Blog Post of Randomness

I have a lot of little stuff going on this week, no one thing sufficient for a full post—

Okay, that's strictly untrue, but one of my little things is that I'm sick and don't want to compile yet another argumentative piece. (To give an idea about what I've been mulling over lately, is "free will" idolized by being emphasized and election being downplayed?)

But I'm not going into all that today. I might another time. But as for today…

What's Up with Misti, in No Particular Order:

My Kickstarter for Know Thy Frienemy ends in a week. As things stand, it looks as if I'm not going to hit it. (Which is okay, honestly—I won't be bawling in despair over it. So please don't feel as if I'm trying to guilt you into participating.) Update 5/4/13: And now it's due to fund!Update 2: It funded! Thanks!

I…well…kinda-sorta already did the cover for A Fistful of Water myself. I'm still fiddling with it, but I have the text, and I have the photo. Just figuring out how to do a natural-looking watercolor effect.

Allergy-induced infections are a pain in the ears.

A few drops of oil are remarkably soothing for inflamed ear canals, after you get past the "That feels weird…". (I prefer argan nut over the apricot kernel oil. I have some mullein-infused olive oil, too, but I keep forgetting to strain it, so I can't use it right now. I have a vial to put it in, though.)

Being sick is annoying, but it can be rather conducive to finally rebuilding your website from the foundation up. The content's still pretty much the same, but the back end… Oh, the back end is so much better. (No more WordPress! Yay!)

I'm still hammering out a few kinks, like a phantom right-hand 1em margin/padding, caused by something I can't seem to track down, probably related to either definition lists or images. But the few password-protected pages? I got my PHP right on the get-go, for those. Success!

I might redo the nav bar altogether, though. As it is, it…blergh…. (Update later same day: I fixed the buttons. They're a lot prettier now.)

I've also been, well, playing with code, and produced a demo page* with a nav bar I like a lot better than the one I have currently had originally, though it, too, is isn't perfect (…yet?).

*That link's temporary, by the way.

My birthday's in a week. I'm not old. I'm nowhere near old. But I actually remember my mother, when she was the age I am now. I was in grade school and reading her psychology textbooks. (I've since realized that the psychology textbooks might explain how I handled getting bullied, in school.)

Fortunately, my illness has fallen on a week where I can take things slow, because my deadlines aren't that bad. Though I am trying to get something done tomorrow that has a deadline of Friday, and tomorrow I'll be getting a file due Monday, but the editor says there's (probably) not much in it.

The aforementioned "probably" is because there's one not-quite-tiny detail that's probably fine, but it's dependent on "Hey, did the person who acquired my story intend to tell me to change this?" If so, I'll have to change it.

Uh, yes I did just mention an acquisitions editor, who processed a story and got it on to further editing. "Thrice Uncharmed" is under contract. Did I forget to tell you? Got it Tuesday, and I'm getting my first round of edits back tomorrow. Which means I really need to finish writing the sequel, to get it started in the process before the first one comes out. (Which is my goal.)

The editor is demanding the second story, too, actually. ^_^

The pre–line edit version of "Thrice Uncharmed" is still over on Wattpad for the near future, though it'll be coming down soon…probably in the next week or two, if not the next few days. Pulled.

Oh, and I flunked Camp NaNoWriMo. Oh, well. At least I made progress.

And I am still making progress on A Fistful of Water, so that's what counts, right?

I modified Kait Nolan's "pizza bites" to a tomato-free pork-free Greek version to be dipped in tzatziki sauce. (Note that Kait converted it to gluten-free herself, mentioned over on her writing blog, with gluten-free all-purpose flour and 3/4 t. xanthan gum. The bites are fairly quick and easy to make—within an hour, including bake time—except for the dicing prep. If you're doing it by hand, that can take a while.

And that's my lot of random news, this go-around.

You have any random (or not-so-random) news or response to news, that you want to share?

—Misti