Category Archives: LST3K

Almost there on Shorts

Finished the additions and changes to “My Work”, “Latest Releases”, the databases, and backend utilities associated with same in order to have them display my new web exclusive short stories as soon as the feature launches.

It’s looking as if I may finish the coding before I finish the trilogy of Devan stories, so there’s a good chance it may launch with only the first of the three.  That just means the new section will probably update sooner than it might have otherwise, though 😉

I completely forgot about all that nuts-n-bolts stuff last night when I said the “only thing left” was to code the utility to populate the shorts database. Nowthe only thing left to do to finish it up is to do that *laugh*

Then, I’ll do some final testing and remove any dummy elements I’ve put in place for testing purposes.  Once that’s done, I should have the first of the Devan trilogy back from editing, and I’ll launch the new shorts feature.

As you may have guessed, this child still isn’t cooperating with me :p  He’s not even taking naps during the day while I’m at work, and he still won’t go to bed at a decent hour.  On top of that, he’s been a complete wildman during the evening, making anything creative utterly impossible.

But, as I said yesterday, I usually have a window to write in the morning on weekends, provided I can get myself awake enough to do it.

EDIT:  I should probably add that the LST3K section will probably go live tomorrow.  I don’t know why I didn’t go back and finish the last few little bits to launch the basic information site yet :p

It may be because I was hoping to get some of the interactive features working, but screw it.  I’ll get the basic stuff up, and then work on the interactive stuff when I figure out a few things and have time to code it.

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Brainstorm on Sanctuary

I’d hit another drag point in Sanctuary of the Wood, and had a brainstorm today at work that got me past it.

It’s amazing what a small change of location can do.

I moved the scene from the tree fort to the pond, and it’s moving along nicely.  I was getting too distracted with the tree fort *laugh*

Had some flashes of inspiration on SOTM too.  Things are about to come to a boil, and I’m going to hit something I’ve been anticipating for a long time.  I’ve been wanting to tie a story into the larger narrative of Danica’s world ever since I wrote it, and knew how it was going to happen, but I just wasn’t at the right point in the story to do it.

That time is coming.

Really getting an itch to finish Lowborn as well, but Sanctuary has to have full front burner status until I finish it, because of the limited timetable and the long-standing tradition.

Experimenting with a few more things, but I’m close to having everything ready to get the LST3K pages online.  The big interactive feature – uRiff – won’t debut with the initial rollout, but I’ll have most of the elements I need for it ready to start coding when I feel like it.

Many of those same elements will be useful in the behind-the-scenes collaborative riffer coding that will let me work in semi-real time with other people to riff on stories.

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Figuring things out

Finally getting the hang of one of the elements of the software suite that runs the forum and the website that I haven’t previously delved into.  It’s going to prove extremely useful for the LST3K pages.  What it will allow me to do is to accept uploads of documents even if the person donating a story or auditioning to be a riffer hasn’t signed up for the website.

The former makes a lot more sense than the latter.  Eventually, it will make a lot more sense for riffers to sign up, because I’m going to code utilities that let us work on the riff in concert on the website, rather than sending files back and forth via email.

It’s an important element of making those pages truly useful to me and to users.  Another will be the ability to paste complete stories or riffs into a rich text form as another means of donating/auditioning.

Now that I have the basics of that down, I’m going to work on hooking up the anti-spam database to my various contact forms.  Once I have those working correctly, I’ll be in position to hook up the LST3K pages as well.  Initially, that will just be protecting me from spam, but as I roll out the user interactive features like uRiff, it will be keeping spammers from tossing cans of spam at people reading user submitted riffs as well.

I’m also seriously considering some website exclusive stories ( beyond my unpublished work on “My Work Extras” and the ancient porn stories on “About -> Writing Genesis” if you haven’t noticed there’s stuff not available anywhere else there )

Odds are that these will be interludes — heavy on sex, or stories with no sexual content from Danica’s World.  Likely examples would be:

Telling Geflon’s backstory that fits in with Casting Off Convention, To Catch a Merchant Princess, and the forthcoming Lowborn.

Things like relating how the girls managed to ‘borrow’ Andrea’s toy and learn the command word for it several chapters back in SOTM.  All of that happened off-screen, and only the aftermath is in the published story.

Stories about Andrea before she ended up at Zoraster’s complex.  Because she was a virgin before meeting Danica, it limits the potential for stories I can post on Lit or SOL, but there are plenty of stories I could tell to highlight her life before the story.

I’ve just had a lot of ideas kicking around that aren’t really right for publishing in my traditional venues, but which I believe regular readers of the stories in Danica’s world would very much enjoy.

Feel free to comment here, email, or post on the forum if there’s a story you’d like to see told.  Much of Blackhawk Hall and the whole of Ebon Genesis owes its origin to a reader’s suggestions.  Many times, those are inspirational and really get me moving.  At the same time, that inspiration gets other stories moving as well.

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Have things moving

I’m still concentrating on Sanctuary, but I also have the next chapter of SOTM moving, and I’m doing some work on Lowborn as well.

Work continues on the LST3K section of the website, and as warmer weather ( and a vacation ) creeps up, I’ll be able to do some of the expansions of the About page as well.

I’ve added a section to the forum to submit stories and audition to be a riffer on LST3Ks.  That’s part of the work on the LST3k section, but can be used right now, if you wish.  It can be used for talking about the series, though you’d be better off going with the main “discussion” forum for now.

All of this is leading toward the “My Worlds” section, which will have the most content that people are interested in for behind the scenes info.

If anybody has a website, twitter, facebook, or anything of that nature, links are much appreciated!  I know that linking to an adult site isn’t something most people would do, but if you’re not bothered by that, it’s a nice draw for new eyes on my stories.  The feedback is what I’m all about.

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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 )

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