Category Archives: Darkniciad

Yet Another Preview

I did a little more writing on Lowborn and initial work on restructuring Barren Harvest, but this post is mainly to announce a new preview page.

I replaced the old Filtered Homepage preview with the new Story Listings preview. Didn’t make much sense for that old preview to be up there when the much more advanced guest filtering page is up.

The new preview gives you an idea of what a listing of stories will eventually look like. I’m still tweaking it a bit, but this is the general form. It also demonstrates a lot of CSS work, creating new layouts with the same basic style as the main page.

This is just the final listing page. There will be a selection page before that which will let you view stories as Dark or Les, as well as other narrow options such as stories in my fantasy world, Laresa stories, LST3Ks, The core storyline of Danica/SOTM, etc.

Just wanted to get the general layout done so that I have something to build into when I start writing the code. The story listings are one of the pages that I’ll generate dynamically with PHP. That way, all I ever have to do to update them is add new categories/stories from an admin interface, and they’ll automatically come up as soon as I click the submit button.

Also gives greater flexibility for what stories to display for anyone visiting the site.

I can pretty much generate any type of page that I need to with CSS now, I believe. They should all stay mostly confined to the upper quadrant of the page as the existing pages do, as well. Thanks to the inline abilities of CSS, I can just scroll individual sections, leaving menu bars on screen rather than scrolled away at the top or bottom. Should be much easier to navigate.

The hard part will come once I start fully integrating the PHP and content in actual pages. I’ll have to go through and tweak things for load times and server strain. Fortunately, I shouldn’t need the WordPress front-end except on the index/home page. I’m not going to display that blog blurb anywhere except there.

To grab the settings for filters, I will need to call up the forum front-end on every page, though. I may not actually access it, because I’m going to carry the settings through the pages in much the same way as I do for guest filtering, but the front-end will still need a call, just in case the settings are lost by leaving the main string of website pages.

Then again, I might just write a less intensive call of my own that only grabs the data that I need, and not all of the stuff that I don’t in the forum front-end. All depends on how much time and motivation that I have.

At least one of the hard parts of this whole process is pretty much done. I knew exactly jack about CSS before I started this project, and I think I have it down well enough to do what I need to do. I’ll probably expand that knowledge at some point in the future and fine-tune it to make everything work more efficiently. I’m pretty sure that I’m doing a lot of things the hard way right now, eating more server ticks/storage space than necessary.

I probably won’t start any hardcore coding in PHP until I have time to boot up the old computer and retrieve my folder of PHP programming stuff from it. The user side of the site won’t be all that difficult to do. Most of that is simple retrieve → display stuff. The hard part will be on the back-end that nobody but me will ever see.

Okay, time to see if I can’t get a little more writing done on Lowborn.

New Preview Page

Just added a new preview page to the front page. It’s an example of how guest filtering of images will work.

Stand warned that the test pages contain adult images of both males and females. Of course, you can always use the filter to remove whichever one/both you want, but if you’re just going to play with the settings, you should know that they’re both there.

This new page also demonstrates a few new CSS changes ( some of which are active on the main page as well ) I believe I’m finally figuring it out, so I should be able to create whatever sort of layouts I need for the different pages through the CSS now.

On the writing side, I finished the update to Lowborn 04, and I’m started on Ch. 05. Debating on whether to continue with that, or delve into reworking Barren Harvest in the new scene order.

Probably depends upon how much my young one feels like interacting with me, and whether he’s being a complete butt if he doesn’t want me involved in whatever activity has struck his fancy.

Writing and Coding

Did a little writing on Lowborn tonight, painting the imagery of a strange little farming village, as suggested by first-readers.

Experimented with that new forum mod, and I believe it will serve my needs. I have the new setting for image filtering entered in, and all seems to be well. We’ll see if it works once I implement it on the actual test pages *laugh*

Did a few odd little tweaks to the forum, too. Changed the default logo to my own, added a return to website link ( Had to do this to wordpress, too. Why in the hell do all of these programmers assume that you’ll always be using their software as your homepage? )

The next thing that I’ll probably do is create the “guest” image filtering example. A link from the index/warning page of the site will direct guests ( or anyone who isn’t logged in ) to an image filtering page.

On this page, guests will be able to choose from four links: SFW – No Adult Images, No Nude Female Images, No Nude Male Images, and No Filtering. Once one of these links is clicked, it returns to the index page with that setting carried along. Any links within my website pages will continue to carry that setting, filtering images and adding warnings to links that contain NSFW images.

