... beginning of an era?
I don't know if anyone read the "Moving On" post (two posts back), but I've decided after a great deal of consideration that there wasn't really a decision to be made. It was made years ago.
Does anyone reading this remember the YahooGroups based role-play called "NRPG"? It got a little slow, so I tried out a bizarre storyline that I had started writing but didn't know how to approach. That first file- the one that made five pages before I gave up on it- says it was created on 8/3/1999 at 6:40 PM.
That means it was a little over ten years ago that this idea first surfaced. It is as old as my oldest published work. I have been occasionally considering it and turning it over for ten years, and this NaNoWriMo, I wrote it. It's canon - no choice, simple fact, time to move on and see what the new world holds.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Site Stuff - seeking feedback!
[edit]
Okay, I was up until about 1am and have now redone the basic format of the five main pages (home, blog, wiki, message board, writing). I haven't done includes or anything more than basic html yet, since I don't want to bother to fix up the directory structure and finalize anything until I settle on a design. Currently I have same-style but different header designs for each section. I like the concept, but will it drive people crazy? Should I make them all match?
Someone has already mentioned the header color (orange-ish) looks painful on her monitor, so I will probably change that. It looks nice on mine, but I know colors like that sometimes look very different on different monitors. Along those lines - I've tested in Firefox and IE. Anyone out there on Opera or other browsers want to let me know if there's anything funky going on? I probably won't know how to fix it, but if it's a huge problem, I'll try.
Since someone else asked, "The Wiki" incorporates previous sections "The World" and "The Books."
Please let me know your thoughts in comments below.
[end edit]
Two posts in one day - and on completely different topics, so you might want to look back at the previous one.
As you may have noticed, yes, I am renovating the site. My goal is to make it easier for me to keep up to date. This means turning it into a bit of a quilt between the nyeusigrube.com site and the blogger site.
I'm aware that some of the tech-minded people out there are going to tell me this isn't the best way to go about my goal. However, it's the most likely to ever get done. I've tried hosting my own blog so it will fit in better, but I don't have the tech savvy to deal with security holes, which is probably how we got hacked most recently. At the same time, though, I want to get rid of frames. People hate frames; I hate frames; they work differently on all browsers and tend to screw things up, so I would rather jump from one site to another entirely than frame stuff.
I'm playing with it. I like to code when I have eight hours to kill and don't need to sleep any time soon.
Okay, I was up until about 1am and have now redone the basic format of the five main pages (home, blog, wiki, message board, writing). I haven't done includes or anything more than basic html yet, since I don't want to bother to fix up the directory structure and finalize anything until I settle on a design. Currently I have same-style but different header designs for each section. I like the concept, but will it drive people crazy? Should I make them all match?
Someone has already mentioned the header color (orange-ish) looks painful on her monitor, so I will probably change that. It looks nice on mine, but I know colors like that sometimes look very different on different monitors. Along those lines - I've tested in Firefox and IE. Anyone out there on Opera or other browsers want to let me know if there's anything funky going on? I probably won't know how to fix it, but if it's a huge problem, I'll try.
Since someone else asked, "The Wiki" incorporates previous sections "The World" and "The Books."
Please let me know your thoughts in comments below.
[end edit]
Two posts in one day - and on completely different topics, so you might want to look back at the previous one.
As you may have noticed, yes, I am renovating the site. My goal is to make it easier for me to keep up to date. This means turning it into a bit of a quilt between the nyeusigrube.com site and the blogger site.
I'm aware that some of the tech-minded people out there are going to tell me this isn't the best way to go about my goal. However, it's the most likely to ever get done. I've tried hosting my own blog so it will fit in better, but I don't have the tech savvy to deal with security holes, which is probably how we got hacked most recently. At the same time, though, I want to get rid of frames. People hate frames; I hate frames; they work differently on all browsers and tend to screw things up, so I would rather jump from one site to another entirely than frame stuff.
I'm playing with it. I like to code when I have eight hours to kill and don't need to sleep any time soon.
Moving on...
This past November, I participated in National Novel Writing Month. I wrote a novel approximately 50,000 words long, which may or may not be part of Nyeusigrube canon.
Why am I uncertain? Because this novel changes a lot.
Many millenniums ago- in the history of Nyeusigrube- two humans made a deal with a fire elemental generally referred to in modern day as Leona. The students and progeny of those two once-humans further spread their power, creating in the process the vampires, witches and shapeshifters you have met in my previous books.
About a month ago, one of my characters "broke" that status quo.
Now I need to decide- do I pretend it never happened? Or do I move on, and explore what the world has become? I'm not entirely sure which characters are alive or dead. I started building Nyeusigrube in 1995, the summer after fifth grade; two years later, I wrote In the Forests of the Night, and now, fourteen years later, I need to decide whether I am ready to explore a world reborn.
Some of you will like the prospect. Some of you will hate it. Regardless what I decide, Token of Darkness, All Just Glass and Poison Tree come first in terms of publication.
