The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 09

[Aoife_from_Ulster]

I spent the morning moving some of my stories to Stories Online and Lush Stories.

It wasn't as productive from a writing perspective, but feels like a decent use of time if for no other reason than to have a presence there.

I have tried to write this morning twice to no avail. I am super frustrated, I just want Lit to be the Lit of a few months ago when a story was submitted and posted in a relatively reasonable amount of time. Like three to five days.

 

[sirhugs]

I spent the morning moving some of my stories to Stories Online and Lush Stories.

It wasn't as productive from a writing perspective, but feels like a decent use of time if for no other reason than to have a presence there.

have visited Stories Online (but not recently). Never heard of Lush Stories.
Regardless, they will benefit from your contributions.

 

[Off_base]

I don't get what you are saying at all.
and suspect I don't care, but that might just be my depression talking.

This wasn't directed at you or any individual, just a reminder that "live and let live" usually creates a happier outlook and more tolerance.

 

[sirhugs]

I'd feed the plot bunnies but don't know where they are hiding.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I'd feed the plot bunnies but don't know where they are hiding.

I think they're hiding under my bed.

(Or, given the nature of my scribblings, under my bad.)

 

[Candy_Kane54]

It's another chilly morning with frost everywhere, but at least it's supposed to warm up into the 40s but windy. There's still spots of snow left over from our snowstorm eight days ago. I'm glad my blood pressure is trending back to normal but I don't like aches and pains. I woke up in the middle of the night with an idea for my story and, for once, I remembered it when I got up, and am going to incorporate it in my new story.

There's a fresh pot of coffee brewing and the teapot is hot. There is hot cocoa on the back burner and there are donuts and cookies on the counter. The quiche was a big hit so I may make another one soon.

I'll be over in the corner working on my new story. I did some research this morning and put down a few words so I am back to writing. I see there are more presents under the tree.

@sirhugs - I think the plot bunnies are huddled together for warmth out on the porch.

 

[NotWise]

It looks like the attacks on the Romance toplist might be underway again. @Candy_Kane54, have you seen it in LS, too?

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Breakfast was a couple of chicken drumsticks.

 

[sirhugs]

Breakfast was a couple of chicken drumsticks.

I skipped breakfast.

 

[MrPixel]

Snow here is gone and it's supposed to get up to ~50° this afternoon. Weird.

I managed to tear down the brick wall on that story the other day and it is done. Starting the next chapter.

 

[NuclearFairy]

Two of my stories lost their hot status overnight, I'm trying not to let it bother me.

 

[NotWise]

Damned keyboards. Can't live without 'em and can't live with 'em.

I bought a compact, but still "full sized," keyboard a couple years ago because it took less space and had nice back-lit keys. I never got used to the more condensed layout, and the keys were starting to wear so the back light showed through where it shouldn't. This morning I did something on the keyboard that told LibreOffice to overwrite as I edited instead of inserting, and I couldn't figure out how to undo it.

Damn the thing. I plugged the old keyboard in and one touch set LibreOffice back to inserting instead of overwriting. The newer keyboard can stay in the box of extra parts.

 

[iwatchus]

We hit -6 or -7 overnight (depending on which measurement I believe) We will pass 20 tonight, the warmest it's been in two days. TOO FUCKING COLD!

I actually got back to writing this morning after taking four days off to decide if I was going to leave stories up on the site because of the mis-rendering issues.

 

[NotWise]

Two of my stories lost their hot status overnight, I'm trying not to let it bother me.

If they were newish stories that would bother me, too. I can shrug that off more easily on older stories.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Two of my stories lost their hot status overnight, I'm trying not to let it bother me.

Most of my stuff has ticked down again as well. After being stable for seven months, my highest-rated story has dropped more than a tenth of a point in the last three weeks, from top on the 12-month romance toplist to the middle of the second page. (It'd be nice if the score on the toplist page was consistent with the score everywhere else, but it's not for some reason.)

 

[NuclearFairy]

If they were newish stories that would bother me, too. I can shrug that off more easily on older stories.

They were published in August and May so not the newest of stories I suppose.

 

[NotWise]

We hit -6 or -7 overnight (depending on which measurement I believe) We will pass 20 tonight, the warmest it's been in two days. TOO FUCKING COLD!

I actually got back to writing this morning after taking four days off to decide if I was going to leave stories up on the site because of the mis-rendering issues.

My story that was misrendered has been rendered correctly for several days now. The problem was never with anything but <blockquote><center></blockquote></center>. The other html tags and entities always rendered correctly. There have been no changes in how the text looks in the source view.

