Category Archives: Website

I have all the luck

I was almost to work today when the tensioner for the serpentine belt on my car blew the bearings and threw the belt. Not a good start to the day, but at least it went a little better after that.

First, someone from work picked me up and drove me the rest of the way in ( I was right next to the property, but it would have been a long walk or jumping the ditches between the retaining ponds ) Then I managed to get the car picked up without problem. Before I even got off work, somebody at the garage cancelled, letting them get my car in and fixed today.

Cost me a pretty penny, but at least I don’t have any continuing headache. I can get up tomorrow, jump in the car, and go to work as normal. Most of the time when something goes wrong, I have to scramble around trying to get a rental, finding someone to drive me to pick it up, then deal with returning the rental and picking up my car later. Nightmare.

Data entry on the website ( as it will be when I launch the new pages ) is more or less done. The only thing left is a new section I’m adding to the “My Work” pages. I’m going to add a “codes” section similar to what SOL and many other erotic story sites use to help readers steer clear of sexual content that turns them off, or locate kinks that get them hot.

I’ve already finished the reference page for the codes. It will be on an “Extras” page from “My Work”, along with local full text reviews ( you have to be a member to read the ones on SOL, otherwise ) and a cover browser, just in case anyone has trouble with the lightbox windows I’m using to display them normally.

Might be more on the “extras” page eventually, but that’s the launch features ( all complete ).

What’s left for codes is writing the backend functions to fill/edit the fields, the little snippet that will display them on the pages, and filling in all those fields for each of my stories.

I’ve also finished the Laresa’s World page, liking to all the stories in chronological order, including those by other authors in the chain. Still need to code one for A Royal Sacrifice. These links show up when you view my stories “By Series” in the series header, and will probably also appear on the “More” page ( a link that will be greyed out on initial relaunch )

Damn near done with the links and peripheral stuff for displaying information about my story catalogue. After that, I’ll move on to getting the “My Worlds” link started. That’s where I’ll have the character descriptions, maps, documents on religion/monsters/magic, etc. Odds are that I’ll get the backend functions for that coded, fill in a few things, and then activate the link on the front page. I’ll just add new content as I have time and announce it in my blog. Should happen much more quickly/regularly than it used to, since I’ll have the easy fill-in-the-blank backend.

Still nothing to really report on the writing front. Between work and knowing that nothing is going to get posted until Roust is ready to edit again, I’m sort of slowing down for a while. I’m still musing most of the day at work and writing a little of it every day, but just not in any huge chunks.

Once the initial features for the website relaunch are complete, the odds are that I’ll dive back into writing again. After all that work, seeing it up and running on the website will make me want to take a break from it to celebrate *laugh*

Still recovering

Haven’t been in much of shape to write or code from work and a rough weekend. I did get a few words down on Lowborn and SOTM, and tweak/add a little code. I’m pretty close to having the basics of the new website ready to launch.

Mostly, I’ve been doing data entry in the backend functions I’ve written to add content to the site. All of my work ( with the exception of a how-to up on Lit and the aborted CST3K pilot on SOL ) has been entered into the database. I’ve also created all my series/genres and descriptions, linking them to the stories.

I still have a few “Image Filtered” pics to create, as I use different size header pics on various pages. Eventually, I’ll have a default set, with templates that I can cut-n-paste images onto.

First day of the inspection is over at work. Last year, it was only two days. Not sure if the corporate visit will carry over beyond the inspection. Once both of those things are over, it will get much easier, and I won’t be coming home as physically and mentally exhusted.

Put the air conditioners in the windows today, so that’s another irritation out of the way + better sleeping.

Had an idea for a story for Nude Day. Have to see if it pans out. It would be a story about Wade’s father ( Kindred of the Wood ) and go back to when he was a young man, before he met La’isa. Odds are that it would be a one-shot story with a similar title like “Something of the Lake” because this would be the only history story from that branch of the family. Wade’s tale is in Kindred, and Dara’s will be in the Summer story. Both families are too intertwined at that point for my original concept of two side-by-side series.

Okay, I’m off to bed. Hope to have more to report on writing soon. Still waiting on Roust to get back up to speed and get SOTM 16 back to me. Perhaps I’ll have an announcement post appearing on the new version of the website when it launches soon.

What a week…

It was just a horrible week at work. Constantly tired, so writing just wasn’t working too well. As I’ve probably mentioned before, I close my eyes when I visualize. If I’m exhausted, I just end up dozing off when I try to do that. Doesn’t work too well *laugh*

Unfortunately, next week isn’t looking much better. Maybe the week after, because we’ll be past the inspection and visit from company suits.

I’ve written little bits and pieces, but nothing really worth reporting. I have managed to get some coding on the website done, though. The “My Work” page is only a couple of steps from complete.

I’ve uploaded all the mini cover images, and entered a few stories into the database, including Danica, the entire Nobles series, the Adam series as Les, and a couple of the Wood stories ( to test the awards functionality ). I’ll enter everything else once I have the code to edit/display them complete.