While this will provide a way to filter the website without creating a login, it isn’t perfect. If a visitor goes to the forum or the blog, the setting will be lost. I’m not about to go through all that code and modify it to carry the setting through both of those. The visitor will have to return to the index page ( which is where the “homepage” links in the blog and forum go to ) and go through the process of selecting filter levels again.

Settings for logged-in members will automatically return upon leaving the blog/forum. So long as you’re logged in, your current setting will always be present and accounted for.

I’ll probably go through the code of the blog/forum and make modifications to return logged-in members to the “home” page of the site, rather than the index. That will be easy for the forum. Not sure about the ease of implementation on WordPress yet.

I’m putting the basic building blocks together now. Once I have a handle on the foundation, I should be able to start restoring some of the actual website content that was here, and expand it with ease.

The website will be much more interactive with the ability to comment on blog entries and participate in the forum ( and probably more, such as LST3K U-Riffs ) It should look better overall, and be easier to update/expand. I should be able to finally create a mailing list with highly customizable options for what new stories you want email alerts about.

Long story short, the website should be better by orders of magnitude.

I’m going to see if I can’t finish that imagery painting before I crash out. As soon as that’s done, I’ll be ready to move on to Lowborn Ch. 05. Still not sure how long this one is going to run. The characters are just taking me along for the ride here.

There’s nothing I love better than that when writing, and I think that it shows up as a much more immersive experience in the final stories when it happens.

Shuffling Scenes

I think the Lit Halloween Contest is once again the reason that Barren Harvest keeps stalling on me. I have a scene in the middle of the story that’s a downer, which I put there because I thought it was too low of a note to end on with the contest in mind.

Now that it’s not an issue, I think that scene better belongs at the end. It gives the story more impact, and better fits with my original vision of the story. The regular readers of my world and the Arts Ardane probably won’t see the down scene as a bad thing, where the broader readership of the contest probably would have.

So, I’m going to shuffle the scenes around and see if I can’t get that one moving again.

Still to worn out from last night to think about something that big, though *laugh* Instead, I’m going to finally make those changes to the fourth chapter of Lowborn ( Mindblind ) and see if I can get jumping on Ch. 05.

While I’m at it, how about a bit of a preview of Lowborn?

The muscles in Cerebus’ bare chest rippled as he hefted the sack of grain into the wagon. The wagon groaned a little under the weight, but had proven its solidity with numerous round trips.

He wiped the sweat from his brow and walked toward the front of the wagon, where his employer was busy secreting a loaded crossbow beneath the seat. “That’s the last of ‘em.”

“Excellent. Excellent. Just one moment, and I will fetch your coin,” the rotund merchant responded after a start.

Cerebus’ voice had a quality that he’d heard described as sounding like an ominous whisper emerging at normal volume, and it quite often unnerved people. He more or less ignored the nervous twitter in the man’s voice, having grown quite accustomed to such reactions over the years. He was the product of a brutal rape by a warrior goblin, and he knew that his features were unsettling to most people. His size and strength alone made him stand out in a crowd, but his pointed ears and odd skin tone with hints of grayish-green marked him as someone unquestionably alien.

Yomen counted out his pay, and then took a deep breath. “I wonder if you might wish to earn some additional coin?”

Cerebus shrugged. “Depends on what I’ve got to do for it.”

“The reports of highwaymen along the road to Lakenshire have grown alarmingly frequent of late, and I fear to undertake the journey alone.”

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You want me to ride along?”

“I have seen you practice your swordplay, and you seem quite competent. I’m willing to offer double your usual pay, and your normal pay to help me unload when we arrive.”

And you can’t find another man who will risk the run for what you’re willing to pay. Only a desperate and green mercenary would take the pittance after hearing of the attacks along the road. Fortunately, he had a good reason to accept the opportunity. “I was headed into town today anyway. Let me go belt on my sword and pick up a few things from home, and you’ve got a deal.”

“Splendid. I wish to leave within the hour, in order to reach Lakenshire before nightfall.”

“Not a problem,” he responded as he turned to walk home, snatching up his shirt from a fencepost as he passed it.

The people crossing to the other side of the hard-pack dirt street barely registered in Cerebus’ mind as he walked. All of his thoughts were on the rare visit to the town, and the opportunity to finally earn a little coin with his sword. The short ride might not be much, but it was experience. If he could convince Yomen to speak to other merchants once it was over, he might find more work – perhaps even jaunts beyond the backwater villages and towns of the area.

