Writing Stats For 2023

Monday, January 1, 2024

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).

New Site Design and Some Changes

Thursday, February 29, 2024

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. :)

New ABP Chapter

Thursday, May 30, 2024

Written by Kodi Wolf at 5:19 AM

I've added Day 28 to A Bondage Primer. It's almost 14,000 words long.

I still haven't created the EPUB books (just don't have the energy yet) and I don't plan to post Book 5 until all the chapters are posted for it (currently Days 28-32, but I'm going by word count, so it could be more or less once those chapters are finalized).

I'm super stressed with life stuff and my anxiety is through the fuckin' roof right now, but I'm still actively writing, so I'm hoping to get at least one more update posted before the end of the year (assuming nothing else in my life blows up).

I'm not sure whether it'll be for ABP again or POW. I've got an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 words left to write for Day 29 of ABP and about 1,500 for Ch. 6 of POW, but they're both for sex scenes, which take me longer to write, and I'm also working on a bunch of other stuff that isn't even close to being done, so who knows. It just depends on where my muse takes me and what I get finished first.

All right, I'm already freaking out about posting Day 28 because of course I found a fucking typo while converting the chapter to HTML and I'm worried that no one's going to be able to log in to go read the new chapter because the site's still buggy, so I'm just going to do it and hope for the best.

Take care, everyone.

Moving to a New Server

Friday, September 13, 2024

Written by Kodi Wolf at 10:07 AM

So, I need to move my site to a new server again in order to keep costs down. That means the site might be out of order over the next few days while I get that sorted out. I'm hoping everything will go well, but with the way my luck has been going, I'm not holding my breath.

And yes, my life blew up on multiple fronts again, so I'm still stressed as all fuck. I've still been writing, but nothing I can post.

Anyway, if everything goes well with the site migration, you shouldn't really notice anything. If it doesn't or if it breaks the membership software, the site will probably be fucked for awhile until I can buy the new software, get it installed, and everyone's memberships transferred over.

If that happens, just email me and I'll send you copies of whichever stories are part of your membership.

Wish me luck. :)

Server Migration Got Derailed

Monday, October 21, 2024

Written by Kodi Wolf at 9:07 AM

So, my plans took a serious detour.

My wife ended up in the ICU with sepsis. She had a 3mm kidney stone get stuck in her ureter, which caused bacteria to build up in her kidney and she went septic.

After calling 911 and spending the day in the ER, they finally diagnosed her and recommended emergency surgery to put in a stent. Still not sure why they didn't just take the stone, but we're guessing it was because she was so sick and they didn't want to tax her body any further. After the surgery, the doctor told us to "pray for her," so yeah, it was bad.

She spent several days in the ICU because she needed to be on a ventilator and pumped full of antibiotics, but then they moved her to a regular room to start working on physical therapy.

But of course the insurance denied in-patient PT, so with the doctor's approval, we took her home and the insurance seems to have approved in-home PT, which has actually worked out way better.

She's finished a course of cipro and though the urologist originally had her scheduled for lithotripsy to blast the stone, there are some issues we need to clear up before she does that.

The aftercare for the lithotripsy involves inversion therapy for half an hour twice a day at a 30-45 degree angle to flush the kidneys.

But we know from past experience that will cause her to have ocular aneurysms after only a couple minutes due to her glaucoma, and her ophthalmologist is adamant that she not do that. So we have a consultation appointment scheduled for late November to figure out the best course of action going forward.

She seems to be out of the woods now and is back home and improving on a daily basis, but we're still in the middle of it and she's got quite a bit of recovery to get through.

At first, she was using a walker and other home health aids to do basic tasks, but thankfully, with the PT, she's been getting stronger every day. And one of my sisters was able to come stay with us to help, since I can't drive and my fibro and other issues make physically helping my wife very difficult.

I also just got diagnosed with frozen shoulder the day before this all kicked off and got a cortisone shot, but then had an allergic reaction to it with a massive fever in my arm, so yeah, good times.

But she is doing so much better and everyone's been saying they expect her to make a full recovery.

Anyway, this was on top of HostGator dicking me around again after spending $1,200 on the new server (though granted, that's for 2 years of hosting), so I've been trying to migrate my websites myself.

They gave me a free month, so I have until 10/23 before the old server expires, but I haven't gotten the new software installed on the new server (for obvious reasons) and I only just yesterday got the nameservers updated to point to the new server because it's taken me that long to get the new site finished.

And I still haven't gotten the SSL certificate installed, so my site appears to be 'unsecure,' which means I need to get that taken care of before I can even attempt to install the new membership software.

But without the membership software, you won't be able to log in, I won't be able to send emails to you guys through the software, and my stories won't be protected, which is why I've removed the paid chapters and ebooks from the site for the time being.

To be honest, it's all just too much right now.

So I'm going to focus on my wife and her recovery and I'll figure the site out later.

I do have everyone's membership information, so I should be able to eventually get everything set up again and email you what you need to know to login, etc., but it could be months. If you need the files that come with your membership, let me know, and I'll email them to you.

Take care and I hope everyone's doing well.

SSL Certificate Installed

Monday, November 4, 2024

Written by Kodi Wolf at 7:08 PM

Just wanted to put out a quick update that I got the SSL certificate installed, so the site is secure again.

If you're still seeing it as 'not secure' or are somehow viewing the site with http instead of https, please clear your cache or just close the browser and open a new window (you can test it in Incognito in Chrome and that will show if it's a caching issue).

Hostgator actually called to check in with me and I was able to get help with the SSL certificate at that time (apparently whoever set up the server hadn't enabled the certificate or something, but the guy fixed it). I was also able to find out how to transfer my other domain, though I still need to work on that myself.

I'm not sure what kicked off the checkup or if it's part of their protocol now, since they discontinued 24/7 phone support (it's now 7am to midnight EST), even though it continues to say they offer 24/7/365 service on their website, but it was nice to get the help.

Anyway, not sure when I'll start working on the membership software, but like I said in my last post, if you need the files that came with your membership, just let me know, and I'll email them to you.

Well, take care everyone.