Over a thousand years ago, Vikings scoured Europe for spam. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE) A couple of weeks ago, I re-launched this blog with a custom-built application. Last week, I imported the dozen-odd subscribers from Hey World that I accumulated over the past few months. If you are receiving this via email, that is where you signed up from. (If you don't remember subscribing, you can opt out below!) The "from" email has changed, and will probably change again. But before I sent the first newsletter--which is this one--I accumulated 672 bot email subscriptions. I accounted for them and purged them out. But inspecting the other emails I noticed some that appears to be bogus. Email deliverability is all about not sending to the wrong people. I played with a few different approaches before choosing an email blacklist service that rightly noticed that a third of my remaining subscribers were bots (and Vikings) who responded to the confirmation notice. That leaves you and a handful of our fellow humans who asked to join my newsletter. If you wonder what I've been up to, the past five months have been a flurry of writing this website. But you probably aren't here for that. You're here to find out what I'm working on as a writer. And if you don't remember signing up for this blog/newsletter, I understand. Apart from my initial foray into a fantasy series, not much. Work stress cuts into the emotional energy I have for writing. Two beta readers have read the first two books of my alternative history series and liked it. There are a few minor grammar issues, and perhaps a character that people aren't too emotionally invested in....

A couple of weeks ago, I posted I finished my author’s blog application. And it nearly was. You are looking at it now. Honestly, I’ve built this site a few times over the years. This uses Rails 8-alpha. After looking at 37 Signal’s first two Once products, they impressed me with how few gems (external libraries) they used to produce an application. They also created a new authentication approach. I took their lead and am relying on eight gems. One is required to export CSV and another to integrate with my email delivery service. Two gems relate to time-series data display (you will see the results in the Writing Projects and Dashboard views). Three relate to ordering, deleting and listing items. And one displays icons (mostly on the admin side). I stopped using Tailwind and other frameworks, though I incorporated some Open Props. I’m amazed at how far web technologies have come. DHH released Rails in August 2004, the same month I officially hung my developer spurs and started law school. The same month that one of my children was born. Back then, I had to roll just about everything. This application is as close to Rails vanilla as I could get it with the features I wanted. There are a few screenshots below to show some features at the end of this post. I’m leaving a few details out, such as the ability to add links to distributors (e.g., Amazon, Barnes & Noble). Advice given to entrepreneurs is to build something that solves a problem you have. This was my problem. I wanted a minimalist blog that showcased my books and let me track my writing progress; bonus if...