World in the Satin Bag

World in the Satin Bag

Ask the Bloggers Series: Question #6 (I’m in it!)

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Grasping For the Wind has put up yet another of the Ask the Bloggers questions, which, of course, I answered. You can find out more about it here. The question this time was: What kind of book cover attracts your attention? What attributes of the cover make you more or less likely to take it off the shelf? Does the spine of the book have any effect on your choices? Yeah, so what about you? (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)

World in the Satin Bag

Steam Engines Sample: Your Thoughts?

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Okay, so my girlfriend and I have been discussing the opening paragraph of a new story I’ve been working on. She’s been mostly displeased with it because she doesn’t know what the engines actually are, and I’ve said that I shouldn’t have to say what the engines are or what they necessarily do in that opening paragraph. My argument is that it’s not really important at that moment. But we disagree on this whole thing, so I’m bringing it to the readers. Below you’ll find the paragraph as it currently stands. It’s not polished, so it may need some mild tweaking in my mind.What do you think? Hate it or like it or neither? Comments? The air grew silent as the steam engines became still in the sky. Chains held them as their massive turbines seized up; I watched them settle, the metallic roar of suspension bridges being pushed to their limits and the screams of workers, dozens of them, suddenly struck with the realization that their skyward employment had breathed its last breath. And all around me the voices of the many, their eyes peering to where the chains dug into the floating islands, shocked into curiosity, like cats roaming their mythical histories, rose up like a collective burst of terror, piercing the now dormant sky with their cries and hushed whispers. Alright. That’s that.(Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)

World in the Satin Bag

Sitemeter Update

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Okay, so apparently not even half a day after I made a post about how I was upset with the new layout for Sitemeter, they begun reverting back to the old layout. I’m taking credit for it, of course, and I have to say I’m happy to be back to the classic look. Whether I’m the only one that got this treatment, or everyone, I don’t know. If it is like this for everyone, you can thank me for whining about everything and being a baby. So, I’m happy I don’t have to switch traffic trackers, because I really do like Sitemeter’s simplicity. True, you have to pay for all the fancy features and extensive information that is provided for free with Google, but Google can also be a hassle because that darned tracker code hardly ever works. And really, all I care about for tracking my traffic is provided by the free version of Sitemeter. Anywho! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)

World in the Satin Bag

The Writing Groove: Getting It Back

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Well, last night proved to be good for my mental health. I churned out 1203 words, some in The Spellweaver of Dern and some in a new short story that I just had to write because it was driving me nuts. The new story is being called “Steam Engines” at this point, because it lacks a true direction and lacks a fancy title. However, it involves disaster in a world where magic is provided by great steam engines suspended by chains attached to floating islands. Right now it’s focused on the family of the man who is in charge of maintaining the engines and what happens to he and his family when the engines stop and he can’t fix them. It’s a really interesting story right now. Don’t know where it will go, but we’ll see. In other news, now that I’m back into writing I can finish up a lot of my stories and then do that horrible thing called “Editing”. I hate editing in more ways than one. It’s terrible; I should just learn to write well enough to not need editing…ha! I think on the top of my list will be the two fantasy shorts I’m writing, one of which is finished, the other almost finished. I want to get them up to publishable quality and out the door. Then I’d like to finish this new one and “Soul For Sale.” There are only a few stories I think are only a few inches from publishable, and it is those stories that I want to focus on. And having said all this I think I have sufficiently wasted enough of your time! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)

World in the Satin Bag

Sitemeter Changed and I’m Not Happy

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So Sitemeter, the website I use to track my traffic, has changed it’s entire interface…and I don’t like it. True, the new interface is pretty and reorganized, but it’s also slow as hell. I can’t even get it to the stats section. It just sits there on “loading” the whole time, and the pages I can get to run like crap. If this doesn’t improve in the next twenty-four hours I’ll be forced to go elsewhere for the same service.This is something that really pisses me off about software designers. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Seriously. What was wrong with Sitemeter’s previous interface? True, it wasn’t beautiful, but it was simple and really easy to use, fast, and graphically un-intensive. That meant it got the job done without having to be flashy. I want a system that works fast. I don’t have time to dilly daddle while trying to figure out how many people have visited my site. I’ve got other things to do, like writing blog posts, or writing in general, or reading. The new Firefox (3.0 I think) did the same thing, making the interface look new and beautiful. The problem? It ran like crap. So I downgraded and I won’t upgrade ever again. And if they force me to upgrade, I’ll go elsewhere for my browsing needs. There’s absolutely no reason to change an already functional interface. None. And if you’re going to change that interface, you should at least offer a “classic” view or skin or something so that people who don’t really give a crap about visual beauty in their software don’t have to deal with it. The good thing about Windows Vista is that it upgrade its interface, but allows you to go to a classic interface. I’ve left my Vista the way it is, because it doesn’t run slow for me, but XP had the same thing and it did run slow, so I used the classic interface.The way I see it, software designers need to realize that people who like their products probably don’t care if you try to make it look prettier. A lot of us really don’t care. We’re happy with the product as it is. If you need to upgrade, do so without fiddling with the way it looks. There’s really no reason to upgrade the visual layout if all it’s going to do is slow things down. Moving on. (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)

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