Wednesday, February 1, 2012

W.O.L.F. Sector is Now Open for Business

Written by Kodi Wolf at 12:11 AM

Wow. I can't believe it, but W.O.L.F. Sector is finally ready to begin accepting members.

To join, click on the Become a Member link at the top of any page. There's also detailed, step-by-step instructions on the Help/FAQ page if you have any questions.

Unfortunately, opening the site doesn't mean I actually have any new chapters for you to read yet (but they're coming in the next few months, so please read on). Between one family or health crisis after another and working on creating this site, which involved quite a steep learning curve on my part, as well as working on the stories in the Uncharted section, I only have a few chapters for my posted stories ready to be sent to BetaWolf.

The other problem is that it took me longer than I thought it would to get BetaWolf off the ground. I foolishly expected to keep most, if not all, of my BetaWolves and be able to have groups of them working on different stories at the same time. Instead, after such a long hiatus, half of them I couldn't even contact because their e-mails were no longer valid, and most of the rest never responded to my inquiries.

So, I've gone from 43 beta-readers down to just 4. Luckily, they all want to work on everything, but that also means I'm unwilling to split them up between the different stories because it would mean I'd only get one critique per story instead of four. Plus, since most of my BetaWolves are new, I've also asked them for critiques of all the posted chapters to sort of bring them up to speed and also because my early chapters could do with a good once-over. So, it's going to take longer than if they just worked on the new chapters I have ready.

Hence, my new mantra has become, "It's gonna take the time it takes," and I'm okay with that because I'd rather get in-depth critiques than rushed and skimpy ones. I want my stories to be the best they can be. Honestly, I'm just happy to be working on my stories again and meeting my daily goals of getting scenes written or revised. For a writer, that's the best feeling in the world. :)

Anyway, what all this means is that instead of having at least one new chapter posted to the site for the Grand Re-Opening the way I wanted, I can only say I have chapters going through BetaWolf as you read this.

So, here's a breakdown of where I'm at with each story:

Lights of Life — Chapters 13 and 14 have been sent to BetaWolf.

Prisoner of War — Chapter 5 is done, but I'm waiting for BetaWolf to finish with Lights before switching them to POW.

A Bondage Primer — I'm halfway done with Day 11 and I'm hoping I'll have it finished by the time BetaWolf is done with POW.

New Gaia — I have the beginning of the next chapter, but since it's outlined to be quite long, I don't know if I'll have it done by the time BetaWolf is finished with Bondage.

The Vampire Hunter — I'm trapped in rewriting hell and have come up with so many different ways to rewrite the beginning of the story that I've completely confused myself as to which one is best. But once I get that sorted out, the rest of the rewrites should flow a lot easier, and then I'll finally be able to move on to new chapters.

The Trine — Chapter 1 (30 pages) is pretty much finalized, Chapter 2 is almost finished (I just need to figure out one little scene in the middle), Chapter 3 is basically done (just needs some final edits), the next dozen or so chapters just need revisions, and then I only have another dozen or so chapters to write from scratch.

Out of Darkness (the sci-fi rewrite of Assassin) — Chapters 1-3 are finished and Chapter 4 just needs a final scene to be complete.

The Enchanted Queendom — Still mostly in outline form with just a few scenes written here and there.

The Kindari Saga — Same as above (okay, so technically I completed one entire novel for Kindari, but since I decided to scrap half of what's in it and start the story a couple generations earlier, I can't count it :) ).

Anyway, I'm hoping to have the final edits done for those two chapters of Lights within the next few months, though I won't wait to post Chapter 13 if 14 isn't ready, so they may not get posted at the same time.

I'm really excited to finally have the site done. For the past two weeks, I've been almost exclusively focused on writing (just a few tweaks to the site here and there and getting BetaWolf sorted out), which has been unbelievably amazing. With the past year of troubleshooting hell regarding the site, it feels like it's been forever since I've been able to just sit down and work on a story, rather than only jotting down notes or snippets of scenes now and then.

