Update

I wanted to let you know what I’ve been working on lately.

Pre-Ramble

First, I’d like to say that I thought that once my blog was done I would be posting here a lot more often. That was certainly my intention, but I’ve ended up working on a lot of other things.

Nine Lies Book 5

The most important item on my docket is finishing the edits for the Nine Lies Series so I can publish them so you can read them. To that end, I have been working on revising Nine Lies Book 5, Shadows. It’s been difficult for me to stay focused in editing mode, though, because swiveling between being analytical (finding issues) and being creative (rewriting sections that aren’t good yet) is not particularly easy for me.

Sometimes I also find myself getting carried away by the story, too (but that’s a good thing, right?), so I end up settling for things that normally wouldn’t meet my standards because I want to hurry and get on with it. In the end I’m only making more work for myself by not dealing with those problems now.

Lately I’ve also noticed myself struggling to keep track of what characters have already done and said. I’ll think something feels familiar, like they’ve already discussed that topic, only to go back and find that no, they haven’t, but it feels familiar to me because I’ve been rereading it so much. So I think it may be time for me to set NL5 aside and work on NL6 (and maybe even the later books) for a while before coming back to it. We’ll see.

My Mailing List

I have also been working on setting up a different mailing list using my own server so I can have more control over the formatting of my e-mails and won’t have to worry about paying extra for more features using my current provider. I really wanted a mailing list provider that allowed me to use custom CSS and Markdown in my e-mails, and I think I may have found what I need. I am still working on setting it up and getting used to using it, though.

I have been really terrible about sending e-mails to my mailing list, and part of the reason why is because it’s such a pain to format e-mails using a WYSIWYG editor every single time. I think that having the option to create templates using CSS and automatically convert them using Markdown would help me stay in contact with my mailing list members more consistently, so I’m looking forward to successfully making the change.

Analytics

When my website used WordPress, it had built-in analytics (using Jetpack) that enabled me to see which posts were the most popular. I thought that was really useful because it gave me a better idea of what kinds of topics people would like to read more about.

My new site is static and has no analytics at all whatsoever, so I’d like to set some up. I’ve been working on that, too, and I think I found a solution that respects everyone’s privacy by anonymizing data so I can still find out the information that I need to see what you like to read without compromising your privacy.

That has been even harder for me to set up than the mailing list, though, so I am still working on it. Once that’s said and done I will need to update my Privacy Policy, too!

In Conclusion

So I’ve been pretty busy lately, and I’ve even been busy with the website, but I’ve just been doing other things instead of posting. Hopefully I’ll have more updates for you soon on the status of the Nine Lies books!

Note from December 2024: All the way back in May of 2024, I wrote this post on my little laptop while taking a break at a park during a bike ride. When I got home, I forgot all about it, and I’m only just now finding it in December of 2024. So I’m posting it under its original date in May, but it wasn’t there before December!