In a mirror, dimly

All of my fiction writing projects now have a “book cover” or “movie poster” and the fiction page on the site has had a make-over. In the process I reijigged some of the URLs. Apologies if that means some bookmarks are now broken.

I used the fabulous Celtx screenwriting software to participate in “Script Frenzy” last year. I also used it to write an original screenplay for a writing group that I’m part of. It takes a little work but it is actually possible to post the output from the application directly on a website like this. I’ll post step-by-step instructions later but suffice it to say, it means editing your site’s CSS to add screenplay related details, installing a Wordpress plugin and then some copy + paste effort for each screenplay you want to self-publish. Easy really.

I’m a “sometimes writer” and was a huge fan of the “pretend writer” LJ community mostly because the name applied to me. Anything to get me writing is a good thing, so these links are as much personal for me as they are for the wider Internet community!

• Toasted Cheese Literary Journal

  Daily writing prompt
  In calendar format, the Toasted Cheese Literary Journal daily writing prompts look quite fun. Short and pithy. Just the way I like ‘em!

• Writers Digest

  Writing Prompt
  Yes, the Writers Digest, with some fascinating prompts to break through writers block.

• Dreaming on Paper

  Random Inspiration
  I clicked the link to this site merely because of the domain name. (Note: this is not always an advisable course of action, but the link was posted from a trusted source!)

• The First Line

  http://www.thefirstline.com/index.htm
  The First Line is pubished four times a year and includes stories generated from first lines that are posted on the website. Even if you dont plan on submitting, the first lines make a great writing prompt!

Happy writing!

For some strange reason the theme on In a mirror, dimly keeps reverting back to the “Default” one. One fix I saw was to put a copy of the correct (”mirror-dimly”) theme into the “Default” directory, but that’s missing the point. The question that should be asked is “why is my theme reverting in the first place?”

Seems that if Wordpress runs into errors in the theme, it will revert. Helpful but not so helpful as to pinpoint where the problem is. It’s like one of the testers in work who pokes the software and sends us bug reports saying “it’s broken”.

Yeah. About that.

[edit - June 10th]

Having worked through the plugins, and scanned the Apache error logs, I still find the theme misbehaving. Grrr. The only up-side to this is that the nifty plugins I had in my sidebar probably can return as I go looking for a large spade and begin digging deeply into the theme code. *sigh*

I started another blog, and podcast last November and you can certainly tell! It’s now JUNE and I am finally getting around to finishing the blog redesign. Its wholly updated compared to the previous version but carries through several key design elements:

• Rounded corners
• Purple shaded “brushed metal” texture
• Right-hand sidebar
• Fixed-width and floating
• Dark grey background
• Content-area fully enclosed, containing posts and sidebar

The new theme adds some elements too:

• Stronger emphasis on pages with “page navigation” at the head of the sidebar
• Stronger emphasis on pages with tabs at top of the template
• “Search” properly integrated into the template
• Categories finally in a decent place
• More emphasis on syndication - allowing for a “podcast” audio blog link

In the process of creating the theme, I also created several widgets to give me features I was looking for:

• Detailed “recent posts” box in sidebar.
• Modified and “widget-ized” the collapsing-page-menu plugin.
• Compact year/month archive listing.

All of which will be released in due course. Note: I’ve attempted to contact the original “collapsing page menu” author but there’s been no response. If nothing comes of the request I might see about aquiring ownership of the plugin as it’s jolly useful!