Behind the Curtain: Genesis

This section is for pulling the curtain back.

PWME might look like a new project from the outside. But it’s really not. It’s over a decade old. It started as a free WordPress.com blog I assumed no one would ever read. I posted a few stories, reflections, and half-finished thoughts, and within a couple short months, without doing much at all, people were reading. Finding it. Staying, interacting, asking for more.

Then life swept in. Work. Drama. Grief. A move abroad. A breakup that nearly turned into incarceration in a foreign jail (not of me). Then rebuilding. Then grief again. Then work.

I stepped away from the early version of this project because life demanded my attention elsewhere. I had also been building a career as a marketing strategy consultant for a few years, and things were starting to get busy. My clients over the years included startups, nonprofits…and companies in the ‘adult’ industry.

I knew my way around funnels, KPIs, affiliate platforms, ad restrictions, and backend chaos. I saw how hard it was to market anything to do with sexuality ethically. I saw where it was possible to do it right, and how rare that was – at the time. And I did that for the following ten years.

And then, I stepped away from that too.

The pandemic cracked everything open. My mother was dying of cancer. My clients were panicking. Some, rightfully so in the nonprofit and charity spaces. Others, blinded by the need to pivot fast, began assigning blame and ignoring every crisis-resistant strategy I offered. Thank you, Corporate Social Responsibility and Crisis Communication & Management modules.

I watched people jump off their own ships while I was quietly drowning on mine with grief and the creeping sense that my work had become meaningless.

Marketing, in that moment, felt completely disconnected from anything that mattered.

I didn’t want to optimize. I didn’t want to A/B test. I didn’t want to report on numbers. If I couldn’t help my clients who were folding, or convince the ones with the means to adapt, then what was the point? I had to step away and was fortunate enough to have the financial ability to do so. I nursed the wounds of my grief, partially processed the pain of losing the single person on this earth who’s love would always be unconditional. I had to figure out who I was without her solid anchor.

I had to rebuild myself, like so many of us during that time. It’s taken years, and it’s still a work in progress.

Now, returning to this project, I want to do things differently. I still understand structure. I still know strategy. The digital space has evolved in 5+ years, as it does overnight, sometimes, not for the better.

Backstage is where I reflect out loud on what I’m doing with those tools and stay transparent about the process. I don’t yet know where this goes, I do know I want to document the journey.

I may eventually offer roadmaps or curated strategy for others working in these in-between spaces – it will depend on what you say you need/want – and obviously on what’s working (unless you need a roadmap of what not to do).

I am opening the spaces for comments and discussions. This is where you tell me what you need, what you’re interested in, or if you feel the content is pointless, well, I’ll bite the bullet and take note of that too. I guess the aim is to do something useful, driven by the community’s needs and wants.

This section is also for the parts that don’t usually get talked about: the second-guessing, the pivots, the pieces that feel too small to post, but what the hell. I want to push myself out of comfort. Some of you might be building something of your own. If you are, I hope this space gives you something. If it doesn’t, let me know what would make it better.

For the time being, I don’t have data. So here’s what’s been worked on month 1. Once we’re live, we’ll be able to look at the data together.

I’m just showing up, curious, committed, and still figuring it out.

Month 1: The Quiet Build

Here’s what the first stretch looked like behind the curtain:

• Reclaimed access to the original WordPress.com account and some of the old social handles. Facebook still won’t let me back in. Oh well. Let’s scratch Facebook then.
• Realized I had already purchased the PWME domain in 2020 (why??), tucked away in an old account. Great, I guess I can benefit from one less thing to do.
• Found a WP theme that didn’t need over-designing. It was clean, already close to the mood I wanted. I worked from there.
• Revisited the vision: a speakeasy-style space, open and low-key, a little classy. The masks are here to lift inhibition, not hide behind. I want real, not performative. I’ll touch on that in the marketing space in other articles (it’s in the editorial calendar).
• Looked through old writings. Stories from the previous site, half-thoughts from notebooks, messy entries in my phone, memories from experiences I never dared to write down, and intimate notes from a private journaling space. Some leaned into fantasy and sci-fi, genres I’ve barely read. But I figured, why not try? Even if I don’t see myself as a “writer.”
• Explored monetization options that don’t ask me to trade integrity for income. Looked for things I would genuinely value as a reader.
• Considered the parameters to publishing through Kindle Direct.
• Began researching affiliate options that align with the tone of the site.
• Sketched a loose editorial calendar. Stories, “In the Mirror” posts, and Backstage entries. The latter will be more organic, depending on what happens month to month.
• Started taxonomy work early. Clean categories, intuitive tags (I think). Structure matters. We’ll see with time and feedback whether it’s a win or a faceplant.
• Began experimenting with AI-generated imagery (mostly Leonardo.ai) to give the site a cohesive visual thread without relying on stock or spending tens of thousands branding what my mind was seeing.
• Researched and brainstormed sub-genres, characters, story tropes, and emotional arcs to find my groove.
• Worked on design mockups and draft copy for the core static pages.
• Created a soft age-gate for 18+ visitors. (then removed it, and now I’ll have to add it again soon, likely using Java-based script)
• Created and launched a coming soon page with a short manifesto and subscribe CTA.
• Created a 12-month strategy, growth plan, and projection. Revised it 17 times.
• Built a three-week soft launch strategy using socials. So far it’s flopped – halfway through July I realize the monster-project this is, and how oh-so-alone I am in driving it. It’s still early, so I’ll keep at it with the time I can allocate to it, and reconsider next month if it doesn’t pick up.
• Essentially spending 16-18h/day for a straight month doing only this – while I have that time – and boxing my entire apartment for a July 1st move with my partner while undergoing renos and a heatwave, and sleeping 4h tops every night – with the occasional 10h forced-system-restore.
• LLM USAGE: I’ve done a lot of reading in writers’ groups on Facebook, publishing spaces, and Reddit. There’s no consensus. There never is. Some hate it, some see the value. I see the value in organizing and structuring strategic thought, and presenting clean data. All things that can be done by humans, just not at that speed. This is still just month 1. I’ve spent a fair amount of time chatting with AI to create checkpoints, roadmaps, and to-do lists based on the progress made in the project. It has saved me days of work.
• Laid in bed most nights, either building characters in my head or breaking my own spirit with self-doubt about why I was doing any of this. Sometimes both. You’d be amazed how many hours you have in a night to spiral.
• Reminded myself that the strategy was already done. All I had to do was follow the damn to-do list, write some erotica with intent, stop questioning everything, and not turn back, adjust as I move forward.

That’s where we are now.

More to come. Slowly. Tentatively.

If you’re building too, or just watching from the wings, feel free to write me or comment. I’ll be here.

Let’s see where it goes.