Not Exactly a Redesign

I finally started tinkering with my main site again, removing links that were never going to be used and updating the status information for both To Everything a Purpose and Fallen Sparrows. I removed all links and references to the hacked-and-therefore-defunct feedback forums. I redirected the latest news link to this blog and added a direct link to my Flickr site so they can view any photos I post.

So far, there is nothing on the main page that even mentions Knights of the Blood or 411-SINGLES. Because of the way the site is currently laid out, this is where a redesign becomes necessary. Most likely, I expect to center the redesing around 411-SINGLES as that is my main focus at this point. The two current novels will keep there own sections, which will probably stay as they are now. Knights of the Blood may get set up with a similar section, but it’s not a priority. This blog will still be the best source of updates for anything I do, mainly since I can update it from anywhere.

The main holdup for a complete redesign is coming up with some graphics I can use for 411-SINGLES and deciding what the new layout should be. The graphics will be the harder part, as I have not really toyed around with Paint Shop Pro since I did the cover art for Fallen Sparrows. It shouldn’t be too hard once I come up with an overall graphic theme for it. I’ve got ideas, but none of them are rising head and tails above the others yet. Keep your eyes open, though. This is my second update in as many days. That’s gotta be a good sign.

Last of the old posts

So much for soon, but it is down. There really wasn’t much point in having a guestbook anyway. Even if this site at some point does generate some real traffic, the forum is more than sufficient to make up for it.

Also, because I could, I added my Xbox LIVE gamercard info on the front page. It’s a way for anyone interested to see what games I’ve played on my Xbox360 (when it comes in–I’m still on backorder) and what I’ve accomplished in them. The icon I currently use is a character from the popular Halo games with a black/orange swirl in the background. Bengal colors. Who Dey?! (Here’s hoping for a 13-3 season).

I’ve taken out the placeholders for Deleted scenes links on my books. Aside from the fact that I just don’t get the time to update this site like I’d like, that particular feature would really never be that much of a draw. Again, if someone should be interested, the forum is the best place for something like that.

I really do intend to be more vigilant on updating this site, but who knows when that will be? I’m on Chapter 9 currently in Fallen Sparrows and only have about 2 more chapters after that before I finish my first draft. That’s my top priority, but even finding time for that is difficult. Thanks to those of you who have stopped by and looked around. I really hope you’re enjoying it. Your prayer and support is invaluable. Until next time…

Edit: The gamerpic for my Xbox Live card is (as of this post) Gimli from Lord of the Rings. It may or may not have changed by the time you see it.

Star Wars

All the pages for ‘To Every Thing a Purpose’ that already existed for the previous site format has been ported over to the new format and all the links should be up to date. Anything added now will be completely new. Also, ported over the About Me page and converted the photo of me on the home page to an e-mail link so you can contact me if you wish.

More updates will be coming soon, but not too soon. The Star Wars Trilogy DVDs are coming out today. I may be busy for a few days.

Edit: Oddly enough, this is almost 2 years to the date since Lucas released these DVDs again with the theatrical versions on them. I didn’t buy them since I’m satisfied with the newer ones, but I did pick up Lego Star Wars II for my Xbox360 on trade-in and loved every minute of it.

A much longer update

This has been the first update in exactly seven months, but it has been quite a busy seven months. Unless this is your first visit, chances are you’ve already noticed the biggest change. The format of the site has changed, including new custom-made graphics. Some pages now no longer use frames, but they never really needed them, anyway. The Feedback section still sports the old color scheme, but changing that involves more work and time than I can give it. Since it works well enough on its own, I’m just going to leave it for the time being.

Another huge update lies in a whole new section based on my new work-in-progress, the novel “Fallen Sparrows”. Work has actually begun on it, and it is the main reason a major site overhaul was necessary. As of today, I have almost two chapters completed. The portion of the site for this novel hasn’t been built yet, but you should be seeing it fairly soon. The hardest work was converting the rest of the site, including checking all the links, and most of that is done now. Of course, work on the novel is top priority, but updates are a lot easier and more convenient to do than redesigning a web site.

The “To Every Thing a Purpose” portion of the website is down for the moment, but that is coming next. My apologies to anyone visiting the site wishing to download the novel to read. It will be back up very soon, I promise. It is people like you who keep me encouraged and excited about writing. Trust me, this newest story is going to be awesome.

