Doug Farren's Blog, page 5

New Website

My new author website is up and running. Right now, it does pretty much the minimum required for it to be considered a halfway decent website. I'm still working my way through several books on Web-site design (currently reading Creating a Website: The Missing Manual , and CSS: The Missing Manual at the same time). I will most likely be making some minor changes to the new site as I learn more about website design. Once those two books are done, my next major project will be to learn JavaScript.

Learning JavaScript is going to take some time but is a necessary requirement for me to move on to the next phase of my website project--putting my science fiction calculator on the web. Ever since I started writing science fiction, I've relied on an Excel spreadsheet to perform calculations so I can keep the known science real. Some of these calculations can become quite complex and doing them by hand over and over again was simply not an option. I share this spreadsheet with anyone (author or not) who is interested in using it. Once it's on my website, anyone can use it.

When not reading up on website construction or web-based languages, I have been working on my current book. Right now, the word count sits at 35,698 and it's moving along well. I still have no idea how this one is going to end but I do have several possibilities. The story itself will usually point towards a satisfactory ending as I continue to add to it.

If you've been reading my blog or know me personally, you know that I'm a Microsoft Access developer. For the past couple of years, I've had a very stable system of programs that perform my automatic updates. This system needed some changes to make it easier to maintain as well as to improve the response time for changes made in the monitored data sources. Adding new automatic reports was especially difficult. I created a new set of programs using most of the original code and rolled them out last week. Unfortunately, I failed to perform the multi-day testing I said I would.

The code tested fine in development and seemed to run okay in production. I never put a new program into production on a Friday and I'm very lucky I did not. There was a tiny little bug in a single line of code that caused a bit of an embarrassing flurry of emails to upper management. One of my reports is scheduled to run at 0445 in the morning. The report generator used to check for reports to run every 3 minutes. Immediately after midnight, the code noted that the 0445 report had not run for the day. The check to see if it was actually scheduled to run was not correct and the report began sending itself out once every 3 minutes until 0445.

I saw it when I came into work at 0530 and I also stopped another report that would have run until 0600. The bug is one that is known to many programmers and is called a day-crossing error. I failed to test it properly. The corrected version has been running without error for more than a week now and I've also set the timers to check for a new report every 10 minutes instead of every three. The timer logic was copied from the database updater which continues to run every 3 minutes.

Luckily, nobody seemed to be too upset and I sent out an apology later in the day after I gave people enough time to clear out the email storm I caused. I also got a call from corporate IT and had to explain to them what had happened. When you write complex programs like these, errors are bound to happen. The key is to respond to them quickly. The entire system is built to alert me to errors when they happen. I also now ensure I get every single email that is sent out and I get it sent to my home address so I'm always in the loop.

Time to get back to preparing for a family picnic we are hosting.

Eclipse 2017

My original plans called for me and my wife to leave Ohio on Saturday 8-19, stay overnight in Wytheville, and then continue to my dad's house in South Carolina the next day. News reports of huge traffic jams caused my wife to become concerned about getting stuck in traffic for hours on end which would not be a good thing considering she has leg problems. The plans were changed Thursday night. I left Friday morning by myself and drove the entire way without stopping. I did hit some traffic, but nothing like the media was predicting. In fact, the traffic jams failed to materialize until after the eclipse.

I watched the eclipse from the comfort of my dad's back porch. What a show! During totality, the crickets, cicadas, and tree frogs started singing. A large spider on the deck downstairs came out and began dismantling her web. Venus became visible and the corona was the only thing providing light. And then, as quickly as it had become dark, the sun reappeared and the show was over. 2 minutes and 30 seconds of memory that will remain with me for a long time to come.

If you missed the 2017 eclipse, you will have another chance in 2024. This one just happens to pass over my area and I will not have to travel anywhere to see it.

I did manage to get some writing done while on vacation. Collision Course now stands at 32,342 words putting it over 1/3 of the way to completion. I have a fuzzy idea as to how the story is going to end and I have a few scenes in my head that I know must get into the manuscript. Other than that, this story has been unfolding as I write it. So far, so good.

I've also begun the process of moving my website over to a new host. The initial site that viewers will see is complete and waiting to be viewed. All I'm waiting for now is the actual transfer to take place. Moving a website from one host to another is not as easy as one might think. The entire process will most likely take about 10 days as the current host wants to wait for the longest time possible before releasing the domain for transfer. Luckily, the people at X10Hosting have experience in doing this and all I had to do was to put in a help desk ticket with them and then contact my current host. They're handling the rest. I will let you know when the new site is available.

