Archive for May 2002

2nd

Chapter 20 of Bloodlines has been posted. The next chapter will be posted on Monday.

Well, you'll all be happy to know that I'm taking May off in addition to April, which means more updates. :) Money's going to be tight, but as long as my bills get paid and I can eat, I consider myself pretty lucky.

Anyway, I'm almost finished with the next installment of Xena: Warrior Slave (there should be 2 more after this one and then the story will be completed, yay!), so that should be going off to beta within the next few days. The final chapters of Assassin have also apparently cleared beta, so I'm hoping to get them posted maybe over the weekend.

Also, for those of you who were having problems accessing my site, I've changed servers, which seems to have fixed the problem, at least for me. If you know of anyone who is still having problems getting my site to come up, please let me know.

And one last thing. I have been getting bombarded with a new virus, though as far as I know, I do not have the virus (I've deleted all the e-mails without opening the attachments, and my hard drive was scanned and came up clean), nor have I passed it on, though I've received several e-mails saying that others have received virus-attached e-mails from me. I didn't think it was a big deal at first, but I noticed on Ashera's Archive that Ashera has also apparently been receiving e-mails saying that people are getting viruses from her.

Here's what I know from Symantec (Norton Anti-virus):

A virus called W32.Klez.gen@mm infects a computer and then scans the computer (Windows address book, ICQ database, and other local files) for e-mail addresses. It then sends a message to all of the addresses it finds with itself as an attachment, along with a real file from the infected computer (the file is chosen at random from the hard drive, and this could include personal files that you really don't want anyone else to see). The infected file attachment usually has a double extension (i.e., file.txt.exe, file.bat.txt, etc.), though not always. The subject line is random ("how are you," "lets be friends," etc.).

Now, here's the really fun part. The "From" part of the e-mail message is also random. The virus just chooses an e-mail address from random among all the addresses it finds on the computer and inserts it into the From section of the message, so you never see where the message was really sent from. This means that someone with my address on their hard drive has probably been infected, and my address happened to be the one that got picked for the From slot (probably on more than one computer). This is probably the case with most of the supposed senders of this virus.

So, if you get any messages that have two file attachments, even if they're from people you know, but there's no real message in the body of the e-mail, or the message is generic, do not open it and delete the thing immediately!

I've been getting about a dozen or more messages a day that contain this virus as an attachment (some talk about a new game it wants me to be the first to try, while one of the new ones says it's offering a virus tool to remove W32.Elkern). Sometimes, I recognize the address it's coming from (I've even gotten one that said it's from lunacyreviews@yahoogroups.com, which I have never been a member of, but obviously someone who got infected had that e-mail address on their hard drive), but I figure if the e-mail was legitimate, there would be something personally identifying in the text of the message.

The fact that I've received so many e-mails tells me that this virus is very widespread. So please, use an anti-virus program to check your hard drive, remove the virus if you have it, and then do not open any two-attachment e-mails.

For more information about the most recent viruses, please visit Symantec.com and go to their Expanded Threat List.

For information specifically about W32.Klez.gen@mm, you can read about it at the following link: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/
avcenter/venc/data/w32.klez.gen@mm.html.

6th

Chapter 21 of Bloodlines is up. The next chapter will be posted on Friday.

Well, Xena: Warrior Slave still hasn't been sent off to beta yet because I realized I was shortchanging on a few things, so I'm currently adding detail. Hopefully, I'll finish it by the weekend and send it off then.

And Assassin is just about finished. Since there have been a lot of little edits throughout the entire story, I decided to post the entire revised version of the story, instead of just the last few chapters. So, my girlfriend donated her services and converted over 200 pages of the story into HTML last night (thank you, baby :)). Now, I just need to double-check that everything is the way it's supposed to be, and then I'll post it (probably tomorrow, but Wednesday isn't out of the question). I'll give more details about what's been changed/added when I actually post it.

8th

The last chapters of Assassin have been posted. I've done some reorganizing of the chapters again (of course), so if you've read everything that's been posted so far, the next chapter you should begin with is Chapter 26, rather than 17.

The main change that everyone should be aware of is a short extra scene I added to the end of Chapter 2. It's basically to establish Carlotti's character a little better, so that it's clear exactly what kind of guy he is. I realized I had major introductions for Case and Rain, but Carlotti barely makes an appearance until the ending chapters. So, that's the main addition.

The rest of the revisions involved cleaning up grammatical problems, spelling errors, and just rewriting things in the best way that I could. I also removed the lyrics to the song that Case sings (Sarah McLachlan's Shelter) because it's a major copyright infringement, though I do mention the song and the artist by name. Since I plan to publish this story in the real world, I didn't want there to be anything in the online version that wouldn't be in the published version. And that works in reverse, too; there will not be extra scenes that you can't get except to buy the book. I consider that blackmail, and I won't do it. If you buy my books, I want it to be because you enjoyed the story and want to support my efforts, not because you feel like you're missing out on something.

Anyway, let me know what you think of the story. I've put a lot of myself into it, so I know I'm going to have a hard time taking any major criticism for it, but please don't let that hold you back from writing to me. At first, I was going to request that no one send me critical feedback for a few months, but then I realized that was pointless. That would be like posting my work under a pseudonym, which I decided a long time ago I wouldn't do. If I write something, I need to have the courage to stand behind it, or I might as well just not let anyone read it.

So, good or bad, let me know what you think. Oh, and if you plan to buy this book when it finally gets published, I would appreciate hearing that, too. :)

One more thing. My girlfriend's poetry website (Roarin' Fire's Poetry) has been completely redesigned by me and is now housed on my server. She's added 31 new poems since October's update, so go check it out.

10th

As promised, Chapter 22 of Bloodlines has been posted. The next chapter will be posted on Wednesday.

15th

Chapter 23 of Bloodlines is up. The next chapter will be posted on Wednesday again.

By the way, if you really get annoyed by cliffhangers, wait until next Wednesday to read this chapter, so that you can read the last two challenges together (though this is by no means the end of the story; that's still a little ways away).

23rd

I'm sorry it's a day late, but Chapter 24 of Bloodlines is ready. I ended up getting pulled into working on another story, and it was just flowing really well, and then I crashed and didn't wake up until this morning. Anyway, the next chapter will be posted on Wednesday again (I'll try to get it posted really early in order to make up for this delay).

I will be posting two more chapters of Bloodlines, and then I'll be taking a break from the story, though it's not complete. However, I don't think you'll be too unhappy with where I leave it. :)

Anyway, like I said, I've been getting pulled into other stories, so I need to follow my muse where it takes me. I feel my writing is best when I don't try to force things, so I'm just going to let things flow. I'm sure I'll get back to Bloodlines when the muse is ready.

29th

Chapter 25 of Bloodlines has been posted.

Also, this one is a bit of a cliffhanger, so you might want to wait again until next week to read the next chapter. I'm currently working on revisions to the next chapter, but hopefully I will have it ready by next Wednesday. If I don't, I'll get a message up here to let you know when I expect to be able to post it.