Website Coding Issue

I finally managed to put together my personal website (http://www.matthewdelman.com), but I'm having some coding issues with the homepage (and yes, now those of you who haven't emailed me directly know my full name. *gasp* My secret's out!).

Anyway, as you can see, the Home link on the front page ended up inside the header for some oddball reason that I can't figure out. I moved the HTML back to where it should be in the Dreamweaver file and FTPed it to 1and1.com's server, which fixed it for a little bit, but now it's back to being funky.

So my question is this: Is there any surefire way to keep the Home link from doing that? Or should I even have a link to the home page on the home page?

Comments gentle readers?

Musings on Newlyweds

During my wedding reception, one of my wife's guests (a very astute and funny gentleman) told me that being married doesn't really hit you until the first "normal" day you wake up after all is said and done. He also said it's a life-altering event watching your wife walk down the aisle, but that's not the point.

This got me to thinking (a dangerous prospect for us writers) about what "normal" really is. "Normal" for me was seeing my new wife on the weekends and sporadically during the week for the past 2+ years (details I won't bore you with), but the new "normal" is having her there every day and seeing her when I get home at night. There's a wealth of novels about newlyweds (or if there isn't there should be) because the beginning of married life is bound to be good storytelling fodder.

It's not something I'd write, personally, because it sounds more romance-novel-esque than what I'm comfortable writing. Doesn't make the plot idea any less valid though.

EDIT: I told you I'd be back on the 22nd.

SECOND EDIT: Meant for that to say "It's not something I'd write about" because of that reason. That's what I get for not proofreading I suppose.

Award Goodness

So Renee Pinner nominated me for the Kreative Blogger Award. I know, crazy, right? Well I guess this means I have to follow some sort of rules for receiving this wonderful confabulation. I don't even know if I used "confabulation" correctly, but I don't care. I've been wanting to use that word in a sentence for awhile.

Anywho, the Rules (apparently they are legion):

1) Already linked to the person who nominated me (see above)

2) Copy the logo to your blog (see photo).

3) Thank the person who nominated you (Thank you, Renee!!)

4) Nominate 7 other bloggers who you think deserve the award. (see the end of the post)

5) Tell 7 things about yourself people don't already know (see below)

6) Post links to the blogs you nominate.

7) Leave a comment telling your nominees they've been nominated.

Uhhh ... hmm ... which 7 blogs do I nominate. Now this is going to be interesting, let's see if I can actually FIND 7 to nominate (who might not have been nominated already).

A dead man fell from the sky ... -- Gary Corby's blog (his first novel comes out in Fall 2010 from St. Martin's).
Unhinged...Seriously is entertaining.
Mimzy in the Tulgey Wood is a new discovery.
Scary Azeri in Suburbs

All right, I guess I could only find four. Ah, darn.

But anyway, so here's the list of 7 things you might not know about me:

1) I love musicals (not really a secret, but few of the people reading this blog would know it)
2) I study religious history and comparative religions because I think it's fun
3) I get excited when people talk about new scientific advances
4) I get lost on tangents when I read about history. Knowing things about the past can help you figure things out about the present.
5) I cook without recipes 95% of the time
6) I sing in the car when I'm driving by myself
7) I despise reality television and sitcoms (I was not a fan of Seinfeld).

Notification of Hiatusing (... and stuff)

If anyone who knows me beyond the blogosphere is reading this, feel free to ignore the rest of this post as you probably already know by the calendar what I'm about to say.

I'm getting married this weekend (Sunday the 13th) to a very lovely young woman that I met two years ago, after we'd both graduated from the same college (with the same major) and never ran into each other while we were both students. We'll then be heading to Disney World in sunny Orlando for our honeymoon about two days later. Because of this, I'm going to be incommunicado on the blogosphere from tomorrow night through to roughly the 21st or 22nd. I'm telling you, my loyal blog readers, because I'm actually attempting to keep a regular schedule for updating this sucker as per Eric's advice.

The trip itself probably won't appear on the blog. It's not really germane to the site's purpose, and honestly the wife would probably kill me if she happened to see it (Hi honey, if you're reading!).