A couple days before I came back home, the bottom fell out of my daughter's car--literally. This triggered a series of actions my wife and I had discussed concerning the fate of her current car about a month or so ago. We weren't expecting to implement this plan for a few years. I arrived home on Friday at 11:30 AM. By 1:30 PM, we were at the car dealer looking at cars. At 5:15 PM, we were the owners of a new Hyundai Ioniq. My daughter picked up my wife's old car on Saturday.

Some updates

Collision Course (my current work in progress now stands at 25,154 words. I am moving into a part of the novel that should move along very rapidly as long as I have the time to just sit and write. It's starting to turn out better than I had originally hoped. The ending, however, is still going to be a problem. Luckily, I'm not there yet.

I haven't written a blog in a few weeks and nobody seems to have noticed. That could be a good thing in that perhaps writing a weekly post was too much. These days, people don't have a lot of time to read everyone's posts. Attention spans are also becoming shorter because there is simply so much more out there for people to look at and enjoy. A shorter attention span though could also mean that I should write more as it keeps people's interest focused on coming back to my blog.

Here's how I figure it: If you are reading this because you're interested in hearing about the progress I'm making on my next novel, are interested in learning a bit about the self-publishing process, and have an interest in what I am up to in my life, then you would set your browser to subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog and then read up on what I have to say when I say it. Trying to remember to go to my blog every week is most likely not what is typically done. I would assume that most people out there have automated things and use the RSS feed.

Now that I've typed all that, I certainly home Blogger.com provides an RSS feed and that most people know how to use it! I'm not going to worry about it though.

I've been doing some learning on how to build websites. I've already read a few books on the subject and I've started to apply my new found knowledge on a new author website. The new site is nearly ready for me to cut the cord on the current host. Before I jump into learning JavaScript, I intend to learn as much as I can about HTML and CSS. To bolster my knowledge, I've ordered 3 more books: HTML: The Missing Manual, CSS: The Missing Manual, and How to Build a Website: The Missing Manual. As you can see, I have a high opinion of the Missing Manual books. If you want to learn something, go to one of these first if available.

I want to mention a touchy subject and I apologize to those authors out there who might disagree with my opinion on this matter. Authors must promote their books, that is a given. But over-promotion can be worse. I no longer use the native Twitter app because it is filled with advertisements. If I visit a website and the first thing that happens is a full-page ad pops up, I'm out and I doubt I will ever return. If I'm following someone on Twitter and the only tweets that person writes are promotional in nature--then I'm most likely going to unfollow that person.

There is a fine line between 'correct' promotions and overdoing it. Sure, your readers are interested in that fact that you've published a new book. They might be interested in knowing it's out in a different language. They might have missed the first or even the second tweet. But send out a promotional tweet too often and I start to wonder why you're on Twitter to begin with.

The same goes for Facebook, Google+, and the other social media sites. I do promote my books on social media, but I do so sparingly. I've never been an "in your face" sort of author. I prefer to see my books promoted by other means, like word of mouth. It's just my opinion. Blasting your book out there over every social media platform you can every day for weeks on end might give you a good sales boost. For me, I subscribe to social media because I want to know what the people I'm following are doing. I don't like to be blasted by promotional ads. If I want that I'll watch live television--something I haven't done in years.

Time to get back to writing.

Progress report

After being stuck in writer's limbo for a couple of weeks, Collision Course is now once again growing in size. Fighting off a touch of the flu certainly did not help but things are now moving along. The word count now stands at 21,629 putting it at about the 25% mark. I will be getting back to working on it as soon as this is posted.

My studies into how to author a website are moving along. I now have a fairly good skeleton of my new author site up and running on my new host. I'm continuing to learn. Unfortunately, the more I learn, the more I discover that I have more to learn. There are so many different web technologies out there that keeping up with them (much less learning them) is quite a challenge.

My approach to this entire project has been to start with the basics (HTML and CSS) and work up from there. Others, anxious to begin, might have started with a website builder such as Adobe's Creative Cloud and just used the application's GUI to build a site. But doing that does not provide any insight into the underlying code. I don't want to just build a website, I want to know how it works.

