Since Wednesday, I was getting 404 Page Not Found whenever I tried to visit my own journal and Project Wonderful was having regular conniptions because it couldn't see this site, though my other sites were just fine. Gotta tell you, that was a little off putting. Blogger issued an alert saying they were working on the problem with their custom domains, but offered no advice about how to deal with it or anything. I finally stumbled across some information that made me think the solution may be simpler than suspected. I'm going to post it here because it seems insane to expect people to figure this out on their own.
If you bought your custom domain through Google and are suddenly getting 404 page errors,
1. Log into Blogger
2. Go to Settings and publishing
3. Switch back to your blogspot address.
4. Check blogspot address to make sure blog appears.
5. Go back to Settings and publishing and change it back to your custom domain, you will have to choose advanced setting, then simply type in you custom domain address.
6. Check site. It should be back!
I don't know why this isn't detailed anywhere. Believe me, I have looked. It is so freaking simple. If it happens again, I'll redo these steps, but in the meantime, my blog is up and viewable once again. Heesh. I wish I hadn't waited several days to do this.
Blogger Woes
Stalking Shadows
The plan right now is to start posting Stalking Shadows, the sequel to Scary Mary on January 2nd. New chapters will go up on Fridays. SS is not finished yet, so I have no idea how well this will work out, but I feel like flying by the seat of my pants. I may have my own personal Nano this December and just go gung-ho. I need to get back into the writing swing. That's for damn sure. I've been focusing on the day job too much, and it's been driving me crazy. I wrote 500 words to SS tonight, and it felt great. I'm no marathon writer like other people, so anything over 250 is pretty good for me. Well, that's it for now.
Responding to Comments
I've spent the bulk of today responding to comments. I have been very bad and let a lot of them go without responding to them at the time of posting. Many of them were for typos and grammar problems that readers spotted, and I am very grateful especially to Nicole Spruit, Dave Jocsnix, and Sarah Rose for their keen eyes.
I am like a walking example of what not to do to have a successful online writing career. Not updating this blog regularly. Not having projects ready in the pipeline. Taking forever and a day to edit for a print edition. And finally, allowing weeks to go by before responding to comments. That is like the ultimate sin of the online writer. I apologize to everyone who was kind enough to drop me a line. I'll do my best to get my act together.
Scary Mary now in print
I finally took the plunge and put Scary Mary up for print on Lulu.com. I'd purchased a distribution package from them ages ago and used that, though I won't buying that package again any time soon. It's just too nerve wrecking because once the project is set, it's set in stone. I can't change it even to correct text mistakes without paying a lot of money.
I put tip jars up on UB and SM. I don't know if anyone will give. Other authors seem able to get tips but I'm not going to hold my breath. If someone likes my writing enough to drop a dollar, swell. I'm still not sure how I feel about their inclusion. If nothing happens with them for the next six months, I'll take them down. Really I'd rather someone bought a copy of my book than gave me money.
I've also been putting together Stalking Shadows' website. I'm basically using SM's format, but trying to give it a different banner and what not. I'm hoping to start posting it on about January 1st.
Here's a look at Scary Mary over at Lulu:
