Category Archives: Darkniciad

Luck with me

Attracted the attention of one of the gurus on the support forum, and I have two different solutions.  Both will take care of the problem, but one is more elegant and has long-term benefits, including teaching me a new way to manipulate the base code of the underlying software without actually modifying it — making upgrades simple and painless.

There’s a learning curve, but that’s the way I’m going.  It will take more time in the now, but save a lot more in the future.

In addition, I got some writing done on Lowborn last night and this morning.  Brought it back up to 1500 words after the backspace, and I’m back to where the final action of the story takes place again.  Should encourage me to get back at it this evening after I get home from work.

Had a flash of inspiration that I love as well.  It has ties to the first chapter of the story, the title, and even makes a plot point easier to deliver.

Tickled with that, and irritation at the end of the story not working out the way I wanted was what had slowed me down writing, so that most certainly will give me a boost.

Okay, got to get ready for work.  I’m in major muse mode, so I’ll be taking advantage of that on the drive and during the first tedious couple of hours of work, where I don’t have much to do physically or mentally.  Most of my job is crammed into the middle of the day — fast and furious.

Share

Work on shorts

Waiting for the young one to chill out a little.  Think I may finally have the right mix to finish the last chapter of Lowborn.  I’ll see when I start writing it if it feels as good putting it on paper as it feels in my head right now.

Meanwhile, I’ve done some more work on the short stories page.  The main page now loads all the stories from the database and displays everything as expected.

The individual story pages now load the cover and title from the database, and merge in the text of the story stored elsewhere for easy editing, if I miss something during the editing process.

Comments load from the database and display as expected at the bottom of each story.  That includes only showing the “click to comment” portion if there aren’t any reader comments on a story yet.

What’s left to do:

Code the “Make a Comment” page.

Add a “latest three” header to the top of the main short story page for easy location of new additions once the list starts growing.

What’s left to do behind the scenes:

Code a utility to add new stories to the shorts database.

Code a utility to moderate comments on the short stories.

Update my story database utility to account for the new shorts page.

Update the “Latest Releases” utility to do the same.

Update both “My Work” and “Latest Releases” to display the short story links to the public.

And, of course, get some more short stories done 🙂

If I finish coding before I finish all three of the new Devan shorts, I’ll go ahead and launch the section with the ones I’ve completed ( one done already, just needs to go through my editor )

Share

Couple of things

First, thanks to everyone who read, voted, commented, favorited, and emailed on Second Chance.  It’s going to come close to 1500 votes, and most likely will pass 100k views.

Now, I know I said that the ending of Lowborn was already written, but it turns out I was wrong *laugh*  Once I actually started putting it on paper, something didn’t feel quite right.  I went back and read through the whole story again, and there was something off.

So, I’m doing a little musing to try to fix a point or two, either by switching up the initiation of the ending, or by tweaking a couple of things in earlier chapters.

Meanwhile, I’ve actually put down the first little bit of SOTM 19 on paper, where it’s all been in museland previously.  What’s been holding me back on that one for the most part is deciding what should be the opening scene, and I believe I have it.

Not much wordage yet, but it’s a concrete step toward getting it out.

I’m also working on that multi-part story as Les.  I’m guessing it will be five chapters, and I’m over the halfway mark on chapter 3.

Musing the second of that website-only Devan trilogy as well.  Likewise, I’m doing some of the basic framework for the “Shorts” page that will house them.

Been doing a lot of beta reading lately, and that’s what’s kept me away from my own pen as much as anything.  As I’ve said before, it’s important to me to do that when another author asks, because it develops a pool of people I can ask to do the same for me.  It’s proved a very valuable resource in the past.

Just what’s in my head at the moment.  Hope to be able to come back with wordage updates on Lowborn, SOTM, or Jackin’ Jill ( that new Les story ) soon.

Share

Second Chance off for editing

Just sent that taboo tale off for editing, so it should be ready for the contest in time to post it Thursday to appear Friday morning.

Got a bit more done on Lowborn, and tweaked some of what I’d already written.  Building up to the culmination, so I want the pacing to be perfect when it hits the final action.

I did the database work for the new “Shorts” section, so now I need to get down to business coding the pages.  I’m hoping to have that done in a couple of weeks, but you never know.  At the rate I’m writing across several stories, I don’t want to break that momentum for very long on something else.

A little wind down after the edit, and I’ll see which of the open files is singing to me to write on tonight.

Share

1500 on Lowborn

Finished Second Chance earlier this morning.  I’ll start on the editing process for it later on today.

In the meantime, I jumped back on Lowborn and got up to the 1500 word mark.  I’ll be continuing with that shortly, after I’ve taken a break.  A little plot revelation, and this one is going to heat up.

Don’t think it’s going to be long before I finish it.  With any luck, I’ll have it done and a full cold read finished before the Summer Lovin’ contest at Lit ends.  That would put me in a perfect position to get the first chapter edited and post it right after the end of the contest.

It will feel so good to have a couple of months worth of regular weekly postings rolling.

Share