And I know I've said this before at different times when I was taking breaks from working on the site, but this time, now that the site is done, I don't have that feeling like something's hanging over my head, which can really interrupt the creative flow. I mean I know I'll still have to deal with e-mails and troubleshooting when something doesn't work the way it's supposed to, but that's very different from knowing I still have a bunch of pages to work on for the site because it still isn't finished. From this point on, I don't have to think about the site except when I'm using it or someone has a question, so I can just write now.

So, I'm going to get back to it. :)

P.S. In honor of the site's Grand Re-Opening and 12-year anniversary, I'm offering a 12% discount for the month of February good towards any Story or Site Membership. Click on the coupon link at the top of any page to get the code and take 12% off your order.

P.P.S. If you're on the 'kodiwolf' or 'KWLF_subscription_pledge' mailing lists, you should've already received an e-mail announcement regarding the opening of W.O.L.F. Sector. Please make sure to check your e-mail and read the announcement(s) before placing your order.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

The Details

Written by Kodi Wolf at 6:09 PM

I didn't want to post the details about what my technical difficulties were (or rather my solution to them) on the off chance my hosting provider (AssortedInternet.com) ended up reading this and decided to pull the plug before I was ready, but that's not a problem now, so here's what was going on.

Basically, I had to switch hosting providers because my old host kept changing stuff on the server, making my site break without notice. This was causing me to spend days on troubleshooting, only to figure out after much hair-pulling that it was something they'd done and not a glitch in one of my scripts or my code. With those kinds of problems happening several times a month, my progress on the site was pretty much brought to a standstill. After they refused to fix what they'd done the last time, I finally decided to move.

Of course, it wasn't quite that simple. I had to do a ton of research to find a new host that I was confident wouldn't screw me the way my old host had. Through that research I also came to the conclusion I needed to not only move to a better host, but also upgrade from shared hosting (many domains hosted on a single server) to either a dedicated server (one domain on one server) or a virtual private server (VPS; one server partitioned to act like many smaller servers with one domain to a partition).

Since I was paying a measly $7/month for the shared hosting and dedicated servers start at $200/month, I decided to go with the more reasonable $50/month upgrade to a VPS. And I chose HostGator.com as my new hosting provider, mostly because they're the cheapest and have an amazing support base (24/7 live chat, e-mail, forums, and tech articles, all from mostly native English speakers). Since I've only been with them for a few weeks, I can't really give a long-term review, but so far, they've done everything they said they would and have answered my many questions (sometimes not as thoroughly as I'd like, but if I keep digging, I get the info I need).

Having my own server (even a virtual one) is very new for me, but the support techs have definitely helped and I seem to be muddling through all right (at least the hacking attempts have lessened).

So, I'm slowly getting back on track. In fact, I recently tested PayPal (that was the last thing Assorted broke and refused to fix) and it's working great now. Next on the list is to do a live test (I've only tested in PayPal Sandbox so far) and to get BetaWolf up and running. They don't know it yet, but they're going to be my beta-testers for using the site, since they'll have to go through the membership signup process and fill out forms, etc.

Hopefully, if all that goes well, I'll be able to finally open the site and get back to just writing. Though I know that first month or two I'm probably going to be inundated with e-mails from people wanting help with one thing or another, so it'll probably be a month or two after that before I finally get back into the swing of things.

So that's what's been going on for the past two months (longer if you count the months of troubleshooting before that because of Assorted's nonsense).

Well, back to work. :)

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Technical Difficulties

Written by Kodi Wolf at 8:27 AM

I'm in troubleshooting hell. If everything had worked right the first time (or even the second or third), the site would have opened yesterday. Instead, I've run into several issues that are going to take a while for me to fix. As in, I don't think the site will be going live until at least October.

I'm seriously annoyed at this, but I've resigned myself to the situation, so I'm trying not to totally freak out about it (patience is not one of my virtues; once I've made a decision, I prefer to act on it rather than sit around and feel like I'm in limbo).