After I have a firm grasp on HTML and CSS (within another week or so I believe), I will start learning JavaScript. Following that, comes PHP, Java, and then maybe Sass and Less. In between, I might take a closer look at Modernizr. Who knows, I might even decide to learn Python and Ruby as well! Okay, maybe that's pulling off more than I can chew because while learning all the above, I still need (and want) to write. There isn't enough time in the day for me to learn all this. It's frustrating and fun all rolled up into a slippery vibrating package that's hard to get a grip on.

Being a self-published author is not easy because the author has so many additional duties beyond just writing. It takes a lot of time and often a lot of sacrifices. I watch very little TV and when I do it's done at 1.5x or 2x speed. I've gotten very used to watching an entire movie at 2x normal speed. Reading for pleasure is a rarity these days.

Because I have so much to do, I'm keeping this post and future posts short. I might even drop back to a single post every couple of weeks instead of weekly. Time to get some writing done!

Trying on a new hat

Not much progress has been made on Collision Course since last week. I seem to be stuck in a loop trying to decide which path to take at this point in the new novel. Until that's resolved, I'll most likely work on assembling a new hat to wear--that of website author.

I have been building my new author website on a free hosting platform and so far the results are okay. Last week, I finally got the formatting to look like I wanted--on Chrome. But Chrome is not the only browser out there so I decided to test it out on my phone. It looked great. Next came Internet Explorer. Not so good. Using caniuse, I learned there was a bug in Explorer on how it behaved regarding one of the tags I was using. Back to the drawing board.

I should point out that I started off using NotePad++ as my editor just so I could become used to entering the tags correctly. During the hours long trial and error to fix my code so it would display properly on both Chrome and Explorer, I switched to CodeWriter. This still required me to do the endless edit, save, switch to browser, refresh, cycle and it quickly became a pain in the neck. I did solve the problem and things are working much better on multiple browsers.

Thinking there must be a better way, I began my search for a better HTML editor. I eventually found Brackets. This editor seemed to have everything I dreamed of. A quick internet search, however, found nothing in the way of a user guide. How the hell am I supposed to learn a powerful program if there's no user guide? I wanted this editor but nowhere could I find a manual explaining what it is capable of and how to do it. I was about to give up when I found a series of videos explaining how to use Brackets. Lisa Catalano has not only put together a fantastic series of videos, she's also one hell of a web designer and I learned plenty while also learning how to use Brackets.

Being a self-published author means wearing many hats: Writer, editor, business manager, accountant, sales manager, promotion manager, document formatter, and observer just to name a few. If you want a website, you most likely need to fashion a website author hat as well. Like many authors I know, I'm also a software developer. I use my writing skills every day during my day job to maintain the User Guide and the Technical Reference Manual for every application I write. It's common sense. Brackets is a fantastic product. It's lack of a manual almost caused me to pass it by.

Now I have to go fix another problem before I can get back to work on Collision Course. I use Microsoft Media Center as my DVR. Two weeks ago, the guide began showing "No Data Available" for all channels. This meant our shows would no longer be recorded. I eventually managed to coax the system into doing a partial download of the guide and we had information on the lower channels. A few days ago, that information became unreliable and only went out about 7 days. Nothing available on the upper channels still.

I called the cable company--not their problem. I called Microsoft--Media Center is no longer supported--not their problem. Finally, I found a drastic solution. After I post this, I will be replacing my guide with one developed by the loyal community of Media Center users. I hope it works.

Characters

Collision Course -- the final title of my current novel -- now stands at 20,763 words. That count will most likely not change for a few weeks as I shift my focus from writing to finishing my website. Even though I've had a three-day weekend, I didn't get much writing done. When writing becomes too high of a priority, other projects begin to slip and all of a sudden you have so much to do besides writing that it's overwhelming. There are only so many hours available in a day.

This post will not be accompanied by my standard email. I've decided that if people want to read my blog, they will subscribe to it or see the post on Facebook, Google+, or Twitter. I am reserving the emails for important announcements only. In last week's email, I asked people for their opinion on this and received only one feedback. I can only conclude that people really don't read the emails because they are sent out every single week. That changes effective today.

Yesterday's author meeting was interesting even though we only had a group of four. I missed last month's meeting because I was at Launch Pad and I guess they had 16 people show up. I read a chapter from Collision Course and everyone asked if I planned on bringing back one of the characters in the chapter. I had not originally planned on doing so but after hearing the positive feedback on that particular character, I will be changing my mind. A good character, even a minor one, makes a story interesting.

