Okay, so again... apologies to anyone who changed my link on their website/blog to the new WordPress address, and has now had to change it back. I admit that I messed up (stupidly) when trying to download my WP files and upload them to my sparkly new domain name. But then I got really pissed off slightly frustrated and deleted the WP blog before I was certain things were saved properly. *ahem* I had a weird day yesterday. It started out pretty good (and I wrote lots), but there were Other Things that knocked my equilibrium and I took it out on my in-progress-website. Technology is such an easy target. ;)

Actually, it turns out that it's not all my fault, as my domain name (www.karenmahoney.net) has just... *poof!* disappeared (completely randomly) from the control panel of my web hosting company. They are looking into it right now. So, I'll be starting from scratch with a website when I have the time/patience/inclination. This time I think I'll stick with HTML. I've gone off WordPress. Or maybe I'll just pay a professional one day, when I am published.

And now, as it's Tuesday - and St. Patrick's Day (have a good one!) - I will celebrate by giving you a teaser. Just a tiny snippet from yesterday's writing. Nothing fancy...

( Here, under the cut... )

I wasn't going to post again today, but I have good news and bad news. Nothing major, don't sweat it!

Good news = I hit my word goal and wrote just over 2,000 words today. I'm feeling very happy with those words, too.

Bad news = I had major 'technical issues' while attempting to transfer the data from my new WordPress blog to my domain name, and basically screwed everything up. Yeah, and I'm the girl who is supposed to be developing an actual website for a company as my Day Job. Hmm... (Luckily, those peeps don't read my blog! *g*)

So this means that I will probably have to start again with WordPress/the-website-that-was-in-progress, and right now I just don't have the time. Um... yeah. So I'm back on LJ full time. Not that I ever went away, to be honest. I mean, I cross-posted everything in the end anyway! LOL. I think the Universe is trying to tell me something. ;)

Sorry for messing with those lovely people who bothered to change my link...

First of all, a huge THANK YOU to all the geeks lovely people who gave advice and guidance - and offers of Actual Help - after my website post on Saturday. Wow. I wasn't even really asking for help, and now I have so much great information and links and offers. I've decided to stick with the plan of building my own website for now and, if I do say so myself, it's going pretty well. (For those interested, it's a free CSS template that I am drastically overhauling and changing - thank god I know some html!)

Among all the cool techie replies, however, the very wise raeputtputt said:

You are a business woman now. Sole-proprietor, founder, and writer of Kazdreamer productions, or whatever you want to call it. You are the driving force behind the production of your writing, the circulation of your writing, the marketing of your writing, and getting paid for your writing. You're it! And you'll do great!

How lovely is that? But also, how true! Not necessarily the part about me doing great (though I thank Rae for that), but about treating the business side of writing as a business. Being professional and working at promotion - even before that first publishing deal. So it was a good reminder for me - an important reminder that it's not all just spinning tales and pouring out thousands of words. Though, of course, without those words there wouldn't be a 'product'. :)

I'm feeling a lot better after the virus-thing I had, though still pretty tired. That wasn't helped by staying up late a couple of nights, going through - literally - hundreds of CSS templates, but I've never been one for early nights. *shrug*

So, not much in the way of writing happened this weekend, but today is a Bank Holiday here in the UK so it still feels like the weekend - I'll try to make up for getting lost in Tech Land later on. The ideas for my new YA novel are taking shape, and I did revise and submit (eeek!) my story, 'The Wolves of Westminster'. I'm sure it'll come winging its way back to me with a rejection, because I'm aiming pretty high with the market, but still... It felt good to submit a short story after all these years.

That's actually a rhetorical question. Or the start of a bad joke. ;)

I spent about 3 hours - I kid you not - trying to build a holding page for what will, one day, be my website. I want to take my desire to be a Serious Author(tm)... um... seriously, so I've been sorting out my domain name, hosting and holding page. I don't know why it took me so long. Partly, it was probably because I kept typing the wrong html tags. *sigh*

Head hurts now.

I used the image - temporarily - from the Great Blogger Experiment (which lasted about 2 weeks, in the end).

Anyway. Now I have to decide whether/when to invest in a professional job, or whether to do it myself. I'm not too bad with html (stop laughing, brian_ohio), and it might be fun to design something simple to start me off. Even if I pay for a Real Website later on - i.e. if I sell my books...