That sound of glee you just heard? That girly squeal of triumph and pride? That was me. It was accompanied by victory arms in the air, though I didn't actually jump out of my chair, because Velcro is in my lap purring.

I have to fly really, REALLY blind on a lot of things. A lot of my articles for EMG-Zine and the stories I post are because there's a deadline and no one else has provided anything. One of the downsides of frequently being my own editor? I am often - SO often - not really sure if what I'm printing is quality. I lose perspective, writing it myself and usually to a next-day deadline, and I sometimes doubt that the people I work with feel comfortable enough to tell me when something is lame. (I hope they do, I really do!) The feedback I get afterward is as rare as flowers in February, and most of the places I post don't really invite or encourage critical response.

So, it's been a little nice having a canon board to quality-control things at Torn World and nitpick on my work, too. I can't even see who votes, so it's all nicely anonymous for scoring, though comments right now are public to the board.

And today, for the first time, I got a perfect score on something! We're all pretty darn stingy with our +2 grades, and I've gotten one before, but never had three people agree on it. Not on any art OR writing. And today? The edits I did for "Spilled," which is the piece you guys selected for my generally funded piece from the last Muse Fusion, got approved with three +2s!!

I am so, so stoked. It will go to print later this week - probably Friday, as there are plot-moving things in the queue ahead of it.

Here's some progress on this sketch! (See this post for more information about crowdfunding more figures and background into it!)

Tonight, I'm going to an open life drawing session, and then I have bellydance class.

I had dreams last night that tried to be fair anxiety dreams, but couldn't be, because I'm not doing the fair anymore (HAH!), so my subconscious made me dream that I'd forgotten to go to the life drawing and dance classes, instead. Thanks, subconscious, I love you, too...

Programming progresses progressively! Got editing tools finished for the Fantasy Art Shop, and a nifty, awesome link verification page (though it needs a little more polish, yet). Many redundant security measures have been added, all over EMG-Zine, PA, the lilypad, and at all of the individual custom pages I built.

I am actually a little grateful for the hackers now. I mean, they are rat bastards who ought to be pulled apart by their fingernails and I'm furious that they did what they did and still horribly guilt-feeling that they got the information that they did... but their timing was about as good as it could be. They did all this BEFORE I got hip-deep in the new site, BEFORE I started launching individual sites en mass. If I'd found out about them even a few weeks later, I would have had a LOT more to do, and would have been doing things much less smartly than I am. As far as things like this go? It worked out about as well as I could possibly ask.

Someone's looking out for me, it sometimes feels like...

Now, more programming, and maybe a Farscape with lunch.

Love!