I’m also going to be expanding each of the novel sections a little bit. Each will have a page talking about the various main and supporting characters. These pages won’t contain any spoiler information, but if anyone’s wondering who some of the real life people are that inspired certain characters, this is where you will find it. There is also going to be a “Deleted Scenes” page for each book. Usually a feature you see on DVDs, I do have a couple scenes from each novel so far that have been scrapped entirely. In the case of “Fallen Sparrows” they have been completely rewritten. These pages are where you will see what was originally written and be able to judge for yourself if I made the right choice in tossing them. They’re more curiosity pages than anything, but someone may be interested.

The most subtle update to the site is an icon with a link in support of the reelection of our President George W. Bush and our vice President Dick Cheney. This is not a political site, so I won’t debate why Bush is the right choice and Kerry isn’t. There are plenty of sites for that, and that is not the purpose for this one. This is a personal site, so I limit my politics here to simply stating that George W. Bush is the candidate I support.

Anyway, keep checking back for all the updates and news regarding my writing and efforts to publish it. God Bless!

Edit: The deleted pages wasn’t so great an idea in retrospect and was just too much in light of everything else I want and wanted to do. Fallen Sparrows is still a great story in my opinion. I haven’t finished because I haven’t been able to get the creative juices flowing at the same time that I’ve had time to write. That and ideas have been coming fast and heavy for the next story.

Also, now that this is a blog, I won’t mind posting political items from time to time and maybe even allowing comments for them (moderated, of course).

For the world to see

The site is live now! It is coming up on a few search engines already, with many more to come. A couple reader reviews have been added to the “To Every Thing a Purpose” section, so you no longer have to take just my word for it that it’s a good story. The short story section is up and running with the exception of the snippets, and the idea is already brewing for my first one. I’m trying to figure out how to add a poll to each on so readers can rate them. (Besides, who doesn’t like a good poll?) All in all, some pretty good progress these past few days.

A lot of tinkering

Hard to believe, but I’ve actually been able to update not just twice in one month, but twice in one week. Not bad, eh? The poetry section is fixed to better integrate with the new frames layout for the site. It’s also been given a new background, as the old poetry background didn’t work as well without it’s own navigation frame on the left. The frame boundaries aren’t as seamless as the background for the rest of the site, but since it looks like a paper crease I think it actually gives that part of the site a little more character. I’m happy with it.

The colors on the feedback forums have been adjusted to better match the color scheme for the rest of the site. A lot of trial and error there, but I was surprised at how well it looks. There’s still more to be done, however. There’s still some blue and silver in a lot of key places, and while it does look good, I’m still hoping to adjust them to match the rest of the site, too. They’re actual graphics, though, so I’ll have to run them through Paint Shop Pro, which will take some time. It’s possible I could end up designing replacement graphics of my own, but if it’s not too hard to just swap colors, I’ll probably just go with that for now as there really isn’t enough traffic to warrant that much work just yet.

I’ve also made a few minor changes. The “To Every Thing a Purpose” title on the sub-pages for the novel has been moved to the novel navigation frame. It’s a little less redundant, as well as providing a nice template for future novel sub-sites. A grammatical correction was made to the About Me page, and the Poetry intro page was updated. Oh, yeah, and I added a roll-over effect to all the links in the Poetry section, too. If FrontPage didn’t make all this so easy, I wouldn’t have gotten nearly as much done. Hope you enjoy the site. Thanks for stopping by!

Edit: It’s actually too bad the forums are down, in a way. I was pretty happy with the results of this tinkering. Now no one else will see it. Oh, well. Stupid hackers.

Another site redesign

Hello, again. Welcome to the new frames version of my site complete with all new navigation buttons. Just about everything is in place except for fixing a few links in the poetry section. That’ll likely be given a semi-major overhaul to keep it consistent with the main site, as well as less complicated to manage. I’m real pleased with the mouse roll-over effects on the navigation buttons, as that was where the bulk of the difficulty in the site redesign was. Of course, that I designed and created them myself might be worth a slight mention. You won’t see the archived updates just yet, as I am still figuring out where to put the links to those, but that’ll be taken care of soon enough.