The characters in a story should reflect the fact that society is not made up of people that are all alike. Even in a futuristic science fiction story like mine, people will be different. We all have varied personalities and each character in a story should be designed as a separate person different from all the others. Creating such characters is difficult because authors will be tempted to model many of their characters after themselves. Become an observer of people. Pick a public spot and just sit, watch, and listen to how the people around you behave. When you create a new character in your story, try to imagine how that character is different than all the others.

Collision Course is set in a future several decades from now. Humanity is actively interacting with several different species from multiple worlds. The character described above, is a Native American who is the captain of a starship. Even in the future, humans will remain a diverse people with many sub-cultures. Not everyone will be a white American. Your stories should include a diversity of characters from many cultures. But be careful! Don't rely on your culturally defined belief as to how a person from another culture would act. Seek out someone from that culture and talk to them. Open your mind to the fact that not everyone on this planet is like you.

Progress

Course Correction (still the temporary title) now stands at 17.879 words. I'm still in the process of fixing the story line. If all goes well, things will be back on track by the end of next week.

Progress has been made with my website upgrade project. Yesterday, I opened up an account with X10 Hosting to build a test site. After a few false starts, the new author website is up and running. Now that it's on an actual server, I can open it with my cell phone, tablet, and other machines and browsers. So far, it looks okay but there are definitely some tweaks that need to be made. I have a new book to read (Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS3) that should help. I'm using a free account and this is just a test site. Once I'm happy with how it looks, I have several options. I can transfer my domain name to X10 Hosting and continue to use the free site or I can copy all the files to a paid host and run the official site from there. So far, I'm leaning towards the first option but we shall see.

I was unable to get Filezilla to work on my Windows 10 machine so I'm looking for an FTP program that's free and works on Windows 10. There's quite a selection so I'll be spending some time today looking over reviews and such.

In the non-writing world. I saved myself about $200.00 last week by doing my own repair/modification of our relatively new dishwasher. About a year after we got it, we started getting an error display and the dishwasher would stop. The machine was still under warranty so we called and someone came out to fix it. The problem turned out to be very common--a fan unit in the top with a solenoid-operated valve that does not properly close. A year after it was replaced under warranty, the same thing happened.

I took the fan module out and took it apart. Turns out, the tiny spring that holds the rubber valve closed is far too wimpy. I used a pen spring to give it some more strength, reassembled the unit and reinstalled it in the machine. It's run for three complete cycles now without an error. Fixed!

Finally, if you happen to be a developer who produces Microsoft Access, Excel, Word, or PowerPoint applications, it might not be in your best interest to upgrade to the latest version every time a new version comes out. If a client has an older version, the application will most likely fail especially if you do any VBA coding. Microsoft versions are always backward compatible meaning if a client has the newest version they can still run your application. The reverse, however, is not always true. The major problem is with the Office applications library. If this happens, you will have to change the references by running the source code on your client's machine and then recompile.

Restart

Sometimes, a writer must scrap large swaths of work to put the story back on the right track. I just had to do this for my current work in progress. I never outline. I've tried doing it but it's just not my gig. A few days ago, I realized that the way I got my characters into the situation they needed to be in was not really something that could happen. It was also quite boring and boring is not what a reader wants to read. So, I inserted a blank chapter and began to write.

The new storyline reads much better. I am now in the process of adjusting the remaining chapters to conform to the new series of events. I think I can reuse quite a bit of what I'd written earlier but I'm going to have to make some changes to keep things consistent. The good thing is that I caught it early and not much later.

This isn't the first time I've written myself into a corner. Even authors who outline get themselves stuck in unworkable situations from time to time. Stories often tend to take on a life of their own especially when the writer is totally immersed in the work being created. I would say that out of the 11 books I've published, I knew how four of them would end before I started writing them. One of the joys of writing my own stories is not that I control everything in my universe, it's the surprise I get as the story reveals itself as I write.

Course Adjustment (not firm on that title yet) currently stands at 15,834 words with 1,889 words in my holding bin. Those are the words I chopped out so I could reset the storyline.

My efforts to learn HTML 5 and CSS 3 have been paying off. I have a preliminary new author website up and running on my local PC. I have a book on the way that's filled with information on how to build a responsive website. This is a design that uses the power of HTML 5 and CSS 3 to allow a single website to look good on any device without having to write a bunch of complex code. I'm still learning and experimenting (which is how I learn a new programming language).

My current contract with Webs.com does not run out until May of 2018. Early next year, I will be opening an account with a new host and building a test site under their sub-domain. After making sure it displays properly on as many devices and browsers as I can find, I will transfer my domain name to the new host and build my new author site there. Why am I moving from Webs.com? Because I am stuck using their proprietary website builder instead of being able to build my own site by hand using HTML.

