Diary of a Tolkien Fiend
The voting link to
TolkienWorld.com is working again, and our new site,
The Black Gate, has finally made its long-anticipated debut on that top sites listing. As of this writing, we are in seventh place with two votes (mine and Witchking's). To stay in the top ten we need your help, so please take a moment to
vote for us. Thanks for your support!
I haven't been online for the past couple of days because I've been under a lot of stress lately in my personal life so I needed to take a break from everything else and play video games. ;) But this weekend I plan to work on the next addition to the
new site, and maybe even have it up before Monday. By the way, Ring Lord Rules has plugged the site on his news page at
Mordor - The Land of Shadow! I just sent him a PM to thank him, and I also want to thank the rest of you who have been promoting us by adding links in your sigs and on your websites (and again, not the least of all, by voting for us).
I'm currently working on some new content for the scrolls section of
The Black Gate, so updates to my
home page have had to be put on the back burner for now. Anyway, I should be done in about a week or two, depending on whatever else commands my attention in the meantime.
Made some minor adjustments to the
new site, mainly the redirect page which I felt should be blank (and apparently having no text on it makes it load the site's
home page quicker, too), and a few errors here and there which I hadn't noticed before. In other news, I'm happy to say we're still number four at Tolkien Top 100! TolkienWorld.com, the other top sites listing we belong to, has apparently been down for a whole week. I guess no one's bothered to email the webmaster (including me, because I was too lazy and figured someone else would do it eventually). But when it's back up I hope you will help us get the exposure we need on that site as well. And thanks once again to everyone who's been voting for us!
Our new site,
The Black Gate, has been on the top ten of Tolkien Top 100 all week! We're currently holding steady at number four on the list. I'd like to say thank you to everyone who voted for us, and also for the encouraging feedback. I've been sick all week, so I haven't felt like working on the site, but I promise you there's more evil on the way, so stayed tuned! Also, there will be a delay with getting Scatha's
Black Speech lessons 6-10 up, because she's currently updating them. So as soon as she sends me the updates, I'll upload them to the site.
So much for New Year's resolutions. I've gone back to smoking two packs a day again. As an act of self-reproach, I've started stacking the empty packs up next to my computer desk, taped together so they don't fall. I call it my Tower of Shame. I really have to quit though, and this time for good. Maybe I should try a combination of drugs and alchohol. ;)
Sorry I haven't posted for so long but I was rushing to get the
new site ready for its debut. Witchking had already finished creating all the images and the
interactive Flash movie, and I was holding things up because most of the stuff I'd been working on wasn't anywhere close to finished. And I don't think I need to tell those of you who know him, but Witchking is a cruel taskmaster. Everything else had to be put on hold, including my meager social life, until my job was done. But I suppose it was worth it, especially considering that we took more than two years to complete it (and we're still not finished yet, as there's still more content to be added before we can take a brief hiatus). Actually, that's a misleading statement... we haven't been working on the site continuously for two years. We've been working on it sporadically, in brief spurts of intense activity separated by long periods of sitting around talking about it over a pint or two, or just getting preoccupied with other minor things like having lives. But I have to say I'm glad it's finally up and running, since I was beginning to worry that it would never see the light of day... even if Witchking is a slavedriver who cares nothing for my addiction to message boards and computer games. Anyway, when you get the chance please check out the new site and
let us know what you think. I would especially appreciate it if you would notify me of any problems you have accessing the site, as well as any errors you might find. And for those of you who have been waiting patiently for me to update my
homepage, I apologize. I'll start working on that just as soon as I finish uploading the rest of Scatha's
Black Speech lessons; yet another task of mine which is long overdue. Oh, and speaking of Scatha, the new forum at
Morgoth's Lair will be opening soon. For those of you who may be unaware, it is a forum for the discussion of Tolkien's works on a chapter by chapter basis. I will be one of the moderators (as The Black Lieutenant), so I hope you will participate in this exciting new project once it starts.