So yeah ... I'll "see" you all when I get back.

Steampunk'd

Bad pun, yes I know, but I couldn't resist.

So the whole point of this post is to explain a little about the lovely genre known as Steampunk (because two reviewers at Public Query Slushpile asked), which is itself a subgenre of science fiction/fantasy. The simplest method of defining the style is to call it Neo-Victorian which, while true, doesn't really get across the whole point in the best fashion. Especially if you don't know anything about the technology of Victorian England (add that to my list of random bits of knowledge).

Anyway, the history of the genre goes like this ... cyberpunk came first, with its dystopian themes and cyborgs and people who have wires coming out of their heads, plugged into electronics in the near future (what tvtropes.org calls Twenty Minutes Into the Future). Steampunk resulted as a response to the harsh metallic gleam of cyberpunk by taking that technology and plopping it into Victorian England with the level of knowledge that period already had. One of the first novels was MORLOCK NIGHT (1979) by K.W. Jeter.

With steampunk, everything's made of copper, brass, wood, and steel -- and still somewhat dystopian -- but without the same metallic sterilization (ooo ... big word) of near-future cyberpunk. Charles Babbage's mechanical computer sparked the Information Age a hundred years early, steam power through James Watts and others was developed into flying machines and cars and armored tanks, and even mechanical robots than run on punchcards (THE AFFINITY BRIDGE by George Mann) can make an appearance. The cyborgs are still there, but this time they run on steam power.

Then you get into the idea of the "punk" side of the genre, which is intended to be a rejection of the system. The interesting thing about steampunk fantasy is that it sometimes doesn't even involve a dystopia. All it has is highly advanced steam technology that's capable of doing most everything we do with our technology now. Except mobile phones don't exist, nor do credit cards, or anything else that requires the plastics developed post-1920s and 1930s.

There's my brief (well not so much) explanation of what steampunk is. It's a heckuva lot of fun to write in, let me tell you. Especially because that means my random knowledge of thermodynamics is actually useful outside of random trivia. Which is always a good thing.

A Prologue: To Have or Not to Have?

Over at Public Query Slushpile is a query for CALLARION AT NIGHT, my in-revisions WIP that's my first effort at writing steampunk fantasy (which is great fun as I can use my knowledge of thermodynamics to make some fairly cool tech).

The current version of that story includes a prologue set when the MC, a half-nymph named Moriah, is ten years old and sets up the reason for why her mother, Dahlia, runs out on the family. I used this as a way to show that Dahlia wasn't a complete tool for leaving her daughter and husband by letting the reader see, through Moriah's father's eyes, why Mom decided to leave.

I'm struggling with keeping it in. The prologue offers information the reader might not otherwise see, but I wonder if it would be better to introduce it through Moriah's eyes instead. That way the reader discovers why her mother left right along with her. It's a toss-up for me -- I love the audience having insight the MC doesn't, but I also feel the prologue can be cut without sacrificing the story.

So I wonder what the general opinion is on having prologues. Do you include it if it's interesting backstory or only if it drives the plot forward? Thoughts?

Writing Practice

I read Stephen King's "On Writing" a few years back right after I graduated from college -- it might have been a gift, I'm not really sure -- and one of the things that stuck with me was King's admonition to "write every day."

Now, our pal up in Maine can do that. It's the benefit of making a lot of money off your books and being able to write whenever you want, knowing that it'll sell a gajillion copies. But for the rest of us who have to fit writing in where we can, finding time to practice our craft can get dicey (stupid real life and its interruptions).

So what's that mean? Easiest solution is to write when you can, whether that's two days apart, five days, a week ... whatever. Even if you only have about an hour each day to get something down, use it to your advantage. Me? I luck out because my full-time gig (I also have a part-time one, more on that later) sometimes has long periods of downtime. So I fill it by writing because there's only so much on the Internet that's actually interesting to look at for hours on end.

Whether that's articles for an online mag, making headway on one of my WIPs, or slapping words together on this here blog, the important thing is that it's writing.

And now we turn to you, my blog readers, if you care to comment. How do you find time to write? I'm very curious.