Got a bit more writing done, but nothing really big. The young one was actually in a mood to have company quite often this weekend, so I spent a lot of time playing with him. The between time wasn’t exactly conductive to erotic writing. Going from flipping him upside down or tossing a frisbee to writing pr0n wasn’t exactly an easy transition *laugh*

So, I mostly coded in the between spots. Latest releases is now fully functional, and loaded with the actual last 10 releases. Even though it won’t be available on the public pages for a while yet, I’m going to update it as if it is. So, when it goes live, it will be completely accurate and up to date.

I’ve puzzled out all the conditional things to filter images, text, links, etc. and have tested all of it with every permission level.  The latest releases coding covered pretty much every element of every other function I need to write, so I’ve done all the hard work now.  From here on out, I’m just using what I’ve already learned ( and already coded.  I can reuse a lot of the modules I’ve written on other pages )

The next step will be the “my work” database, showing everything about all my stories.  That’s the critical part, and once that’s done, I’ll probably do the final tweaks to everything else, and link it all up on the public side.  Some of the main links will be greyed out for a while until I code the backend modules to fill the databases, but my stories will all at least be linked and detailed.

Promise I’ll get back to writing.  It was just too hard to stay away as close as I was to a breakthrough, and it wasn’t a good weekend for writing erotica anyway.  Once Roust is back with a fully functional computer and gets me back SOTM 16, I’ll be itching to get more stuff out.  As it stands, that’s sort of slowing me down.  I know that nothing is moving forward toward release until he’s ready to edit it.

I’m off to bed.  Hope to be back with real writing progress tomorrow evening — most likely Lowborn.  That’s another one of those “I’m so close I can taste it” things, and I’d like to finish the story to start posting it.

Finished the new blog logo and did some initial reskinning.  This may not be the final form, but it does mesh up with the site a lot better now.

Looked around and found the reskinning tool for the forums.  Remarkably easy utilizing the color-picker add-on for Firefox to eyedrop colors off the main site and paste into the forum.  Whip up a quick logo, and the general scheme of the main site carries over into the forums and blog now 😀

Off to write.

EDIT: Just heard back from Roust.  He’s in one of those sections of the country that’s been getting pounded by tornadoes, so the weather is adding to the problem of his main system being in the shop, leaving him stuck on a laptop.

Naturally, his own writing and comfort are paramount to me, so I’m not pressuring him to get the edit done.  As soon as it’s done, I’ll put it in the queue the following Monday.

About to get back to writing, but I took a break to plug in the final few lines of code for something.  I can officially update one of my custom databases now.  A screenie of the backend’s main display ( which is the only way anyone but me will ever see it )

NSFW due to very tiny image with nudity

Latest Releases Screenshot

I’m not making my backend conform to the style of the rest of the site, simply because it’s easier that way.  I’m the only one who will ever see it, anyway.  ( As I mentioned before, I’ll be reskinning this blog and the forum to mesh up with the site better before I launch the new features/contents )

With that out of the way, I need to write the update functions for the Latest Release list.  That should be enough to get me back up to speed on numerous little coding things ( because it requires sorting, doing two different updates of the database, etc ) and make all future backend features move much more quickly.

That, in turn, will take up less of my writing time, while helping me get rid of the irritation I’m constantly dealing with about the website being so static and empty right now.  I’ll be able to code new backend features, get content added, and jump right back to my word processor 🙂

Once the Add function is complete, I’ll write the widget to display it on the main page ( only the mini cover, title, and date ) which will link to a full Last 10 Releases page.  That will be a full new feature and all related functions ready to go.

Back to Lowborn.  I’ve been brainstorming it all day, and I think I’m still plenty awake enough to write.  May pop back in and update this entry with a progress report, if I get far enough to warrant it.

EDIT a little later:  Lowborn 07 is up to about the halfway point — at least the halfway point of the average chapter in the story.  Would be more, but I read back through the last chapter to get back up to speed and did a little imagery enhancement to the end of the chapter, as well as doing the same for what I’d already written on 07.

Finally got a child theme for the blog created ( in order to continue updating my themes properly ) and updated my blog theme.  Got all my custom buttons to work correctly, but the new version of the theme uses a much smaller logo image, so I’ve got to create a new one *grumble*

At least I’ll be able to update and start reskinning it now.

Got that email off to Roust.  I’m sure he’ll get back to me tomorrow with an update on his situation.

I’ve had code running through my head for the last two days.  I’m just too obsessed with getting at least one backend function working properly as a foundation for building the rest of them eventually.

So, I’ve managed to write the initial part of it, displaying the information from a custom database.  I had to really dig into the software code to find the new way it handles things, in order to take advantage of the many layers of built-in security.  Pretty much every function I used in the older version of the software has been changed :p

The good news is that I’m getting the hang of it.  After a couple of victories tonight, I think I have enough of it out of my system to concentrate on writing stories for a while before crashing for the night.  I can fetch data from the database, and fetch it conditionally.  Next, I’ll have to get the functions to update down.  Once I have a grasp of that, there’s little I won’t be able to do, utilizing the code I’ve already written as a foundation.  I should be able to write my backend functions with a minimum of fuss.

Okay, enough about that.  I’m going to email Roust for a status update tomorrow.  Hoping he can get the editing on SOTM 16 done this weekend so I can get it in the queue Monday.  Not going to push him if he’s still on an unfamiliar machine, though.  But, every so often, when things get a little crazy, he forgets that he has a file.  Reminding him might be all it takes to get the edit finished and ready to go *laugh*

I’m going to try to write a little bit, and with all that PHP no longer bouncing around in my head, I might be able to brainstorm plot and characters tomorrow at work, instead of functions and variables.