Archive for February 2000

1st

Just started converting my .wps files into HTML documents for the Web and created this page to document my progress. The first one is my New Gaia story.

4th

The conversion is going fast and I've been catching a lot of typos in my works that I missed the first time around. I've also been working on the structure of the site so that everything makes sense. Oh, and I've gone back and started working on a story I'd tabled a while back, tentatively titled Lights of Life. Chapter 1 is already complete.

8th

Wrote the second chapter of New Gaia and designed a title graphic for the story.

9th

Finally went in search of Xena graphics to decorate my site with. I found a really cool Celtic site through the Xena Online Resources site that has linkware graphics (I just have to give credit and link back to her site) I'm probably going to use for the backgrounds of my pages.

11th

I'm 24 years old today. What a concept. :) Well, I wrote an entire story today. Never really done that before. I'm having problems coming up with a title though. Nothing seems to work. I've also been continuing my quest for Xena graphics. I tried going to the official Xena site to snag a logo to play with, but theirs were chopped up for their table alignment I guess. So I ended up at a site whose owner I'd heard about through Melissa Good's site because of the covers done for her 'books'. I found the Xena logo I'd been looking for and a nice rendition of the chakram that I think I'm going to enjoy messing with at Barron's Xena Page.

12th

Well, I just found out my sister had her twins yesterday on my birthday. They are sooo adorable, too. All tiny and perfect. They look so different from each other, too. Little T. G., who was born first, was born with a tan and a full head of dark brown hair. And little J. C. is all light and blond and bald. :) What a pair of birthday presents. :)

15th

Just finished the third and fourth chapters of New Gaia. The third was so small I decided I needed to go on and do the fourth along with it. It's nice to be working from an outline. Usually, I just write the story as it comes to me. This way is easier in some ways, but it's also a little confining, though that's alright. Keeps me focused.

16th

I've got chapter 2 of the Lights of Life story ready for public consumption. Too bad the site isn't, yet. :)

18th

I've been having fun creating graphics for my pages and I've settled on a few backgrounds for some of my pages. It's helped me to decide on a design concept for how I want to present my pages.

22nd

Ever have one of those days? But in a good way? I completed the third chapter of Lights of Life (12pp.), started a new story called Prisoner of War (7pp.), and wrote chapter five of New Gaia (21pp.) and was just about to go to sleep (I was dead on my feet, or should I say seat since I was sitting at the computer all day) and a movie started playing in my head. I watched as the opening scenes of a conversation between a vampire and the woman who was hunting her played out in my mind's eye. I have a very good imagination, but I rarely see things so clearly. I could hear their voices, the inflections, the emotion. Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Anyway, I knew if I didn't get up and write it out, I'd lose it by the time I woke the following day, so I got back up, turned the computer back on, and wrote chapter I of The Vampire Hunter. I really really like it, too. And I already know where it's going, which is cool.

23rd

I've finally started putting the pages together and organizing the graphics. I've also written a little essay on how to improve one's writing by making sure the verb tenses agree with each other. I was just reading some other people's fan fiction and it hit me again how many people don't do this and how distracting it is. Not that I'm an expert or anything, but I read constantly and have always been good at catching stuff like that. I started reading when I was two and in the second grade, I tested at the college level for reading comprehension and spelling. I think reading was my first love. It kept me sane during my screwed up childhood anyway. :) Sorry, getting a little too deep for an update page. :)

24th

Got another bug up my butt and wrote another 'ways to improve your writing' essay. This one's about homonyms (words that sound alike, but mean different things and are spelled differently). It's not an end-all be-all list, but I think it's pretty comprehensive of the most common mistakes I've seen in the fan fiction I've read online and in my own works, too.

25th

I've created a title graphic for The Vampire Hunter that I am very happy with. I'm working on the next chapter for that story and I finally came up with a title for the story I wrote on my birthday:

Xena: Warrior Slave

I came up with it when I was working on the sequel, which is still very incomplete.

27th

Added to X:WS II, but it's still incomplete. I've just about got everything ready to be uploaded to my website. All my stories have been converted to HTML format and I just need to double-check them for mistakes.

28th

Finished tweaking the first Xena fan fiction story I ever wrote. It needed help. :) I'm having titling problems again, though. For now, it's going to be called Xena's Fantasy, even though that really doesn't fit. I've also completely revised a story I've been working on for a couple months now. I had to rewrite half of it because it just wasn't going anywhere, or maybe it was getting there too fast, I'm not sure. Anyway, it's called Assassin and I've even made a title graphic for it. Chapters 1 and 2 are posted. Of course, it would help if the site was too, but I've decided the grand opening will be Leap Day, you know, to make it special, like Leap Day itself, which only comes around once every four years. (Geez, could I have added more commas to that sentence?) :)

29th

Leap Day! I don't know why, but I consider this a good omen for the grand opening of my Xena Fan Fiction Site. I've been working on this place for a month now and I finally feel confident enough to unleash it on the Internet. :) Please, tell me what you think. Hate it, love it, I'd like to know.

Well, I've posted chapter three of Assassin, part II of The Vampire Hunter, chapters six and seven of New Gaia, and chapter four of Lights of Life. It really helps that the site is now online. :) I've also completed the Credits page and have a decent beginning for the Links page (just in time, too). Check 'em out. :)