Children of the First

Update

At the Blog

Children of the First was just reviewed over at The Web Fiction Guide, which is one of the best (if not the best, since Pages Unbound is out of the running) communities of web fiction readers and writers. Chris Poirier, one of the WFG Editors and author of Winter Rain, gave CotF 3.5 stars in his review, Children of the First: a fun little romp, and I think that's pretty decent for nine chapters in. The review was very well written and I tended to agree with Chris's criticism, though I have the benefit of knowing that certain things are going to change as the story progresses. Chapter 10 is getting closer every minute (well, not this one), and I'll have it up as soon as possible (it's gonna end up being looong). For now though, we'll have the first guest piece.

So I'm here, working on the new chapter, when my roommate comes in and tells me that one of our new roommate's rent checks bounced after being late with last month and 3 weeks late with the security deposit, so now our landlord wants us to fix the problem (which would involve getting him his money and getting a new roommate) or we have to be out by September. So, I have decided to put the story on a brief hiatus until this gets sorted out. Chapter ten will go up and then the hiatus will begin. Sorry about this, but I need to set this aside while I get my real life in order. I'll still be around to talk respond to comments and give updates, but no chapters for a while. I'm going to take a page from MeiLin's handbook and ask for guest submissions during the hiatus. It can be art, poetry, fiction, something involving CotF (Like MeiLin, I don't want fanfic but sillyfic is awesome), really almost anything. This is just to have something for visitors to check out during the break. In exchange, I will link to your website, webnovel, random thing you want to support, or what have you. You give my guest stuff, I promote you; win-win. Sorry that I have to do this, guys, but I've been struggling to get new chapters written lately, so I think I need to take some time off and come back to it in a week or two when I can get the schedule back on track. Thanks for your understanding. (Also, I will still do bonus chapters if the donation goal is met. Every little bit helps.)

So I was pretty far through the bonus thing; I'd gotten the images in, knew what I was writing, and all that was left was put the last words on the screen. So what does firefox decide to do? Crash. And of course, instead of writing in microsoft word like I have with every chapter so far, I was writing the bonus in wordpress. And of course, the crash deleted everything I'd written and saved the post. Meaning everything I've done on it is gone. I still have the images, but fucking hell, can't a guy catch a break?

</bitching>

<fixing it>

Hey everyone!
(more...)

My host, Bluehost, was performing some server maintenance (they need to get better about that stuff) so the site was down for a little while, sorry! I don't know how long it was down because I only got online this evening, after a couple of days off. It was out of my hands either way. I haven't been around much recently because my house has no internet right now, and the neighbor's perfectly legitimate network I had been using has disappeared. I hope it comes back soon, because if I have to leave the house every time I want to get on line, it's going to be a huge pain in the ass. Okay, other updates: I still haven't found a job, so that's priority number one for right now. Still, I have a good bit of the new chapter written out in my notebook, so I hope to have it up by tomorrow night. Other other updates: Recently, AE announced that she will be taking Pages Unbound down, so if you wrote a review over there, or left a rating or anything, I would really appreciate it if you would move it over to the Web Fiction Guide. You can just copy and paste and it'll be fine. Also, if you haven't written a review and would like to support the site without making a donation, reviewing the story over at the Web Fiction Guide is a great way to do it, and I'd greatly appreciate it. As an extra incentive, I'll count each review as a one dollar donation toward the bonus story. (this will be a one-time thing, until the goal is reached. After that, I'll decide whether reviews will continue to count toward the total.)

So MeiLin Miranda is on a brief hiatus from her webnovel An Intimate History of the Greater Kingdom, and put out a call for silly guest-content, including Intimate History related LOLcats. Naturally, I couldn't resist. Go read her story, it's damn good. Go on, I'll wait.

I hate to write a post about this, but here's the situation: I just found out my bills are about twice as much as they usually are, due to a couple of factors (people moving in and out being one of them). I also have to renew my car registration this month, but I already knew that. Normally I would be able to afford at least one of these unexpected expenses in any given month. However, having both of them in the same month means that the small buffer between the money I have and the money I need is not going to cut it. Here's the kicker: I work for a catering company, and normally I could pick up extra shifts to try to cover things like this; but (this is the fun part) I found out yesterday that they have 0 events until September. ZERO. None. Not one. This means I'm out of work until then, and won't have the 400ish dollars I would normally make. I'm going to start looking for another job tomorrow, but it'll be at least three weeks before I see a paycheck, so this is what I'm going to do: Beg For Donations-- every little bit helps (at least a dollar, because of Paypal) and I really appreciate anything you can give. As a little extra incentive/thank you, I'll write a bonus story for every $15 donated. You can leave suggestions for the bonus story in the comments on this post. As always, spreading the word around is a free alternative to donations, and can help pull in more readers and more ad revenue. Sorry for that...

So I missed my flight this morning and ended up on a later one that is taking twice as long. Right now I'm in the Atlanta airport (making me pay for wi-fi, how dare you!) waiting for my flight to New Orleans. I had planned on writing the new chapter partially on the plane and finishing it when I got to NO. Unfortunately, I'll be getting in to NO at 11:something pm instead of 1:40 pm, which leaves me much less time to write with a clear head. I've made some progress on the plane, but it's hard to write with a weird old guy sleeping on you. I still hope to get it done tonight, but it's seeming less likely. The schedule should stop being insane next week, when I'm home without madness about me. (Okay, maybe some madness, but the madness I'm used to.) Oh, and Chapter Seven's bit about the Gibri families has been edited.