited this site using my android tablet and smartphone, almost exclusively. Except for occasional laptop use, it seems like my dream of mobile writing and production have come to pass.
It’s exciting to store photos, illustrations, and videos in Google’s cloud, and to draft stories in Google Keep using whatever device I have at hand. Drafting a story can happen anywhere, piece by piece, as time and ideas permit. Design can include graphics and photos, audio clips, videos, researching subjects, and adding hyperlinks. A lot of my media is actually created or acquired using my smartphone or tablet.
Publishing to this blog starts as a cut ‘n paste operation, and gets evolved and polished in WordPress. My “studio” is almost all virtual now.
October 2022
I spent a good deal of 2022 filling out stories in 1978-1984, and the first dozen stories in 1985-1989. I hit many main points in the year before I enrolled at Emily Carr College of Art, and during my first year of study there. But of course, there’s so much more to fill in: there are some very personal moments of struggle and grief that I have never written down. To do that, I needed to talk to my sister, and with her consent and help, we finally got some of the nastiest, most painful stories written down.
I try to live by the rule “if the subject of a story is still alive, then I can only tell a sensitive story about them with their permission or involvement. For those who’ve already passed on, if the topic is not too damaging, then I feel like I have more freedom to write. I really don’t want to tell a story at someone else’s expense. History will judge each of us in time…
November 2021
I finally got most of the stories added for the years 1978 through 1984. (My God, this whole thing’s still so incomplete! There’s so much more to add!)
April 2019
After restoring my backups to a brand new computer, I finally got back online in Ancestry.ca and Family Tree Maker, and began reviewing and researching my family tree. (So, always back up your important files, kids!)
The original family tree was a large paper chart spanning seven generations and about 250 years. It came to me from my father, and to him through his brother Charles, or possibly his cousin, Osborne Love.
Back in 1999, I entered the whole thing into Family Tree Maker, uploaded a GEDCOM file to the World Family Tree database project, and then started updating and researching family members.
August 2018
True Life turned 20 years old. I still can’t believe that.
Nov. 22/14
After about 15 years, I finally retired my personal Linux web server, which had housed my original “True Life” web project and a few other online shrines. I gradually rebuilt the True Life project into its current WordPress home. It was the best decision I could have made! Right now, I’m rebuilding the 66-71 story album.
2008
The True Life Facebook project page went online here:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/True-Life/26058654952?sk=timeline
Nov. 11/07
An interactive family tree was *finally* published in the Tree House section of this site, spanning seven generations and about 250 years.
2006 and 2007
Partial biographies of my mother, Angela Huntley Clarke and my father James Evan Love were started.
Jun. 05/04
The second story album, “72 – 75”, was finally completed. Work began on the third album, “’75-’77”.
Feb. 07/02
“True Life” Rebuilt: The “True Life” site was rebuilt in PHP. This was necessary since my web site was rebuilt with Apache and PHP3.
Sept. 18/99
Minor maintenance updates: The “True Life” story albums were renamed, and work began on the final stories in the “1972-1974” story album.
Aug. 10/99
The “True Life” site underwent minor updates, mostly to improve legibility of content and improve the ability to contact John.
Jun. 19/99
The first story album, “66 – 71”, was completed. Work began on the second album, “’72-’75”.
Mar. 03/99
“True Life” is officially launched!
Jan. 25/99
During the months of January and February 1999, this site and its first few stories was previewed to the rest of the Web, and indexed by most of the major search engines. It was unofficially launched on March 1st, 1999 (my birthday gift to myself).
August 1998
This is the point when I started to write the innards of the True Life web shrine – the introduction page was actually the first thing I wrote. It was like a manifesto that drove me to start the whole project.