He could see his sisters and mother through the wavy glass of the kitchen window, already at work on supper. He stayed out of view, and walked to his room at the back of the house, which he’d built with his own two hands to gain a measure of privacy and quiet. The family was used to him coming and going with little to no announcement, and he had no desire to worry his mother with the knowledge that he was going into town.

A loud thud sounded as he turned the corner – a familiar sound of late. As expected, he found his half-brother straightening after a throw of his mace. Though only twelve years old, Vladamir had already found favor with the local priest of Heraklan, and proved a devoted follower of the god.

“Ha! Take that, you ugly troll!” Vladamir declared, and then noticed his brother. “Did you see, Mindblind? The log cracked!”

Cerebus nodded his head, actually quite impressed that the mace had managed to do such damage. Once the boy filled out, he knew that anything – or anyone – in the path of that mace was in big trouble. “Good throw, Vlad.”

Vladamir hurried to the log to pick up his mace, as he had not yet mastered the devotion necessary to call upon his god to magically return it to his hand. “I told you that I’m going to come with you on an adventure some time, Mindblind.”

Though the nickname was meant as a cruel joke when his sister started it, Cerebus had actually liked the sound of it. He wasn’t bothered by having no magical ability, unlike the rest of the family, so it didn’t hit home as his sister would have hoped.

“Maybe someday,” he responded, though he hoped to have left long before to find his fortune by the time his younger brother was old enough to leave the novitiate of the priesthood.

“What you doing?”

“Headed into town. Don’t tell Mom. I don’t want her worrying.”

“I won’t. Can I come in?”

Mindblind shrugged and answered, “Yeah.” His brother was one of the few people he let inside, even though Vladamir could be a pain at times. Deep down, he liked the way his younger sibling admired him – a sharp contrast to the way most people treated him.

His room was utilitarian, meant for little more than sleeping and storing his things. The closest thing he possessed to decoration was the wooden frame where he hung his leather armor, shield, and sword.

“You’re going on an adventure,” Vladamir declared when he saw his brother pull down the armor.

“No, just into town. I’m riding with Yomen as a guard,” he argued as he pulled on the chest piece of his armor.

“It is too an adventure.”

“Okay, it’s an adventure, if that will make you happy.”

“You have to tell me all about it when you come home. You can’t leave out anything because you think it will give me nightmares.”

“All you’re going to get is a story about a bumpy wagon ride, but okay.”

A voice rang out from outside. “Vladamir!”

Cerebus cinched up the strap he was working on and nodded toward the door. “You’d better get going, or Mom’ll tan your hide.”

“You promised,” his brother reminded him, and then hurried out the door.

“Adventure,” he muttered, and then chuckled. Maybe once I get there and make it to the Cat.

That thought convinced him to finish strapping on his armor in a hurry.

Just the opening 🙂

Well, not this weekend

Didn’t make it with Barren Harvest this weekend. The young one screwed my schedule all up. Didn’t do any major work on the website since the last demo posted, either.

The next website test I’ll do will probably be login. Once I know that’s working, everything will be in place to do the settings checks for all pages, and I can jump into activating that.

The next step will probably be another mostly static page with a slightly different layout. Having never worked in CSS before — other than minimal tweaks for the Invision Battle Mod — I need to figure that out.

Then, it will be coding an admin interface to add something to the site. My guess is that it will be my story listings. It will let me fill in the blanks to add new stories to the listings, create new categories on the pages, update old listings, and add things to the latest story rotator on the front page.

You’ll know that it’s live and working when the section on the demo pages that currently says “my writing” changes to “latest story”. Once there are two latest stories, it will display a link to a page showing up to my last five releases in both pen names.

I did do some more outlining on SOTM this weekend. That was at least workable around the young one. He had the flu over the beginning of the week, and he was expending the energy that he didn’t get a chance to this weekend.

I’m concentrating on Barren Harvest right now, but I’ll probably do the rewrite of Lowborn 04 next week based upon first reader suggestions. I could always use another first reader, if anybody out there wants a preview of upcoming stories. No need for technical expertise — just gut reactions. If you know the whole world of my fantasy stories — all the better!

So, that’s where I stand at the moment. I’ll keep you updated…

And I think I can actually keep that promise now, with this easy solution available.

Darkniciad.Com

Erotic Writing as Darkniciad and Les Lumens