It now displays images according to your filter settings, defaults to display the most recent release, generates drop-down selections for “By Pen Name”, “By Series”, and “By Story”

The dropdowns for Pen Name and Story are both fully functional.

The left side of the story display contains a mini cover image, a link to the full cover image ( provided you’re logged in ), and a “status” indicator ( is the story complete, or am I still posting chapters? )

The right side of the story display shows links to Lit, SOL, and any other site where I have the story posted. Then comes the synopsis of the story, followed by links to any reviews about the story and awards it has won.

When I finish the “By Series” portion, it will also display a series header that will give a synopsis of the series, and any information relevant to the series. Stories in the series will display in chronological/reading order, if any.

The sortation code for series is going to be somewhat new ground, so I’m absolutely taking a little break from coding before I delve into that.

Once I finish that, I should be back up to speed on absolutely every coding convention I need to fully restore the website content that was here, as well as add new stuff with simple form entry.

After completing the “My Work” page, my goals will be tweaking it and “Latest Releases” for a few things that I need to fix/expand upon for later functionality. Then, I’ll want to get a basic “About Me” page together, as well as at least a placeholder for the “My Worlds” page. Then, I’ll tweak the forum and blog.

After that, I think I’m going to go forward with launch. That will be enough content up and running to warrant it, and I can keep everything else hiding behind the scenes, launching it as I get it complete and working.

Okay, I’m going to get something to eat, chill for a while, and then see if I can’t get some actual writing done on Lowborn and Sisters of the Mists.

No luck

Yeah, no luck with that better day thing today. It was even worse. Power was out for an hour, and then we were stuck doing intensive houskeeping for an upcoming inspection.

Determined that I was too exhausted to even think about writing tonight. No sense putting down stuff that I’ll cringe over later *laugh* Every time I closed my eyes to visualize the next scene in Lowborn, I was nodding off. Just not going to work tonight.

What I’ve accomplished the last couple of mornings and evenings was to get the database for my series built, and create the administrative functions for it ( at least, adding and editing )

Also created the database for the information about my stories, and templated out a lot of the administrative functions for adding. Retemplated the “my work” page a little as well. It’s much cleaner, easier to read, and contains a lot more information in the same small space.

Laying off that for the night now, too. Too tired to think about coding. Besides, I’m coming up to a more difficult section that involves both the story database and the series database. Associating a story with a series is simple. Creating the administrative functions that will let me sort the series in the correct order, while allowing me to insert new stories in the middle as I write them… Not so much.

Then I’ve got to deal with the feild that holds the links to reviews and awards. That’s using some complex storage routines in order to make it infinitely expandable. I may have to do the same thing with the “other link” part in time. For now, none of my stories have more than one link outside of Lit or SOL, so I’m leaving it as a simple storage.

Or, I may end up creating databases for those, and using joined queries to grab them. I just have to remember how to do joined queries, if I go that way =P

If I can get enough images together, I’m probably going to make the page images dynamic beyond the filtering. Images appearing in the headers will be randomly selected from a group of an appropriate size and gender. May as well take advantage of the dynamic ability I have at my fingertips, since it will take all of a minute or two to write, and a few seconds to update with new pics as I get them.

If the recent anonymous commenter(s) on Danica and SOTM happen to pop into the website here: Thanks! The praise is much appreciated 🙂

Where the dynamic abilities of the website are really going to come into play is with LST3K, eventually. I’ve always had dreams of the collaboration process on those being more or less real-time, allowing all riffers to work from a database stored copy of the story.

Ditto the “application” to be a riffer. I’ll probably have sample stories with and without comments up on the DB, and applicants will add their comments to the story that way as well ( though riffing a story of your choosing the old fashioned way will be perfectly acceptable as well )

Probably also be a “U Riff” section of the site eventually, where any visitor can join in riffing on a story — probably with a “like” button, so the most popular comments are sorted toward the top, highlighted, and don’t drop off after receiving enough “likes”

Don’t forget, if you have some awful erotica of your own creation laying around that you’d like to see riffed, send it along!

Okay, I’m rambling. I do that when I’m over-tired. I’m going to chill for a while, wind down, and hit the sack. Maybe the extra couple of hours sleep will put me in a better position to write at least a little tomorrow ( though the forecast for work is — if anything — potentially worse tomorrow than today )

Rough work week

It’s been a rough week at work. I’m writing a little on SOTM 18/Lowborn 07 and coding a little behind the scenes. I’m getting something done every day, but just not enough to really report.

Hoping for better days as the week goes on, or at least a peaceful weekend =P

EDIT: Just updated to IE 9, and realized that the titles and such were invisible with one of the settings in my theme in the new browser, so I’ve disabled the “added feature”. Be sure to give me a yell in a comment if you see anything strange like that.

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Erotic Writing as Darkniciad and Les Lumens