Looks like everything is up and working properly again.  Why it is:  That’s the question.  I didn’t do anything, and the problem had resolved itself before the webhost got around to the ticket.

*shrug*  I suppose it may be a result of screwed up queries when I was finishing the newsletter page.  Perhaps when the backend of the site did some optimization tasks, it cleared up the gunk in the database.

Anyway, I did a little optimization of my own.  I started trimming down my style sheets based upon various types of pages.  I removed all the elements for the front page and the My Work page from everywhere else, cutting the size down to about half.  Trimming the front page stuff off My Work helped a little, and likewise trimming the My Work stuff off the front page helped it a little more.

Found a few things that need correcting to get up to current web standards, as well.  Fixed a couple of tags that weren’t properly closed under the existing standards, and made note of some other evaluations.  Now that I have different style sheets for various pages, getting rid of a lot of waste, I’m going to eliminate some legacy coding and get that put into the style sheets as well.

Pages that will be affected by this will be the Work Extras: Story Codes and Danica Timeline pages.  Those are using tables, and giving them style divs should bring them up to standards.  I hadn’t done it up to this point because of conflict issues with elements unused by those pages.  I’ll use the basic file I have now ( which doesn’t include those conflicting elements ) and create a style sheet for those two pages to share.

I’ve got a few other things I can do to speed up the page loads as well.  This will be important when I finalize the front page, as I’ll be adding a new widget that queries the database there.  Need to keep it at least where it is, or hopefully speed it up.  Initial loads should already be less due to the smaller style sheet.

Still need a beta tester(s) for the newsletter page, if anybody’s interested.

I’m going to try to get some writing done on Lowborn after I take a little break.  The environment at the moment isn’t the best, but I haven’t done much writing in a while, and it’s really bugging me.

Edit ( a little later ):  There we go 🙂  Lowborn 07 is up to about the halfway mark.  I’ve got a little bit of character development/sex to write ( yes, that development slash sex *laugh* ), then the setup for the final chapter.

Posted a teaser excerpt of Ch. 01 on the forum.

I’m sure that you’ve probably noticed that there are some changes to the website *laugh*

To get the full effect, register on the forum ( link on every page ). During the registration process, you’ll be asked to set your image filtering. You have a choice of NO filtering, filtering ALL nude images, filtering FEMALE(and mixed sex) nude images, or filtering MALE(and mixed sex) nude images.

All that’s required to sign up is a username, password, and valid email ( checked by a confirmation email to complete registration. Necessary to prevent spammers from signing up – sorry! ) You never need to post on the forum if you don’t want to. You can just use the settings on your profile page to control the various features of the website.

Of course, you’re more than welcome to post!

There’s one more custom setting on your profile page that you’ll probably want to look into: Floating Menu

This setting is near the bottom of your profile tab settings. It’s set to “off” by default, but most of you will probably want to turn it on. What it does is create a floating menu on the left side of the screen that stays in place, providing a quick way to jump back and forth between major sections of the website. Much more convenient than navigating through “Back” links.

This menu will expand as I add new sections to the website.

For now, what’s available is primarily a listing of my stories in both pen names with quite a bit of additional information. There’s even more information if you list them “by series” on the My Work page. You should see a link on “Danica” to a timeline of my fantasy world, for example. Links to stories by other authors in the chains are available for “Laresa’s World” and “A Royal Sacrifice”

The front page will now display the latest story I’ve released, as well as the excerpt from this blog.

Sign up, click around, and let me know what you think! You can do it here, or on the forum. It’s probably easier to have discussions on the forum, but feel free to keep commenting here. Always nice to see comments on the blog, too.

Hope everyone’s enjoying the new chapter of SOTM! Remember to vote, for sure, but keep those public commments coming at Lit. Those attract new readers, which attracts more feedback, which fuels me to keep writing.

I can’t stress enough how important feedback in the form of votes, comments, and emails is to a free author as far as inspiration to keep writing.

Just put SOTM 16 into the queue at Lit.  Aiming for a Thursday night at midnight release.

Everything appears to be working fine behind the scenes with the website.  I’m adding a final page that I forgot I was going to have available as a launch feature (thanks Kolrin), tweaking a few things, and getting ready for launch.

Everything should be designed in such a fashion that I can work on new features in the background, and simply link them up whenever they’re complete.  I’ll then be able to update any feature with simple fill-in-the-blank forms, and I can stay ahead of the curve by utilizing public/private switches I’ve built into a lot of the data.  I can have all the information for a story already entered, and then simply flip that switch when the story actually posts.

Let’s see if I can’t make some writing progress to report tonight.

Not many changes in SOTM 16, so no need to send it back for a second review by Roust.  All that’s left is to format it for Lit and submit it on Monday.  So, keep your eyes peeled on Thursday, but there’s always a chance it could be Wednesday or Friday.

On the website front, I’ve finished the “story codes” feature for the “My Work” page, and all is working well.  I finished entering all the codes for my stories as Les, and now just need to finish the data entry for Dark.

As far as the launch features go, that’s pretty much the last one.  I have one more little thing to add, but that’s more or less adding a column to the database and a template edit to display the field on the “My Work” page.  Still need to do a little editing on the forum — just setting up actual forums for public use, rather than the default forum that’s automatically installed.

I do have a little bit of work to do with double-checking things for the launch, though.  Soon, you’ll actually be on the new content delivery system, though you probably won’t notice.  It should look exactly as the page does now while I check all the links and functionality in the background.

Once I’m sure that everything is working, the front page will switch over to the new version, and you’ll be able to explore the new stuff + sign up for the forum and adjust your viewing preferences for the website images.  Unless you’re signed in, any adult images will be hidden.  So, you can default to a ( imagewise ) Safe For Work page just by logging out before leaving the website.

If I do this right, I’ll be able to check all new features behind the scenes, and then simply activate them on the front page as I finish them.

That does mean that you’ll have to sign up to see most of my cover images, but it’s free, anonymous, and I will never use ( or sell ) any information you enter for anything you don’t tell me to.  The only information really required will be a username, password, email ( necessary to make sure you’re a real person and not a spam-bot ) and the NSFW settings.  Anything else you choose to enter will be your business, and won’t be required.  Email is hidden by default, so about the only thing anyone other than you can see is your username, if you don’t choose to divulge anything else.

The forum software even has settings to let you be invisible while signed in.  Forum participation isn’t necessary to view the website, though I certainly welcome anyone who wishes to post 🙂

Off to format SOTM 16 for Lit.  Think I may take a look at Lowborn and see if I’m feeling it.  With the website so close to ready, I’m getting a serious itch to write again.