The initial site design is done. Or, well, it's as done as it will be for now. I'm sure I'll find plenty to tweak, but all most of the major features I wanted are in place.

That doesn't mean I'm close to releasing, though. I've still got a lot of work to do before I get to that place. But I count this as a major step in that direction.

For those who are curious, this is a static site written in React and generated using some experimental features in NextJs. It's worked surprisingly well, allowing me to implement features that are normally reserved for server-driven web apps.

The only feature I've not managed quite yet is pagination for chapters. It should be possible, but I rather suspect will be quite a technical challenge.

The bulk of my work ahead is filling the lore section, which largely involves transferring the world in my head to the page. I also need to finish fleshing out a backlog of chapters. So yeah, a lot of work.

Yet, also exciting. There's something motivating about having carved out a place for your project to live. I'm not just filling out files in a folder that no one will see. My stuff has a place, and that's oddly motivating for me to make more stuff.

Stuff to do before I officially release:

• Fill out the Lore section. What's there now is but random musings and half written thoughts, many of which are out of date or outright wrong. I only put what I had so I could test tags, searching, categories, etc.
• Paginated Chapter Text...maybe. The research I've done suggests its possible, but hard. Most people who read webnovels are used to reading long-scroll text, but I'm not one of them. I prefer to read "pages" and, if I can, I want to give my readers that option as well.
• An iOS app reading app. While that sounds like a lot, the app is 95% complete. I use it to consume virtually all of the webnovels I read. What it doesn't have is a way to consume my own website without me manually adding a bunch of regex to the app itself. So, instead, I plan to add support for RSS feeds and ePub (making it a general purpose eReader). That will turn it into a viable app I can actually release, because manually adding other people's websites could be considered theft, but consuming RSS feeds (a publication standard) is not.

Most of the software development will need to be done before I begin releasing the webnovel. While all of this is intended to be a hobby, I do want to provide a steady supply of regularly timed chapters. I can't do that while I'm splitting my time between writing and software development. Or, at least, not while working a full time job.

-- apoetsanon