KeithD was pretty firm that you shouldn't depend on typography to communicate your story. I eventually came to believe that myself (which is why I only have one example to check) but it's hard to get the idea over to other writers.

 

[NotWise]

They were published in August and May so not the newest of stories I suppose.

That's new enough to bother me. My Summer Lovin' story from August is still getting votes because the contest is still linked on the Categories page, and I'm still clinging to every vote.

Stories that are a couple years old? Meh.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Guess I'll always have to be
Living in a fantasy
That's the way it's got to be
From now on.

 

[NotWise]

Most of my stuff has ticked down again as well. After being stable for seven months, my highest-rated story has dropped more than a tenth of a point in the last three weeks, from top on the 12-month romance toplist to the middle of the second page. (It'd be nice if the score on the toplist page was consistent with the score everywhere else, but it's not for some reason.)

I think the scores on the toplists are inconsistent because the lists aren't updated as often as other parts of the site.

 

[YmaOHyd]

KeithD was pretty firm that you shouldn't depend on typography to communicate your story. I eventually came to believe that myself (which is why I only have one example to check) but it's hard to get the idea over to other writers.

I believe that you shouldn't depend on typography, but the center tag issue wasn't a typographical problem. It removed text, not just formatting. Each time it occurred, two full lines, one with text and one without, were struck from the piece. Had it just been a broken tag with the text inside the tag still extant on the page, it wouldn't have caused so much confusion.

I think the scores on the toplists are inconsistent because the lists aren't updated as often as other parts of the site.

Could be. The toplist score and the score on the category page, series page and dashboard track each other; it's just that the toplist has been consistently 0.04 lower for the last month at least with the same number of ratings.

 

[NuclearFairy]

That's new enough to bother me. My Summer Lovin' story from August is still getting votes because the contest is still linked on the Categories page, and I'm still clinging to every vote.

Stories that are a couple years old? Meh.

My oldest story isn't even a year and a half old yet. XD

 

[NotWise]

I believe that you shouldn't depend on typography, but the center tag issue wasn't a typographical problem. It removed text, not just formatting. Each time it occurred, two full lines, one with text and one without, were struck from the piece. Had it just been a broken tag with the text inside the tag still extant on the page, it wouldn't have caused so much confusion.

The problem comes from using the center tag to start with. Centering is the typographic element you shouldn't depend on.

I didn't lose text in my case.

 

[iwatchus]

My story that was misrendered has been rendered correctly for several days now. The problem was never with anything but <blockquote><center></blockquote></center>. The other html tags and entities always rendered correctly. There have been no changes in how the text looks in the source view.

KeithD was pretty firm that you shouldn't depend on typography to communicate your story. I eventually came to believe that myself (which is why I only have one example to check) but it's hard to get the idea over to other writers.

That was not the case that I had. I (and many others include Wanda) had simply centered our section breaks (for me a series of +'s).

Some of the section breaks disappeared when stepping page by page through a story. Reloading the page brought them back. My complaint is not a visual one. The section breaks were wholy omitted from the rendered story, making changes in place and time unclear. This is not a case of typography. This is a case of the site not rendering text that is part of the story. Completely omitting pieces. As far as I can tell from the bug, it could just have easily been omitting italicized words at random from a story (not as the bug manifested, but a closely related bug).

They have the authority to change the typography of stories. Omitting text from the story is one hundred percent unacceptable and is where I draw the line.

 

[MrPixel]

Two of my stories lost their hot status overnight, I'm trying not to let it bother me.

Yeah, I'm so sorry about that. I know of what you speak. I publish in a ghost town (GS) and get few votes, so my scores are especially vulnerable to the vandals.

Damned keyboards. Can't live without 'em and can't live with 'em.

I bought a compact, but still "full sized," keyboard a couple years ago because it took less space and had nice back-lit keys. I never got used to the more condensed layout, and the keys were starting to wear so the back light showed through where it shouldn't. This morning I did something on the keyboard that told LibreOffice to overwrite as I edited instead of inserting, and I couldn't figure out how to undo it.

Damn the thing. I plugged the old keyboard in and one touch set LibreOffice back to inserting instead of overwriting. The newer keyboard can stay in the box of extra parts.

I'm fighting similar issues on my new compact keyboard. Apple - bless their pea-pickin' hearts - has pulled one of their shitty planned-obsolescence tricks again. The new wireless compact has changed the FN key to a "global" function key. Works fine with the latest OS. Doesn't work with earlier OSes, so I have no page-up or page-down on my primary writing machine, which has been deprecated and hit the update wall. Getting used to it, spending more time with the mouse to scroll.