New Website

 

(Unrelated meme to get your attention)

This is just a brief update, I've spent the last several weeks trying my damnedest trying to make sense of Squarespace's awful UI to create a new site. (I probably should have switched to Wix or Wordpress, knowing what I know now, Squarespace is kind of dogshit.)

For example, all changes are universal across desktop and mobile users, so if you change the font size or image size / layout on one, it changes on the other versions too. Most website design sites will let you edit them independently of each other, but in order to do that in Squarespace you have to literally program it by writing your own code.

Yeah, fuck that.

So the mobile version of the site still leaves a bit much to be desired compared to the superior desktop version (which I adore), yet it's not half bad considering how many times I tried to make the desktop version look good without totally screwing up the visual cohesion of the mobile version. As it is, the text kinda partially overlaps the cover art, but it was impossible to have it any other way without either breaking the desktop version, making the mobile version even worse, or learning to code.

That being said, I think the desktop version is fantastic, and the mobile version is at least passable. I even managed to figure out how to create a Newsletter (still in the works though), and I have a special surprise in store in the "character art" department.

There are many quotable lines from the book as it stands, and so I'll be creating some merch around them when the book goes live in April 2023. I've also realized that it's not as far away as I initially thought; originally, when I set out to have the book completed by then, I thought I was giving myself a ton of time, but seeing how large the first draft has become has made me realize that I'll have to be productive near every day if I want to meet that deadline. Luckily, the first draft is roughly 75% complete, so hopefully I'll be able to wrap it up before April 2022 and then have a solid year to make revisions. I don't want to push the release date back unless I absolutely have to, so I'm going to work really hard, chipping away at it until then. (The current draft of the manuscript may or may not be over 152,000 words....)

Until now, this blog has served as a website and personal journal of sorts, along with all my essays and random musings, but now this blog will be its own separate thing where I can speak more freely while the website will be the centralized location for future books. Right now, only the Homepage and Contact page are up, but in the near future I'll be adding a page with layouts for future projects, covering everything from Desolation's Reach to The Penpal, Tin Town and The Pale Star of Arrakanus, a story I've been quietly working on in the background but haven't revealed to anyone just yet. In addition to going over these future projects I'll put up a merch shop and some comissioned character / location art for Enid. I haven't fully settled on which story will be next, but most likely it will be Tin Town (a comedy sci-fi story about robots pretending to be humans) or Pale Star of Arakkanus (a sci-fi epic that takes place after all the stars in the galaxy have burned out of hydrogen except for one).

Goodness gracious, why haven't I attached the site link yet? Here you go: https://www.dylandevinewriter.com/

Not sure what the next essay will be, I was originally going to cover the terrible abomination "Empress Theresa" in excruciating detail for shits and giggles, but it turns out that it's illegal to do that because of copyright, and I'd only be allowed to quote large excerpts line-by-line from the handful of passages available publicly on Boutin's website, which was already done better than I could by the likes of some of my favorite content creators, so I'm not going to do that. Future updates will follow.

 

As always,

may all your cups of tea be your cup of tea,

and I'll see you in the next post.