Devereaux Court & Stuff

So, Devereaux Court is doing pretty well. I spent a good chunk of yesterday learning how to split the sidebar into two columns, which I did manage to do. Then I stayed up late writing posting guidelines and stuff.

This evening, I messaged some writers I know and asked them if they would be interested in joining. So far, I've had two takers, which brings our number to four, with several invites still open. I have to say, I'm reasonably excited about this.

I worked out today, obviously. Yesterday I really pushed myself, and I'm sorry to say that I didn't do the same today. It was unbelievably hot and muggy, but that's sort of a lame excuse. Maybe I'll do better tomorrow.

Tonight, I plan to watch House, work on Aigaion Girl and probably teach my dad how to do some basic photo manipulation.

Revamp

So, as you can see, I've redone my blog... again.

I'm pretty pleased with myself, actually, since I magaed to get both a stationary background and translucent floating text boxes. As much as I liked my blog the way it was, it felt like it needed some updating.

I've also updated my travel blog, So, Journey, with the help of The Cutest Blog on the Block, and their lovely free backgrounds(this one with the birdies is all me).

Also, I'm thinking of starting a community writing blog, just a bunch of writers hanging around, talking about writing, and bouncing ideas off each other. Might be kinda cool.

My Official Website

Is still non-existant. Now, apart from my usual problems with sucking at html, I'm also not sure what I want it to look like... at all.

My problem, I think, is that I'm too many different people. Or, rather, I don't fit in a box. I don't have one set style or one set of colours that best represents me, and I want my website to represent me - or at least my writing.

I know I want something that will appeal to both children and adults, that is creepy, but not Tim Burton creepy, because I also write stuff that is humerous social comentary, and trying to advertise that on a site that's all big moons and gnarly trees and glowing eyes might not work out so well. I want something that is easy to look at, easy to read and easy to navigate - and at least kind of goes with this blog, so I don't have to redo this, as soon as I'm done with that.

I've been restless lately, and that doesn't help. I guess what I have to do is come up with an idea and stick to it, regardless of the fact that I'll probably change my mind before I'm finished the layout.

Valentine's Day & Some Other Stuff

I hate Valentine's Day. Not just because it was designed by Hallmark as a deliberate cash-grab, but more because people actually fall for it.

Basically, if you're not single on Valentine's Day, you're supposed to make sure that that special someone gets as fat and unhealthy as possible - or buy him/her jewelry. If (God forbid!) you are single on Valentine's Day, you're supposed to sit at home alone and be miserable.

Actually, until a few minutes ago, I had completely forgotten that today was Valentine's Day. I was far more interested in yesterday being Friday the 13th, and spent absolutely none of today feeling sorry for myself because I'm single. Actually, I'm kind of glad to be single right now; the land of men has been a vastly disappointing one of late. It's kind of pathetic.

(somewhat off topic)
Also, it has been brought to my attention that my blog needs still more tweaking. Apparently, for people with certain resolutions, my background gets tiled. I knew this was the case, but thought I had made the image wide enough that that wouldn't matter, regardless of resolution settings. I know how to fix it, but sadly, neither my touch pad nor my mouse are good enough to do proper graphic design work with, which means I'll have to go into my mum's office to fix it. At least I finally got rid of those horrid blue boxes that kept showing up around the edges of my images.

Anyway, today actually wasn't a bad day, as random Saturdays go. I got nominated for an award on FictionPress, posted another chapter of Aigaion Girl, wrote a bit and watched Criminal Minds with my family. Now I'm going to have some hot chocolate and probably turn in for the night. Mmm, mm, sleep.

(Additional)
I'm tacking this on to the bottom of this post because I think posting on your blog more than twice a day is unhealthy. Actually, I just like the way the heart picture looks with my flowers, so I want it to stay there another day.

Anywho, I decided to check my traffic on FictionPress, and was extremely glad to find a spike. Go me.If it's a little unclear, the graph goes in date order right to left, so the far left is today.

Emo Notes

So, I redid my blog again. I think it looks a lot nicer - hopefully it will load faster as well. It didn't take me all that long and I think if I could code worth a damn, I would probably be able to make it in the website design business.

I have no idea what to do to boost my FictionPress readership from yesterday. None. I suppose I could go to my hosue, dig up some old stuff and post it, but that feels kinda like cheating. I'm going to have to do something, though, 'cause I've only had eight hits today, which is less than I had on the first.

If you're wondering (and I know you are), the adorable little thing on the trike in the corner is a water drop. It's from some spanish spam my mum got. I made her send it to me. He'll probably show up again, one day when I've forgotten that I've used him already. Because he's that cute.

Well, I've kinda run out of stuff to say. Maybe I shouldn't try to blog every day; it's way too much work.

Remembering Code

It turns out that my mad html skills are only mildly irritated. Actually, the html bit is working fine, but my image files are too big, and they take forever to load. Not sure how to fix this without seriously reducing the dpi - they're already saved as .pngs. Also, the background image isn't physically big enough, but if I put it back to its original size, people will be done reading my blog before the page is done loading. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. I love my old paper background, but I might have to change it to something a little easier to load.

What else? Oh, right. My memory (I'm not being funny, I actually forgot). I honestly don't know what's wrong with my brain, but it worries me. I'm at the point where if I have two simple tasks in front of me, I try to prioratize because there is a good chance that I will forget to do whichever one I plan to do second. For example, while I was getting ready to leave my apartment the other day, I found myself stuck between brushing my teeth and cleaning my earrings. I brushed my teeth. Then I made it halfway down the stairs before I remembered that I still needed to clean my earrings. I actually forgot in about it in the course of two minutes - which wouldn't be all that bad if I hadn't been actively trying to remember. Ah well. What can you do?

There was one other thing, and now I've forgotten again. Right. My FictionPress stats. At the moment, I think I'm sitting at one reader, one hit for today, but I have another six hours to beat yesterday's numbers (which actually went up from when I posted), so (assuming I remember), there should be another post around midnight.