Writing work is still slow going. I have picked up the novel to start editing again, and I am still waiting on a little more feedback to incorporate into what is hopefully the final draft. Time still doesn’t allow me to do much else, as there is a lot going on in my personal life that really prevents dedicating the amount of time needed for original writing. There is still much to be done with my car, and one of my brothers, bless his heart, is going through a very challenging time in his life right now. We would both very much appreciate your prayers.

So until next time, I hope everyone has a happy new year and stops by to visit again soon. God Bless!

Well, it’s pretty obvious I haven’t been updating as often as I had planned, but between a dead car transmission, a kidney stone, a full schedule, and an auto accident about a week and a half ago, you can understand how some things tend to fall a little prioritywise. Yet I must say that through it all God has been faithful in all of these areas, including the book. People are still asking me how the book is progressing, and I am still finding people who are interested in reading it and giving me feedback. What’s even more incredible about that is that most of them are people who have approached me, both personally and via email, asking for a copy. One of them was responding to a post I had made on a Christian writers’ website back in May. May. For what precious little work has been done with the novel these past few months, our awesome God has not let the project fade away or die. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am richly and undeservedly blessed.

Ideas are still gelling for the next novel, and the main storyline is coming into focus. The next thing I write will be a short story entitled “Christmas Eve Mary”. Granted, it won’t be finished before December 25th, but I’ve been wanting to do a good Christmas story for a long time, and this idea even incorporates another idea I had come up with awhile back as well It will have a unique structure to it in that it takes place solely in one location with each of its scenes taking place on Christmas Eve of different years. I’ve already started a rough story sketch, which should hopefully give me a good idea how long it will end up being. The idea is to have something that, with little difficulty, should be adaptable into some kind of play. Whether or not it ever ends up being performed by anyone, I have no idea. It would be nice, but the biggest priority is fashioning a compelling story. Time will tell.

After the holidays and after things settle down a little bit, I hope to begin a redesign of the site and have everything in frames, much like the poetry section. That will enable the site to grow better as more stories are written so that it won’t be centered around one story. The old pages will stay up as a non-frames version of the site, should there be anyone who might prefer to view them that way. Granted, if you’re reading this, it’s probably as an archived update, as traffic is minimal at best right now. (That’s one reason I’m not concerned with frequent updates lately.) Traffic will definitely increase when I finally get published, and it’s better to have the site in place when that happens as opposed to having to come up with something afterwards and having no time to do it. The hosting rate is more than reasonable, and it provides a place for those interested in reading the book to download it. You can imagine how much paper and toner I’ve gone through giving out as many copies as I have already. I do have a couple really short stories I hope to post eventually, but I honestly don’t expect any more site updates until after the holidays. There’s just too many things going on right now.

Finally, Happy Birthday to my adorable niece, Callie, who is two years old tomorrow. The picture below is her “frownie face”. Quite the cutie, don’tcha think? Until next update, Merry Christmas and God Bless!

Edit: The Mary story also became part of Fallen Sparrows.

Romancing the (kidney) stone

Again, it’s been awhile since the last update, but a lot has been going on elsewhere and little has changed with the novel. Car trouble and a kidney stone top that list, so needless to say I’ve been a little distracted Rest assured, this project is far from dead. God has blessed and taken care of the finances that the car trouble caused, and outpatient surgery on the 30th should (hopefully) take care of the kidney stone.

With that said, I do want to point out that the Downloads page now has the latest version (3.0) and is nearly complete. There are a couple scenes in the last two chapters that need rewriting, and then I should be finished and ready to start the submission process. Please stop back soon as I will definitely be updating the site as the project moves forward.

Old novel, New (old) revision

A revision history for the novel has been posted on the Feedback forum. The contest is active, as well. It’s a topic under the To Every Thing a Purpose category. The fourth draft (revision 3) is complete, and the Status page has been updated to reflect this. I’m holding off on posting this as a download, as it may not be too long before the next (and hopefully final) revision is complete. For those of you wondering how the next story is progressing, the ideas are definitely starting to coalesce. It’s a low priority right now, as I really need to finish TETaP and start sending it out to publishers. I must say it seems the devil is doing all he can to distract me from doing this, which tells me he has to be scared of something or else he wouldn’t bother. Please continue to keep this book in your prayers, as well as its author. Thanks, and God bless.

Edit: As said in the previous post, there is no contest now, nor a Feedback forum.