Thursday, February 29, 2024

New Site Design and Some Changes

Written by Kodi Wolf at 7:07 PM

Happy Leap Day!

It's also the 24th anniversary of when I launched my site way back in 2000. I have now had this website for half my life (I turned 48 on February 11).

So, I guess it's fitting that I'm previewing the site's new mobile-friendly design today.

I've finally transferred just about everything to the new site design as well as created most of the new stuff (info pages, etc.).

If you're on the old site (W.O.L.F. Sector - Worlds of Lesbian Fiction) and would like to check it out, go to https://www.kodiwolf.com/fiction/. But I'm also posting this to the new site, so if you're reading it at kodiwolf.com/fiction/news/, then congratulations, you're already here. :)

All the chapters that were available on the old site are now on the new site and are protected by my old membership software, so logging in on either site will work for both.

Logging in is still buggy in that it will redirect you to a page that says it's not working, but if you go back, you'll be logged in and able to access the content available for whatever membership you have.

I've also noticed it can 'time out,' so if you don't log out, it can end up changing back to showing the 'Login' link, but you'll still be logged in and able to access protected areas. But if you log in again, it will go back to saying 'Hi, username,' and you can logout properly after that. (I have no idea if it was doing that before, but I just noticed it while working on the new pages.)

I'm still working on updating the login page (it's buried in the software code and exceedingly complicated, but I'll figure it out eventually), so the form still looks like it's on the old site. It also redirects to the old site upon logging out, but I think I know how to fix that. I just haven't done it yet, since I wanted to warn you guys about the changes before implementing them, so it's not a scary surprise.

The same goes for the Site Membership and Story Membership signup pages. I thought I made notes about where that stuff was in the software, but apparently I didn't (or if I did, I just can't find them now).

One of the other changes I've made is extending the free chapters for some of my stories.

A Bondage Primer now goes through Day 20 instead of Day 14. I've also broken it up into separate books to make it clearer that it's not just a single excessively long novel.

I've posted the first 8 chapters of the revised version of Lights of Life, since it will eventually replace the original version and I want to be upfront with potential new readers about those changes. (Note: Those chapters have not caught up to what's currently posted, so I can't recommend where to jump in on the old version to continue the story, sorry.)

Prisoner of War now offers the first 2 chapters for free instead of only 1.

And I've posted the first 10 chapters of the revised version of The Vampire Hunter, since just like Lights, it will eventually replace the original version. (Note: Those chapters are not a 1-to-1 replacement for the original chapters. To continue the story once you've finished the revised chapters, go to Chapter 3 of the original version. Some of the new characters I introduced in the revised version will be missing and some stuff is going to repeat because I moved later scenes to appear earlier, but hopefully it won't be too jarring.)

I'm still working on the ebook (epub) files (and debating on whether to continue to offer the pdf and mobi formats or not, let me know if you have a preference), since I need to update the links to point to the new URLs. I will also be offering ebook excerpt downloads of the free chapters. But the Extras pages (where that stuff is offered for each of the stories) are still under construction while I slowly work my way through compiling all those files.

Beyond that, I think I'm just about ready to make the new site 'live' and have it replace the old one, though I'll be leaving the old one up and intact for the time being.

Let me know what you think of the changes and if you have any suggestions for improvements.

Oh, and though I've tested this on my Kindle 7, 8, and 10, and my android smart phone (all old models from at least a few years ago), I don't browse the web on any of those devices, meaning I'm not a 'power user' when it comes to mobile. If my design has something that's generally irritating to the usual mobile user, please let me know.

Or if you have any questions or problems with the site, I'll do my best to help.

Happy reading. :)

Monday, January 1, 2024

Writing Stats For 2023

Written by Kodi Wolf at 12:00 AM

Here are my stats for 2023.

Compared to last year, my total decreased by almost 77,000 words, which kind of sucked, but my total time spent writing also decreased by about 94 hours (at around 500 words per hour, that accounts for about 47,000 words not written). I also spent a lot of time revising, which doesn't net me a lot of words and is why my average words per hour also dropped by almost 60 words (that accounts for another 25,000 less words written).

However, I did end up posting 194,000 words (to private Google docs, but it still counts), so all that time spent in revisions was obviously time well spent, since it allowed me to finish quite a lot of work.

My goals for 2023 were the same as always.

• Maintain a daily average of at least 500 words. (Done - see above)
• Write every day to keep my streak going. (Done - 2,915 days, including today)
• Post new story chapters. (Done - posted over 194,000 words on multiple stories, though it wasn't directly to the site)

I also continued my mini-goal of not falling below 100 words for any of my lowest days.

So, after seemingly finding a groove in 2022, despite all the stress, what happened?

Well, 2023 just ended up being stressful on a whole other level. It was just one thing after another, culminating in my site crashing in September, which completely sidetracked me into working on the website redesign.

And now with the current website still being a little wonky and trying to get the redesign done, I'm still struggling to find the energy to write as much as I'd like to.

Part of it is that I think I overdid it with working on the redesign. I was trying to get it done as quickly as possible, so that's pretty much all I did from the end of September to the end of November from sunup to sundown, and then I just burned out.