Another reason is that I have an Excel spreadsheet I use to verify the math in my science fiction stories. I hope to put that on my website for anyone to use. That will require either JavaScript or server-side Java to run and Webs.com does not support those goals.

If you're looking to build a simple website, Webs.com offers an inexpensive alternative. If it's small enough, the cost is free except for the cost of obtaining and holding onto your exclusive domain name. It was a good choice back when I was just starting but it's time I moved up to a different level.

Launch Pad 2017

In my last post, I explained I would not be posting until I returned from Launch Pad. I arrived home late Saturday night on 6/10/17. I slept in late the next day and still had unpacking to do so I decided not to post last weekend. I had a great time at Launch Pad and met another group of fine writers. Funding this year was even tighter than last and next year looks like it's going to be even more of a challenge. Unfortunately, this will most likely be my last trip to Laramie.

Although sales have been okay, they are not great enough to justify the expense of making the trip to Launch Pad. There is also the looming possibility that I might be unemployed in the near future because of what is happening to the nuclear power plant I work at. If you've followed this blog or the news, you know that FirstEnergy (the company I work for) has decided to get out of the generation business and is selling all their power plants--including mine. Because we don't know if the plant will be sold or closed, I'm preparing for the worst--unemployment.

I might have a title for my next novel. It was suggested by one of the Launch Pad attendees while we were discussing our current projects. The possible title is Course Adjustment. So far, I have written 14,264 words in the new novel and I hope to have it finished by winter. That will allow for editing and cover art creation to take place over the cold weather with a release set for early next year. After that...well...I'm not sure. I do have a dragon book in mind but the Dragonverse series does not sell as well as I would have hoped. People these days seem to read more military science fiction. I guess it's just a sign of the times. Perhaps I will have more luck if I write a horrific book involving an alien species without any compassion towards humans.

I used to think that the people of this planet would eventually learn that cooperating together for the good of all makes more sense than fighting each other, spreading hate, or thinking only of oneself. It is obvious, however, that we have not managed to set aside our primitive, caveman mentality. There are a few individuals out there who actually try to work for the betterment of all humanity, but the vast majority of people are simply not evolved enough to even realize they are still behaving like the primitive people we were a few hundred thousand years ago.

It's a beautiful day outside and I intend to enjoy it by drinking a calming cup of green tea, listen to the birds sing, and get some writing done.

Cover Creation

Reminder: Today is the last day to pre-order your copy of Peacekeeper Pathogen . The book will go live on the 29th. Pre-orders help a new book get off to a running start instead of starting off at the bottom of the list.

Yesterday, while at Barnes & Noble, I built the print-ready cover for Peacekeeper Pathogen. Now that I've standardized the overall look of my covers, creating a new cover is not very difficult. Here's the process:

After ensuring the interior is formatted correctly and ready to be uploaded to CreateSpace, it is converted into a final PDF. I do look at the final PDF to make sure the conversion was successful and I got the results I was looking for. At this point, I note the page count (370 in my case).I then go to CreateSpaces cover template generator and enter the required parameters (Interior type, trim size, number of pages, and the page color). Clicking on "Build Template" results in a zip-file holding a PDF and a PNG file. One of these will be used to build the print-ready cover.I open the PDF template in Adobe Photoshop Elements. I load up my cover art as well as a photoshop file of my last book.From this point on, it's just a matter of dragging the components of the cover from one location onto the template, altering the text to get the title correct, and making slight adjustments to the size of the various objects so they all fit comfortably in the template.The final result is saved as a high-quality PDF. The results in Photoshop are shown below:
When I'm ready to publish, the print-ready cover is uploaded as well as the interior and everything is combined to create the final product. The interior is automatically checked for correct margins and basic formatting and you can preview the results. Since the print process can slightly alter a cover, the people at CreateSpace will ensure that the components of the book all work together to create a good printed book. If things aren't quite right, they can make some alterations to get things right. If you don't like the final results, you just upload new files and do it all again.
Next week, I travel to Laramie, Wyoming where I will be helping out with another session of Launch Pad Workshop. I will not be writing a blog post during my trip. I am looking forward to meeting another interesting and talented group of people. I will write-up a short summary of my trip when I return. Because of how this trip's travel times worked out, I will most likely not be posting anything here for the next two weeks.