Maybe tonight…

The young one is acting like he might go to bed at a decent hour, so maybe I can get some writing done tonight.  No luck last night.

Finished the comments page earlier, and it’s working as expected.  Only thing left on that page is to add in some code to push me an email when a new comment is made ( so I know to come approve it ) and to add in the spam database check.

The next step will be my moderation utilities for the comments.  I decided to make myself two easy utilities:  One to approve comments, which will only show unapproved comments, and allow me to delete them from my admin panel if they’re spam or pure asshattery.  A second will work off another bit in the database that will show me new comments I haven’t responded to.  That way, I’ll always know when I’ve thanked someone for making a comment.

On the comment page, if you’re logged in, you’ll have the option to comment under your member profile.  If you tick that box, all you need to do is enter a comment, and it will link up to your profile for me to respond.  It won’t be linked on the public side.

If you aren’t logged in, or don’t tick the box, you have the option of leaving an email, so I can respond, but it’s not required.  You can also choose a name to attach to the comment, but it isn’t required either.  The comment will be listed as anonymous ( even if you enter an email ) if you don’t choose a name.

The only thing you have to enter on the comment form is a comment.  Everything else is optional, and only the comment plus your chosen name ( if any ) will be displayed to anyone but me.  Never your email, for sure.

I’m going to code the backend utility for the shorts database to import from the story database, where the information for the short stories will reside along with the stories posted on the story sites.  That way, all I have to do is enter the information once, as I always do, and it will import what’s necessary to make the short stories page work.

As I’ve mentioned ( at least indirectly ) short stories will show up on the “My Work” and “Latest Updates” pages the same way stories I’ve posted to the story sites do.  If a short is part of a series, it will also show up there.  If it’s in Danica’s World, it will show up on the Danica Timeline page.

Each short story has a “Chronology” listing, which will let you know where it fits in with other stories, as these will almost certainly be connected to existing stories.  They may be prequels ( like the Devan triad I’m working on ), sequels, fall between chapters of a story, or even be expanded scenes from within a chapter or story where I ‘faded to black’ or only mentioned something happening in passing.

So if there’s a scene in one of my stories where the characters hop into bed and I don’t give you the details, feel free to suggest that as a short story for me to write 🙂

I do believe the young one is down for the night.  He’s been in the bedroom and quiet for a little while.  I’ll take a brief wind down from coding, then open Lowborn and SOTM to see if my muse is singing tonight.

 

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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 )

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Had to get some things done

Had to get some things done around the house, and honestly, I needed some downtime.  Lowborn keeps frustrating me, trying to wrap it up.  On the last chapter, and I can’t get the damn thing to come together.  Grrr…

I did get a little writing done on “Jackin’ Jill”  Only a couple of scenes left in this chapter — 3 of 5.

With luck, stepping away for a day or two will help.  If I’m still frustrated tomorrow, I’ll jump into that second Web Exclusive Devan story.  That’s easy, and will both get me writing, and put me mentally in the same world as Lowborn and SOTM.

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More on shorts

Still beat down from long hours at work.  The young one still making things difficult as well.  So, haven’t managed any real progress, though I have written a paragraph or two here and there when there was a quiet moment.

I did manage to complete the full layout for the main “Shorts” page.  Also created the layout ( sans comment section ) for the individual short stories.

There are still a few things to add to the layouts, such as the aforementioned comments section for each story, and a “latest” section at the top of the main shorts page that will point out the last three stories added.  Those are minor things, though.

The next step is to write the code to actually pull them from the database, and for that, I really need to finish at least one more of the new Devan stories.  It’s always easier to test with multiple items.

Once that’s working, it’s on to tweaking the pages and coding the comment section, which I’m still mulling around the best way to do.  The Shorts page will most likely debut with the three Devan stories.  I have ideas for other shorts to add after that.

As usual, I’ll be looking for quiet moments to try to get some writing done.  If nothing else, the weekend usually provides at least some opportunity, and I’ll have caught up on a little sleep by the time I wake up Saturday.

Think it may be time to schedule a day off from work… Ugh…

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