Which was kind of demoralizing, but with the current site mostly working (meaning it's not an emergency), I'm trying to listen to my body and my family, and have put the new site on hiatus until I can find the mental fortitude to get back to the coding.

Even with all that chaos and stress, I've still been writing every day (even if it was only a few paragraphs), and I did post nearly 200,000 words, so I'm trying really hard not to beat myself up about not writing as many new words as I did last year.

Here's hoping things will calm down at some point and I can get back to just writing (and posting).

Saturday, September 30, 2023

The Sites Have Been Migrated

Written by Kodi Wolf at 10:00 PM

My sites have been successfully migrated to the new server with no major hiccups (just a few small ones, like losing FTP, but I'll deal).

Everything seems to be working, for the most part. Due to most of my links being http instead of https, some things refuse to load, like my stylesheets for my signup pages, so the text is black on a black background (unless you highlight it by selecting it, it's basically invisible).

On the bright side, my membership software seems to be working well enough. It's still protecting my member pages, but it's refusing to show the member account page and when you log in, it takes you to a page that says it can't load the page, but if you go back, you'll be logged in and be able to access your content (at least, that's how it's working for me). And logging out seems to work just fine.

As I said in a previous post, if you can't access your member content, please let me know, and I'll send it to you in one format or another (likely PDF, ePub, or MOBI).

This has also kind of lit a fire under my ass to get the new mobile-friendly site design finished. I've actually gotten quite a bit done in just the past couple days since the migration completed. I've still got a long road ahead of me, but I'm making progress, which is better than not.

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Bought the New Server

Written by Kodi Wolf at 3:00 PM

Yeah, so after weighing my options, I broke down and bought the new server.

I'm currently in the process of having my sites migrated to the new server. Here's hoping it goes smoothly.

Friday, September 22, 2023

The Site is Down (Sort of)

Written by Kodi Wolf at 10:30 PM

The site is experiencing major technical difficulties.

Sometime on September 18 or 19, 2023, my hosting provider (HostGator) decided to migrate my VPS (virtual private server) to a new server without informing me and in the process broke PHP, which is what provides all of the functionality on my site.

The first two techs tried to say the problem was a scripting error on my part and that they couldn't help me, but after two days of insisting it was a server error (and troubleshooting the problem myself to prove it couldn't be a scripting error and was specifically related to pages with the .php extension), I finally got the support ticket escalated high enough to get a tech who investigated the problem properly and was able to inform me about the server migration I'd been unaware of and also how and why PHP stopped working.

They told me they can't put it back the way it was and my only options are to either wipe the server and install new versions of the system software (CentOS and WHM) and then reload my content, knowing it will probably break my very old aMember membership software (used on my paid member site for my original fiction), causing me to have to re-purchase it at about $150, so I can get the latest version (though HostGator offered to kindly waive the $75 charge for the reload and data retention service as a courtesy, but they also mentioned the server only has 768MB of RAM and they don't offer anything below 2GB nowadays because CentOS and WHM are resource hogs, so my site still might not work well or at all)...

...or I can purchase a new VPS with 2GB of RAM and migrate my content to that, since all the software will already be updated, which will cost about $400 upfront for a year's worth of hosting, which is actually a good deal compared to my current price of $600 a year ($50/mo), but after 12 months, that price will go up to $90/mo ($1,080/yr), which is almost double my current price, and I will still have to put out the $150 for the updated membership software because the old/current one won't run with the newer PHP (at least that's what I was told years ago when I looked into upgrading it after they put out a new prettier version).

Either way, I'm still looking at a lot of work to get everything up and running again. But for the past few years, I've been slowly working on a complete redesign of the paid site (which I planned to use for my fan fiction site, too) to make it mobile-friendly, so the prospect of putting a bunch of time and effort into patching up the old pages when I was planning on scrapping them anyway doesn't really make a lot of sense to me.

But that means I have to get the new design finished and fully tested while both of my sites remain out of commission.

I'm still in the process of trying to decide what the best course of action is. I'm not even sure I want to continue with HostGator after all this crap, but then that means hours of research into finding another host (particularly one that doesn't care about sexual content) and there's no guarantee my new choice would be any better.

Regardless of all that, at least HTML is still currently working (as of September 22, 2023 when I'm writing this), so I was able to create a clumsy workaround to get the index pages working for my main paid stories, root domain, and fan fiction sites, since I don't know which URLs people have bookmarked, but it's way too much work to do this for all the chapter and information pages right now, but it's the best I could do to at least let my members and other visitors know what's going on.

However, as of right now, none of my sites' pages work because they're all PHP, which means if you attempt to click on any of the links on the index pages, they won't work.

I currently have no access to the backend membership software because it too runs on PHP. This means I can't easily email my members to let them know what's going on because I can't access the mailing list feature from my membership software. (I could send emails manually and individually from my Yahoo or Gmail accounts, but that would be an insane time sink, not to mention Yahoo and Gmail have limits on how many emails you can send in a day.)

Thankfully, I have a fairly recent backup of the member database, so I should be able to recreate it when I get there (or figure out an alternative).

To be clear, I haven't been hacked and there has been no data breach.

