Website updates.

[Darkniciad]

Just finished with a nightmare of an infrastructure update.  If you've tried to come here over the last few days, you undoubtedly came across all kinds of broken links and errors.  I think I've got all that solved now.

Unfortunately, all of my pages are going to have to be tweaked to function again.  That means my work listings and everything else on the public side will be down for a while.  All of my backend tools are also down, so I'll have to do manual database entry if I manage to get my muse in gear and release any new work.  ( Not that anybody would be able to see it with the public pages down )

The forum needs massive tweaking, because it's a brand new version, and my old hooks and templates don't work anymore.  Same for the blog, because the updates there made the theme I was using defunct.  RRs blog escaped the horror because it was using a theme compatible with the new infrastructure.

[Reject Reality]

Well, I found at least one of the major changes I need to make in the documentation, but I can't get in the correct frame of mind to wrap my head around the differences in the code structure.  Puzzling out this one difference would allow me to put most of the public side of the website back online.  If I figure out how the member data is stored in the new version, I can essentially put all of my old public pages back up the way they were.  ( Sans the newsletter, which was a nightmare to code, and kind of outdated with all the update options available now )

Then, I need to puzzle out another element in order to get my backend working.

I just can't find the focus to do any of it right now.  Same for writing.  My muse is completely offline right now.  It's probably from the months of 14+ hour days at work.  I start my end of the year days off as of now, but I doubt that's going to bump my productivity.  It didn't last year, and I wasn't even recovering from months of long hour hell then.  With the boy not being in school, I simply don't have the quiet time I did a couple of years ago.  I get enough sleep to recover, but the environment once I wake up is not conductive to thinking about anything.

I'll keep peeking in on it ( and stories in progress ) every so often to see if I get a spark, but for now, I'm just kind of leveling up on Steam playing RPGs.

[Reject Reality]

Yeah, I still got nothing.

I've been compiling tons of story starts, cover mock-ups, images to build cover mock-ups, yada, yada.  Can't manage to get any story moving beyond fits and starts, though.

I've peeked in on SOTM and finished a scene.  I wrote a couple of paragraphs of Gates of Enchantment.  I've done some tweaks to One Whore's Town.  I've fiddled with Queen of the Wood and Tangled Coils.  I've got two solid ideas for SOL exclusive stories in the Fey Folk series.  ( Trying to come up with something that won't play at Lit or Lush which still fits in with my personal sensibilities ain't easy )  One is much harder edge non-con on someone who probably deserves it.  The other is more of a reluctance/hypnosis type thing where a magical intervention leaves the 'victim' in a much better place after it's over.  The second is 16, so no Lit, where the non-con would work, while the non-con element I think is outside Lush's guidelines.  At the very least, it's outside of readership expectations.

That's assuming Lush ever gets it's shit together.

I have the tentative start of an SOL exclusive RR story as well.  Once again, reluctance with a 17 year old so it wouldn't play on either of the other sites.  I want to have exclusives for every name on every site.

I've got an aunt/nephew thing that was sort of working, but now feels a little cliche.  I've got a step father/daughter thing that is working, but I can't get in the right frame of mind to write the sex scene.  I've got a fun older man, younger woman story called Curl & Figure that is also stuck at the sex scene, because I can't get back into the unique voice of the lead-up narrative.

What else...

Oh, yeah.  A nearly complete watersports story to fill that category on Lush.  Kind of lost my wind there once the site went all bonkers.  A few potential ideas for the new Facesitting category as well.  I think I've got one for Trans.  I've had the translucent bones of a story for their kind of weird Mind Control category as well.  That would only leave Novels and Novellas.  If I wanted to cheat, I could probably edit "It Cuts Both Ways", cut it into three chapters, and fill that one.  Prefer to write something original that doesn't fit well into any other genres, though.

A good chunk of a non-erotic story about a ghost who's trying to scare people out of his old apartment but everything he does gets blamed on their cats. ( In the same universe as "Ghost of a Chance" )

"From the Hartwell" which is the next story in the Celes quintet is actually started on "paper".  With the website down, that one's kind of in Limbo.  A couple of Halloween stories that just needed tweaks and finished.  That damn older/younger lesbian story that's been kicking around for Valentine's for over a decade.

One of the most recent starts is a story for Fey Folk moving on to the bigger fey.  The elves of that universe are closer to the traditional kind — about 2 feet tall.  Leprechauns, Gnomes, and Dwarves are the final scales going up, topping out at probably 3.5 feet.  One of my other starts mentioned earlier goes the opposite direction to critters less than an inch tall.

Plenty of ideas, but the words just won't come.