On Websites

I’ve been pondering websites for a while. I have a pseudonym or two that I might use, when I am published. Someday. And I’ve checked at least one of them—totally not taken anywhere. (It’s mine All Mine MUHAHAHAHAHAHA….)

I don’t know that now is the time to invest a ton of money into building a website. Or even a little money. Maybe just a little money.

There are lots of options. This blog is free. I could set up something on Wordpress for free. Or I could go with a hosting service.

And then there’s the actual website. Part of what holds me back is the technology. Its not that I don’t understand it—the opposite. I’m a software engineer. I can build a website myself. In theory. I’ve been taking a few classes these past few months—after hours but paid for by my employer—on website content design. Not the super-technical side, but HTML (which I already knew), CSS, Photoshop (coming up in June), client and server side scripting, etc. Fun stuff. The problem is that I need to choose something. Something that could, possibly, also lead to other opportunities. I’d love to eventually make a little side business in web development.

I’m actually in the server-side scripting class right now. It's an introduction to a handful of server-side technologies: CGI, ASP, ASP.NET, Perl, PHP. By "introduction" I mean the barest glance. And last night we dipped our toes into ASP.NET. Now, I’m a Microsoft kind of gal. 11 years and counting of VB, Visual C++, C#, etc. Its what I do every day at work, on a standalone computer instead of the web. And, it's basically the same kind of stuff as ASP.NET. Like frozen yogurt and ice cream—it all scoops the same and tastes great with chocolate syrup. While the instructor was slowly walking the other students through what a property page was, I was zipping ahead, my mind racing through the possibilities. Its like finding your voice in writing—that "aha!" moment where things just click.

So, now comes the hosting dilemma. We have a family domain name that is hosted through Powweb. I’ve checked out their services—they’re exceedingly reasonably priced, and have been reliable. And they provide all the basic back-end stuff that most websites need: support for Wordpress and PHP and Perl and a list of other things. But no ASP support. Doh!

And many of the providers that I found that support ASP charge more for it. I'm sure there's more maintenance (it is Microsoft), and it's an environment more likely to be used for e-commerce and other hard-core web development and "real" businesses. As opposed to, say, a handful of quasi-static web pages that no one but a few of my friends is likely to visit for the next few years.

The good fit costs more. I've mentioned that I fret about money, right? Even when I know what the right answer is, if it’s the more expensive answer I moan and whine and get nervous.

Dilemmas. Dilemmas. Dilemmas.

I need a goal

I need a goal. I want to have two finished manuscripts that are pitch-worthy for RWA national this summer: my contemporary single-title (Chivalrous/Day and Knight/whatever other name I come up with), and my sci-fi/romance (Leap). That gives me just under 3 months to finish and polish one manuscript, and brush off the second. I'm at 57500 words on Leap, out of an estimated 90000. I'm going to set a tentative goal of having it story-complete by June 1st, which gives me about 6 weeks for edits. That's a lot of writing. And a decent chunk of editing.

32500 words in 6 weeks
5417 words a week
773 words a day

About an hour a day, maybe 45 minutes if I know where the story is going. Its an easier pace than NaNo, at least.

I hope I can do it. I really do. Or at least have it close enough that I can fudge the whole "finished manuscript" bit at conference.

Happy Easter

Love makes us seek what is good; love makes us better persons. It is love tht prompts men and women t marry and form a family, to have children. It is love that prompts others to embrace the religious life or become priests. Love makes you reach out to others in need, whoever they are, wherever they are. Every genuine human love is a reflection of the Love that is God himself...

Pope John Paul II, Central Park, New York, October 7, 1995

Why am I here?

I have no business posting. I should be in bed, so I'll be refreshed and rejuvenated and coherent for an 8am meeting at work. Instead, I managed to order my skim sugar-free vanilla latte* caffeinated. Doh. Great crit group meeting though.

I got to read the Golden Heart-finaling entry of one of our group members (and give feedback on the next chapter following her uber-polished entry). And I'll be surprised if she doesn't have dozens of requests if not contracts on it...beautiful!

The group read the next few pages of my contemporary category, and gave me plenty to think about. I'm still feeling good about that one. I'm sure I have plenty plenty plenty to work on, but its fun.

The bad thing about caffeine is that it really doesn't wake me up. It makes me jittery and antsy. But I can feel jittery and antsy and exhausted, but still not fall asleep.


*Lent ends Saturday evening. Chocolate bunnies beware.

I warned you...

Comment modification now on. Thank you, spammer. I've learned, as a mother, not to give more than a single warning on bad behavior, and to follow up with exactly the consequences that I threatened.

BTW, next time try creating sentences that actually make sense. On one of my other blogs I've occasionally gotten ad-type spam that kind of relates to the post I'd written. That's annoying. This junk is just gibberish.

On the topic of writing, I'm making progress. I'm also splitting my forces, which is probably a bad idea. And yet, I have ideas (probably also bad ones) about so many different projects at once. So, I am recording progress on "Appearance of Impropriety", my contemporary cateogry novel featuring Claire and Helmut, who made their debuts on this blog. And I'm making forward progress on "Leap", my sci-fi/paranromal romance/romantic-elements.

The problem is that Leap is chest-deep in action right now, and writing all the tense action leaves me feeling a little keyed up (or maybe its the caffeine...I got my caramel latte leaded this morning). The category is fast-moving, but there are no guns (or phaser-type alien weapons) blazing, and it's still in the banter-stage. It's still on the climb to that first big hill of the emotional roller coaster, where you hear the click-click-click of the conveyor belt and begin grasping the handles with white knuckles. Leap is mid-corkscrew, heading for a tunnel.

So, hooray for having a day off. I've got a little shopping to do, lunch with my husband, then some combination of house cleaning and more writing until its time to pick up the kids for preschool. Maybe Leap's word count ticker will grow a little more this afternoon :)

And, remember, if you comment it might just take a day or two before it appears on the blog. Be patient with me please :)

Admin note

Hmmm...Apparently my last post attracted a spammer of sorts. I don't care to turn on comment moderation (or else comments could take a day or moreto show up...I can't update this thing several times a day, even if I attracted enough traffic to need that kind of attention. My crazy spammer is even a registered Blogger user, so turning off anonymous comments wouldn't help. Guess I'll watch things and if the spam continues, I'll have to do something.

In the mean time, don't feed the spammers by clicking on their links. I don't even want to know where they go...

Win an E-reader (no, not from me)...

..but from three romance authors, including one (Alison Kent) that I've discovered this past year. I've read a handful of her books now, including Kiss and Tell, At Risk, and In Danger. I have Deep Trouble sitting in my TBR pile. And, I have her Complete Idiots Guide to Writing Erotic Romance. I highly recommend this book for romance writers, even if you're writing tamer stuff, because she helps you sort out where you're putting your love scenes, and why, and how to make them work. Anyway check out the contest, feel free to enter (goodness knows I am!) and have fun poking around their websites.