If you're a member and you don't have the most recent copy of the story or stories you paid for, just email me at REMOVEmail4kkw-wolfTHESEsector@PARTSyahoo.NOWcom with the name and email address you used for your membership and once I verify it against my member list, I will send you all the files you're entitled to in your choice of PDF, ePub, and/or MOBI. (Unfortunately, I can't offer the same for my fan fiction at this time.)

As I said above, I'm still in the process of trying to figure out what to do. I'm even considering just setting up a mailing list of my current members and using private Google docs to provide updates to my stories.

Of course, that requires getting a P.O. Box ($176/yr for the tiniest box), since I'm not comfortable showing my home address at the bottom of every email, which is required by free mailing list sites like MailChimp, when by law I shouldn't have to, since my emails aren't promotional, they're transactional as I fulfill my members' expectations to be informed when they have more content available or why they don't.

Unfortunately, that doesn't allow new people to find me or become a member. There's also my Patreon, but I don't post anything there because of their license terms (though I could post links to Google docs, which would avoid that issue).

And I've looked at hosting on websites like Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify, since they can all handle payment processing, but their Terms of Use all state that sexual content is forbidden, so that's not an option.

I'm also super stressed about other life stuff that's happening, so this was really not good timing.

But rest assured, I'm still writing every day and I will figure out how to get updates to my members one way or another... eventually.

On the bright side, while my fan fiction site is not tops on my priority list, if I can get PHP working again, that site should be relatively easy to fix because all I'll have to do is replace the .html file with the original .php file and it should all go back to how it was before. It's the membership site that's going to be a headache.

With that in mind, please be patient as I try to sort this mess out.

Take care.

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

New Stories and Story Updates

Written by Kodi Wolf at 6:30 PM

I just sent an email out to all my members regarding new stories and updates to current stories, but if you're a member and didn't get it, let me know and I'll forward it to you. It contains links to both fanfic and member's only content (about 194,000 words total) that I posted to some private Google docs because I can't muster up the energy to code all that content for my websites right now.

One day, I will code and post everything to my sites, but not right now.

Oh, and if you're not a member, but would like to check out the fanfic, go ahead and email me, and I'll send you those links. You won't be added to a mailing list, I promise. Only people who join my membership site or my Patreon get on my list (it's quite exclusive :) ) and I almost never send emails, except when there's an update.

Sunday, January 1, 2023

Writing Stats For 2022

Written by Kodi Wolf at 12:00 AM

(Originally written in late 2023, but backdated to put it in chronological order).

Here are my stats for 2022.

Compared to last year, my total increased by about 79,000 words, which was amazing and kind of made up for those two years where it dropped by 40,000 each time, but again it was mostly because my total time spent writing increased by a whopping 167 hours.

I only posted 27,000 words, but that included a new chapter for Prisoner of War, which I hadn't updated in forever, as well as continuing to post on A Bondage Primer, so that felt really good.

My goals for 2022 were the same as the past few years.

• Maintain a daily average of at least 500 words. (Done - see above)
• Write every day to keep my streak going. (Done - 2,550 days, including today)
• Post new story chapters. (Done - posted over 27,000 words on ABP and POW)

I also continued my mini-goal of not falling below 100 words for any of my lowest days.

I think part of the increase was that I got back into the habit of story hopping, which seems to work really well for me. I was switching between working on ABP, POW, the revisions for TVH, and multiple fanfic stories every few days.

I also started a new story somewhat co-authored with Corene (I'm writing it, but she has direct input while I'm writing). It's based on our DnD game and I'm basically novelizing all the roleplay and battle scenes. It's also helped that she retired at the end of September, so now I have her 24/7, no job stress taking her energy or time away from me.

Which means the stars don't have to align now for us to spend time together despite my weird sleep schedule because she doesn't have to go to bed early for work. She can just stay up with me and help me with story stuff (or cleaning).

We're still settling into a new routine, but it's been even better than I thought it would be. I've truly never been happier in my life. I feel like I won the lottery. :)

Thursday, June 16, 2022

New POW Chapter Posted

Written by Kodi Wolf at 3:25 PM

I know it's been 18 years since I last updated this story (April 6, 2004), but I've finally added Chapter 5 to Prisoner of War. It's just over 13,000 words.

I've also revised the previously posted chapters based on feedback and my own issues with the old version (like not mentioning where the bathroom is in Luce's cell :) ). There's about 700 extra/new words, most of which are in Chapter 1, but I don't think the changes/fixes are anything that requires rereading in order to understand what happens in the new chapter, so don't worry about rereading if you don't want to.

I just wanted to add that I never abandoned this story, even though it probably seemed like it. I've been working on it off and on over the years, trying to figure out how to continue it and eventually finish the story.

I've actually made pretty good progress on that front the past few years. In addition to getting Chapter 5 done and posted, Chapter 6 is quite close to being done and I've got a bunch more scenes written for the rest of the story, which I've outlined to the end, so I at least know where it's going now (this started out as a one-shot of the first chapter back in 2000, so I've had to do a lot of brainstorming to fill in the blanks).

Anyway, I hope you like it. :)