I'm just not sure yet what happens after that.
Why am I uncertain? Because this novel changes a lot.
Many millenniums ago- in the history of Nyeusigrube- two humans made a deal with a fire elemental generally referred to in modern day as Leona. The students and progeny of those two once-humans further spread their power, creating in the process the vampires, witches and shapeshifters you have met in my previous books.
About a month ago, one of my characters "broke" that status quo.
Now I need to decide- do I pretend it never happened? Or do I move on, and explore what the world has become? I'm not entirely sure which characters are alive or dead. I started building Nyeusigrube in 1995, the summer after fifth grade; two years later, I wrote In the Forests of the Night, and now, fourteen years later, I need to decide whether I am ready to explore a world reborn.
Some of you will like the prospect. Some of you will hate it. Regardless what I decide, Token of Darkness, All Just Glass and Poison Tree come first in terms of publication.
I'm just not sure yet what happens after that.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Welcome to December
Well... National Novel Writing Month is over, and what a month it was. I made my 50k this year; in some ways it was easier than other years, and in some ways it was harder.
It often seemed like there was no way I could finish. There was so much going on. I've had a couple friends dealing with fairly serious health issues this fall, which has occupied a lot of my attention. Meanwhile, Mandi and I are still wedding-planning (we finally arranged a taste-testing with the caterer, which went very well) and... okay, I'll just say it. We've been house hunting. I'll let you know how it goes.
And of course, there's Thanksgiving, which was particularly exciting this year when the oven spontaneously shut down-- completely, oven and stove all turning off, and it's electric, so off means OFF-- about 30 minutes before I expected to take the bird out. There was a lot of discussion about finishing one of the birds on the grill or taking them 15 minutes down the road to my sister's house to finish making dinner as all the handy folk in the house checked circuit breakers (I was the first one to look, but no one believed me when I said nothing was flipped) and pondered.
Eventually, my brother-in-law realized it had been unplugged. Go figure. A few people concurred that this made perfect sense, that it must have been loosened over time, but seriously, how does a major appliance randomly come unplugged when the very large plug is UNDER the appliance? Either way, we got it plugged back in and working again, and managed to serve by 6:30, which is outrageously late to serve Thanksgiving dinner.
All in all, though, it went well. I also managed to acquire Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, so I spent much of Saturday, Sunday and Monday playing that instead of working on my NaNo, which I still managed to finish by 10:30ish.
November has been a little surreal.
Now it's December. Like every year, I've sworn I am not going to the mall this year. The one near us is so overly large it creates its own traffic patterns for a month on each side of Christmas. Like every year, I'll probably be there a few days before Christmas buying last-minute items. Maybe I should just give in and go early instead.
Before then, though, I'm going to Torah study with my fiancee on Saturday morning, followed by a production of Beauty and the Beast that night. Chanukah starts the following Saturday, so Mandi and I will light candles right after I trim the tree and put up the creche with my parents.
And now... now I need to call the lawyer and see if the sellers have signed a contract yet, so we can go to a home inspection...
Welcome to December.
It often seemed like there was no way I could finish. There was so much going on. I've had a couple friends dealing with fairly serious health issues this fall, which has occupied a lot of my attention. Meanwhile, Mandi and I are still wedding-planning (we finally arranged a taste-testing with the caterer, which went very well) and... okay, I'll just say it. We've been house hunting. I'll let you know how it goes.
And of course, there's Thanksgiving, which was particularly exciting this year when the oven spontaneously shut down-- completely, oven and stove all turning off, and it's electric, so off means OFF-- about 30 minutes before I expected to take the bird out. There was a lot of discussion about finishing one of the birds on the grill or taking them 15 minutes down the road to my sister's house to finish making dinner as all the handy folk in the house checked circuit breakers (I was the first one to look, but no one believed me when I said nothing was flipped) and pondered.
Eventually, my brother-in-law realized it had been unplugged. Go figure. A few people concurred that this made perfect sense, that it must have been loosened over time, but seriously, how does a major appliance randomly come unplugged when the very large plug is UNDER the appliance? Either way, we got it plugged back in and working again, and managed to serve by 6:30, which is outrageously late to serve Thanksgiving dinner.
All in all, though, it went well. I also managed to acquire Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, so I spent much of Saturday, Sunday and Monday playing that instead of working on my NaNo, which I still managed to finish by 10:30ish.
November has been a little surreal.
Now it's December. Like every year, I've sworn I am not going to the mall this year. The one near us is so overly large it creates its own traffic patterns for a month on each side of Christmas. Like every year, I'll probably be there a few days before Christmas buying last-minute items. Maybe I should just give in and go early instead.
Before then, though, I'm going to Torah study with my fiancee on Saturday morning, followed by a production of Beauty and the Beast that night. Chanukah starts the following Saturday, so Mandi and I will light candles right after I trim the tree and put up the creche with my parents.
And now... now I need to call the lawyer and see if the sellers have signed a contract yet, so we can go to a home inspection...
Welcome to December.
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