As you no doubt noticed last week, dear Readers, I had a little trouble with my website. The trouble was a combination of a hijacking and of an ongoing dispute with my domain registrar. I had wanted to do some website revamping, but not like this.

So…there’s a new website. And a new weblog.

And a new forum.

Now that I’ve got the old website back up and running (thank God, that was one long hideous frustrating week) I will be doing some domain maintenance. Eventually the old site will lead to the new one, and all will be ducky.

One hopes. But we are dealing with electronics here, you know.

One last thing: don’t forget the Dead Man Rising Fiction Contest! I am having a ball reading all the different entries from my talented Readers! It will be hard to choose the winners. The deadline for entry isn’t until August 15, so if you haven’t already entered to win your signed ARC…well, there’s still time.

Monk has finally gotten the forum on my website to work properly. Now all I need are a couple of fans to moderate it, and we’ll be good to go. If you’re interested in being a mod, email me and let me know. Chances are good you’ll be chosen if you’ve personally emailed me before or been a frequent commenter on my weblog.

I am so happy I could just…well, burst. Thank goodness the website thing is getting cleared up. It’s been a horrible, terrible hassle, but good things are happening nonetheless.

In the deep middle of a gruesome night, it really can. When everyone else is asleep and life spreads to either side, both past and present, in a smoking wasteland where the wind is the echo of dreadful wings. When you’ve tossed and turned, stared at the ceiling, merged plot lines in your head. When both sides of your pillow are hot as a fresh pancake. When your body aches in each cell, every atom of it crying out for a repair that is no less than a complete unmaking. When you’re done with life, and life is done with you, when you’ve marred everything so completely that the only way to fix it is to wipe the board clean, scatter the chess pieces, rip up the drawing and start new…

Read On, If You Dare »

Well, I’m still breathing. I have a new lava lamp, courtesy of the Kiwi. I am listening to Rob Dougan, always soothing. Everyone is healthy–the kids are currently watching one of their favorite shows, a gentle little number involving puppets. It reminds me of Mr. Rogers in scope and pace, but it’s a nice little show. Today they talked about mistakes. How mistakes are okay, and nothing ever got invented without a lot of mistakes, and how trying again when you make a mistake is a good thing.

Read On, If You Dare »

I’ve reached a pitch of frustration in dealing with the new website stuff that can only be salved by HURLING SOMETHING ACROSS THE ROOM. On the plus side, Monk did get my Wordpress working yesterday, so the new website blog is up. Thank God for small favors.

But right now I am dealing with phpMyList, which is the newsletter software I was using to send out my newsletter, the Dark Side.(The newsletter is kaput now because my whole old site is gone. *sob*) Fortunately, I have all the old use addresses…I just need to get the DAMN NEWSLETTER WORKING, and my new web hoster has such weird restrictions on SQL I just can’t get it going. *another sob*

If you’ve been sending me emails, please please understand that I am currently hunched over my keyboard sobbing in frustration while I try to get the goddamn newsletter up and running.

Whoever tried to hijack my website deserves piles and boils. And the “customer service” people at Yahoo need to get off their asses and fix the problem that I’ve asked them to fix a hundred million times. This is just not funny anymore, if it ever was. I am lost valuable writing time trying to figure this &*^$ out.

If anyone else has dealt with GoDaddy server restrictions and phpMyAdmin, can you please help me? I am seriously about to engage in another crying fit. Why does this have to be so bloody hard? I am doing everything the directions tell me to do, but the bloody thing WON’T WORK and I NEED THIS NEWSLETTER, DAMMIT!

*sigh*

Okay. I’m going to take a break because I am rapidly getting useless. Wish me luck. Because I sorely need it.

The hijacking of my website has created all sorts of bloody problems, not the least of which is the complete loss of plenty of my blog posts. No fear, though. You can find the posts at my Livejournal, which has come through this whole bloody thing admirably. I’m still trying to figure out how to transfer all my old blog settings etc. to the new blog.

The current problem is this: back when I first put together my website, I used Yahoo web hosting. (Because I didn’t know any better.) Later, I switched to having the lovely audre do my web hosting, but Yahoo doesn’t like that.

So what do they do? Mess with my registry data, refusing to change the old email address on it though I’ve asked them five times now. Each time they change it (when they respond to my emails at all) it “mysteriously” changes back to the old email address–the one I haven’t had in two years.

Translation: “Lili, you’re screwed.”

Sigh. So I’m working frantically not only to get the old site back up, but the new site all squared away as well…just in case.

Wish me luck…more bulletins as events warrant.