So, it's going to be a little while longer, while I sort out the mess.

Sorry for the delay (again).

Saturday, July 9, 2011

More Kidney Stones

Written by Kodi Wolf at 7:16 PM

I just passed what is hopefully my last kidney stone for a while (at least the last CT scan didn't show any more in my kidneys waiting to be passed at a later date like the previous two scans did).

For those of you who have never seen or passed a kidney stone, this is what they look like (and why they hurt so much as they move through the tiny tubes of the ureters and urethra):

As you can see, they're like little quartz crystal geodes turned inside out with little crystal spikes all over their surface. For me, passing a kidney stone feels like I've been stabbed in the back and then the knife is slowly twisted in place for several hours at a time. It has to be the most excruciating pain I've ever felt. My normal blood pressure is around 120/85, but for the stone I passed in June, it was around 165/110. That's how stressed my body was from just being in that much pain for several hours.

Anyway, I'm just glad it's over. At least now I can stop taking that particular set of drugs, though I'm still on the pain meds and muscle relaxants for my back and neck, which make me dizzy and sleep all day, not to mention a little stupid. However, in the few hours of relative clarity I've had every few days, I've gotten the site a little closer to being done. I'm pushing really hard to have the site open by the end of the month, but since I'm not supposed to spend more than a few minutes at a time at the computer, I might be deluding myself.

But here's hoping anyway. :)

Friday, May 6, 2011

I'm Drugged

Written by Kodi Wolf at 4:11 PM

Just wanted to explain why nothing new has been posted to the site in the past month. I hurt my back. I'm not sure how, but sitting at the computer definitely aggravates it, so my doctor has basically ordered me to stay off the computer and lay down and use ice packs (actually, he always advocates that, but this time I've decided to actually listen to him because it hurts enough that I can't ignore it this time). Whatever I did has aggravated several of my trigger points in my neck, my low back, and under my right shoulder blade, which have all knotted up and cause pain whenever I try to use my right arm (like on the mouse or typing right now) or just sitting up for more than a few minutes. I'm on pain killers and muscle relaxants, which help, but both of those end up making me sleep a lot and when I am awake, I'm pretty much a zombie.

I have no idea how much longer this is going to go on, but I'm trying to rest so it will hopefully heal soon. So instead of writing or working on the site, I'm using my awake time to watch documentaries streamed through Netflix and jotting down notes every now and then. I've found a lot of really interesting stuff, so my brain is getting a little bit of a workout, though I tend to doze off, so I end up watching the same documentary three or four times before finally getting to the end. I've also found a lot of crap, so sometimes I sit through an hour and a half and don't even take a single note. I'm still trying to figure out why so many documentaries take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half to put across a few facts or ideas that probably could've been stated in less than 5 minutes and with more clarity if they had been.

On the upside, I'm also catching up on a bunch of TV shows I've been wanting to watch that have been in my Netflix queue for what seems like forever (La Femme Nikita, Supernatural, Medium, Dollhouse, Bionic Woman (the original version), Commander in Chief, Battlestar Galactica (the new version), Heroes). Normally, I don't spend a lot of time watching TV. I prefer to be a little more interactive with my entertainment, hence my preference for computer games (which now that I think about it, probably didn't help my back much either). Plus, my wife and I cut our cable down to the basics a while back (just broadcast stations and the state news station in case of a local emergency) in order to save money, so neither of us has watched regular TV in quite a long time, just movies on DVD from Netflix every few days. But I've actually quite enjoyed watching those shows, letting them take my mind off the pain and knowing if I fall asleep, I can just start them over (either on DVD or streaming). So my forced convalescence hasn't been all bad. Technology is good. :)

But hopefully, my back will calm down soon and I can get off the drugs and get back to work on the site and my stories. For now though, I really need to go lay down again. I just wanted to let everyone know what was going on. Take care.